Cuccinelli yanks lapel pin with breast

RICHMOND

The joke is over.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli said Monday that he and his staff will no longer use a lapel pin featuring the female figure from Virginia's state seal clad in an armored breastplate.

On the official state seal, the woman – the Roman goddess Virtus, or virtue – is clad in a blue tunic that exposes her left breast.

A story in Saturday's Virginian-Pilot reported that after the attorney general distributed pins with the new image to his staff, he joked about covering Virtus in more modest attire. Cuccinelli's spokesman, Brian Gottstein, said that the attorney general chose the image because of its historic significance.

Though Cuccinelli paid for the pins with his campaign funds, not taxpayer dollars, he became the target of jokes and partisan barbs.

"This is the latest in a series of embarrassing actions that distract from the real challenges facing our citizens," Virginia Democratic Party chairman C. Richard "Dickie" Cranwell said Monday.

Some observers noted that the image on the pin is similar to a version on the Virginia flag from the era that included the state's secession from the Union in 1861.

In Monday's statement, Cuccinelli said he took the image from an "antique state flag that hangs in the Virginia Capitol."

"I liked this particular image and thought it would be something unique for my employees," he said. "I cannot believe that joking with my staff about Virtue being a little more ‘virtuous’ in this antique version has become news."

Because the pin has become a "media-made" distraction, it will no longer be used, he said.

"I think we all do the citizens a service by getting back to talking about things that are more important to them," he said, "including my office's work last week to get four sexually violent predators committed to mental health treatment, the collection of $225,000 in back debt owed to the commonwealth, and assisting local law enforcement in an investigation that resulted in a drug kingpin being sentenced to life without parole. "

Julian Walker, (804) 697-1564, [email protected]

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