When Governor Mark Warner recently issued an emergency executive order regulating the sale of various over-the-counter cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine used by home labs to produce the new methamphetimine drug scourge, what did Jerry Kilgore?s campaign do? Did Jerry?s spokesman praise the leadership of the Governor, as many Republican legislators did? Did the Kilgore campaign acknowledge that the regulation Warner proposed has proven effective in 36 other states--- much more effective than Kilgore?s weak ?voluntary? regulation tried out when he was Attorney General?Nope. Instead, what we saw was Tim Murtaugh, Kilgore?s press secretary, using the opportunity to pretzel-twist Warner's action into an attack on Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine. What Murtaugh said instead was that Tim Kaine had contributed nothing to solving the methamphetamine problem because he "has been watching TV at home eating cheese doodles."
What a silly, pathetic, irrelevant, cheap shot, an unprovoked ad hominem attack utterly divorced from the reality of the situation. Let?s not forget that the number of methamphetamine labs ballooned on Kilgore?s watch as Attorney General. Let?s also not forget that Tim Kaine worked loyally along with Mark Warner to turn this Commonwealth into the formally acknowledged ?best managed state? in the nation. Finally, let?s not forget to thank Mark Warner for stepping up to the plate and showing leadership in dealing with the problem labs when Kilgore had clearly dropped the ball.
With this remark by Mr. Murtaugh, more and more I am becoming convinced that Kilgore?s Republican camp is filled with little boys running for student body president in high school, and that the job of Governor of Virginia is just too big for Kilgore to fill.
Cheese doodles? Sounds more like sour grapes to me.