That would be Amy Gardner, who several years back covered the legislature and governor’s office for our local McClatchy daily. As the Washington Examiner‘s Michael Barone reports, Gardner — in her role on the Virginia beat for the Washington Post — yesterday filed her latest effort to “macaca” the state’s Republican candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell:

Today?s front page story by Amy Gardner and its placement by Post editors on the front page is
one of the most flagrant examples of electioneering by a paper?s news
pages that I have ever seen. ?Scrutiny Spreads to ?03 McDonnell
Remarks,? the headline proclaims. The subhead reads, ??Homosexual
Conduct? Comments ?Irrelevant? to Campaign, He Says.? The obvious
message to readers: this candidate thinks it?s all right to penalize
people, in some unspecified way, for homosexual conduct.
 


The
lead paragraph provides the specifics. ?In January 2003, then-Del.
Robert F. McDonnell helped gavel in one of the most extraordinary
judicial reappointment hearings in Virginia history: a seven-hour,
trial-like affair that led to questions about whether the future
Republican gubernatorial candidate thought gays were fit to serve on
the bench.?


Pretty ominous stuff: ?led to questions.? But in fact those ?questions? are pretty easily resolved. As they are, in the fifteenth paragraph of the story,
on page A16, above ads for Mattress Discounters and Clyde?s Restaurant
Group (and on page 2 of the story in the web version).  ?McDonnell also
told the Virginian-Pilot: ?Homosexuality is not an issue with regard to
the qualifications of a judge. I imagine we have gay judges on the
bench now. That’s not a material inquiry.??


The blatant purpose of this story is to suggest that McDonnell thinks that homosexuals should not serve as judges.

Barone has tracked the Post‘s macaca-fication of McDonnell in his race against Democrat Creigh Deeds, which has largely been written by Gardner. The effort hasn’t changed polls in the race much — maybe a point or two. Perhaps Gardner can get back to Raleigh in time for Gov. Bev Perdue’s re-election efforts in 2012 — looks like she’ll need all the help she can get.