In today’s lead editorial, the Winston-Salem Journal beats the proverbial dead horse once again: North Carolina’s “battered image.”

Most recently, there were the shenanigans by state House Speaker Tim Moore, a Republican, to time a vote on overriding Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of the GOP-drafted state budget when few Democrats were around to oppose it. (And allegations by Democrats that they had been snookered into believing there would be no vote that day.)

Before that was ballot fraud in the election in the 9th Congressional District.

And before that was House Bill 2, the ugly “bathroom bill” that forced transgender people to use restrooms that comported to the genders listed on their birth certificates.

And before that, numerous attempts by Republicans to reduce the power of a Democratic governor barely before Cooper could warm the seat.

All of a sudden, a state once nationally regarded as smart and forward-thinking was looking like less the home of Research Triangle Park and more like a banana republic. (Columnist Paul Krugman of The New York Times held up North Carolina as an example that “Republicans don’t believe in democracy.”)

The fact that the Journal values Paul Krugman’s opinion of our fair state speaks volumes about them, considering Krugman is the nastiest partisan eggheads out there. I personally could care less what he thinks of North Carolina and I’m sure I know many of my fellow citizens feel the same way.

I’ll say this much, however–at least the Journal dispensed with the lie that Democrats were not in attendance to vote on Moore’s override because they were at 9/11 ceremonies. That at least is a positive.