Our Showboating AG

Of the most current personalities of the powerful angry-throwback wing of the Republican Party, who's most likely to become the next cable news talk-show superstar?

Until last week Gov. Bob McDonnell was Virginia's most obvious/likely entry in that contest. His direct connection to the rather eccentric Rev. Pat Robertson gave him a leg-up. Now, it seems, the buttoned-down McDonnell has been upstaged.

Virginia's suddenly showboating Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has started picking fights that were designed to make headlines. The Richmond Times-Dispatch's columnist Bart Hinkle has been watching Cuccinelli's attention-getting moves.

Cuccinelli recently sent a letter to the state's colleges and universities directing them to rescind their policies forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The schools lack the proper authority to enact such policies, he says.

This seems to imply colleges are forbidden to do anything they are not explicitly required or authorized to do. Which is odd. Colleges do a great many things not specifically spelled out in the Code of Virginia or the state Constitution.

Click here to read all of Hinkle's OpEd piece,"There’s Nothing Funny About This Cucci Coup."

Click here to read the Washington Post's original story on this brouhaha.