If you want to understand where Jerry Kilgore and his top media advisor, Scott "Slime and Slander" Howell are coming from, I STRONGLY recommend that you read the article, "Hitler in Virginia" in this week's "The Nation" magazine. Among other fascinating moments, we get to see tough guy Howell squirming and attempting to weasel his way out of responsibility for one of his vicious anti-Kaine attack ads ("I'd love to belabor that with you, I just don't have the...I can't stand to talk to somebody in the media and be wrong."). Wow.Also, note that Howell -- who Kilgore went out of his way to recruit out of many other possible media consultants in America -- was hired in 1992 by "Texas boy wonder Karl Rove" (now facing possible indictment), on the recommendation of Lee Atwater, the legendary master of vicious, racist, below-the-belt politics in South Carolina and elsewhere (can we say "Willie Horton?").
Along the slimy way, according to "Hitler in Virginia," Scott Howell has "earned his share of detractors, from immigrant rights advocates to family members of 9/11 victims, one of whom called his 'Safer, Stronger' spot "a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people." (Note: "Safer, Stronger...appropriated the iconic image of firefighters emerging from the wreckage of Ground Zero with a flag-draped body, a production that used actors and was condemned as phony by the president of the International Association of Firefighters.")
As I said, "Hitler in Virginia" is a must read if you want to understand Scott Howell. It's also a must read if you want to understand today's Republican Party, and how it appeals to the "darker angels" of our nature in order to deceive us from their true anti-middle class, pro-ExxonMobil agenda. Finally, "Hitler in Virginia" is a must read if you want to understand the place from which Jerry Kilgore - and his closest supporters -- are coming. Needless to say, it's not a nice place. Not nice at all.