Today, Jerry Kilgore welcomed South Dakota Senator John Thune to Virginia, praising him to the hilt as "a true conservative, a great leader, committed to the conservative principles of our Republican party. " Kilgore added that he considered Thune to be "one of the rising stars in our national Republican party."So, let's look at John Thune for a minute. First of all, his chief media strategist in 2004 was none other than Scott "Max- Cleland-is-a-Saddam-loving-Traitor" Howell. Yes, that's right, the same Scott Howell who's now advising Jerry Kilgore. And, in patented Scott Howell fashion, Thune slimed Daschle on national TV ("Meet the Press"), saying that Daschle's criticism of President Bush's failure to use diplomacy adequately before resorting to the use of force on Iraq "embolden[ed] the enemy."
Lovely. And even lovelier considering that Daschle, not Thune, was the one who had served in the military. Of course, this is just another Scott Howell pattern -- attack those who served and even lost limbs in our nation's military, while defending those who never served one day.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Thune/Howell team even denounced former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle's wife, not for doing anything illegal, but for being a corporate lobbyist. The only problems with this line of attack were: 1) Mrs. Daschle wasn't running against John Thune -- her husband was; 2) there's nothing illegal about your wife being a lobbyist; and 3) Thune was a top lobbyist himself!
The latest news from Thune is that he's hired a former conservative blogger, Jon Lauck. The problem here is that, unlike most bloggers, Lauck was paid ($27,000) by the Thune campaign as a "research consultant" to write positive material about him. Even more bizarre, Lauck worked at times with Jeff Gannon, of recent fame as a fake White House "journalist" and real, honest-to-goodness gay male prostitute.
In sum, the modus operandus of the Howell/Thune team during 2004 was slime, slime, and more slime. And now, Kilgore brings both Howell AND Thune to Virginia. What does this say about Jerry Kilgore's "values?" How long until the Kilgore/Howell slime squad start attacking Tim Kaine's family, his patriotism, or his religious faith. Whoops, they already started in on the last one...guess they must be saving the other two for coming months. We can't wait.