Governor’s defence strains credulity

On Friday night (local time), Virginia Governor Ralph Northam apologised and begged forgiveness for ‘‘the decision I made to appear as I did’’ in a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook. On Saturday afternoon, the governor, a Democrat, emphatically denied he is depicted in the photo, which shows a person in blackface and another figure in Ku Klux Klan robes. We don’t know which of his statements is true. We do know this: Not only are the governor’s racial attitudes from the past in grave doubt, so is his credibility in the present.

Last month Northam told the Post that his views had changed radically since his youth. Even if there has been such an evolution, it could not expiate the fact of the photo if it turns out that he is indeed one of the figures in it or if he chose it for his yearbook page.

We endorsed Northam in the 2017 gubernatorial election on the strength of his moderate, forwardlooking record and platform. Given that, it was fair for him to ask a little more time to try to prove his case. But it strains credulity that a politician of his experience would admit to something so damning from his past, as he did on Friday, if – as he claimed on Saturday – he had no actual recollection that it was in his past. Virginians deserve a governor who has levelled with them not just about his vision but also his past.