MANASSAS, Virginia — When a Republican lawmaker in Virginia spoke kind words about a Democrat who was less liberal than Jay Jones, Jones responded by texting that he wished to kill him. He also wished death on the children of gun-rights supporters, while their mothers held the dying children in their arms. He also said he wanted to urinate on the graves of Republicans.
It’s deranged. Normal people have never sent or received text messages that violent, certainly not in response to eulogizing a deceased politician who slightly disagrees with you.
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So how are we to characterize or understand Jones’s texts now that he is running to be the attorney general of Virginia?
In the days after National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg broke the story, the liberal media had a few different phrases. Politico twice used the word “mused,” reporting that Jones “mused about shooting then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert.”
The Washington Post had a more precise, more verbose, and equally sanitized description, reporting that the texts described “a hypothetical scenario of shooting the Republican speaker of the Virginia House and discussing urinating on the future graves of other political opponents.”
This week, WTOP, the local news radio station in Washington, said that in the texts, Jones “joked” about political violence.
Is that accurate? Maybe. It’s hard to think Jones would actually murder people for slightly disagreeing with him. But National Review’s “fantasized” might have been a better description.
Before the Republican rally Monday night in Manassas, I asked some Republican voters how they understood Jones’s comments.
“I feel like he did it in jest,” granted Karen Hough, a former school teacher and a supporter of the Republican ticket, “but it’s not something that a grown man who wants to be the top law officer in this state should have ever said.”
She added, “And even if he did say it in jest … what is funny about saying you want a woman to hold her children as they die? That’s disgusting.”
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Victor, a middle-aged Republican voter, agreed.
“That, that seems to be reckless,” he said. “Yeah, a little bit reckless on his part, being in the position that you are. I mean, like, where’s your professionalism, your ethics?”
