According to today's Virginian-Pilot, the star of Jerry Kilgore's "Hitler" ad is a man named Stanley Rosenbluth of Arlington, Virginia. Mr. Rosenbluth lost his son Richard and daughter-in-law Becky to murder on November 30, 1993, and that's a terrible thing, no doubt about it. My condolences go out to the Rosenbluth family. However, as my colleague Josh pointed out the other day:
..."Stanley" is Stanley Rosenbluth, founder of death penalty advocacy group, Virginians United Against Crime. While his son, Richard, and daughter-in-law Rebecca were murdered in 1993, the ads fail to inform viewers that the two were murdered by their cocaine dealer when they apparently ran short of cash. Apparently, both of the Rosenbluths ?had traces of cocaine in their body at the time of their death, a fact that is not mentioned in the television ad or more recent accounts of their murder.
In fact, according to a December 1993 story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch ("Police: Victim hit `rock bottom' quickly"), "[Richard] Rosenbluth apparently had become a 'hard-core' crack user who was so addicted to the drug that 'very little else mattered in his life at that point.'" In addition, according to police, "Rosenbluth...was acquainted socially with one and possibly both suspects, and that their interaction allegedly involved drugs."
After that, according to today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Kaine's law firm represented, on appeal, the man who was executed for the Rosenbluth couple's murder." Yeah, and that means...? Last time I checked, in America we have something called "due process", which "ensures the government will respect all of a person's legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights, when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property."
We Americans also have a right to be represented by legal counsel, even if we don't have any money to afford one. Which is where public defenders come in. According to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, since the 19xx Miranda ruling, the Supreme Court has "extended to state cases the protections that it provides in Federal cases" and also "made the right to counsel absolute and not dependent on particular circumstances." That's the way our legal system works, and it's critically important unless we want to have a society that moves away from the rule of law and equal justice for all.
Now, back to Mr. Rosenbluth and the "Hitler" ad. According to today's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Rosenbluth is not exactly an unbiased individual with regards to the death penalty or to Jerry Kilgore. In fact, "Stanley Rosenbluth is a death-penalty advocate who has worked with [Jerry] Kilgore on tougher criminal sentencing." In addition, Mr. Rosenbluth was supported for an award by - you guessed it - Jerry Kilgore; and also right-wing Republican Senator George Allen.
More than that, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, Mr. Rosenbluth has made 100% of his political contributions to Republicans, including $250 to Mark Earley for Governor and $200 to the "Gilmore Inaugural Committee 1998." In other words, Mr. Rosenbluth is a strong Republican and Kilgore backer, whose "hard core" crack cocaine-using son was murdered by his drug dealers after failing to pay them. Mr. Rosenbluth also is a major proponent of the death penalty. Not exactly an unbiased person, to put it mildly.
Now, for a very different view on the death penalty than Mr. Rosenbluth's, how about Ron Carlson, "whose sister was axed to death" (as quoted in the book, "Don't Kill in Our Names: Families of Murder Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty"): "I don't think the Son of God would destroy his own father's creation."
Then there's Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille in New Orleans (made famous by the movie, "Dead Man Walking"), on the death penalty:
I say the God you're describing to me is a God that wants pain for pain, life for life, suffering for suffering and a death for a death. I do not believe in that kind of God. And I know that in the Bible there are many, many references to very harsh punishments but the Bible was written over 2000 years, a lot it comes out of the Mosaic Code where people didn't have alternatives. By the time you get to Jesus Christ the thrust of his life and his message is not to return hate for hate. I don't believe in that kind of God and I personally believe that's a monster God who wants pain for pain and suffering and suffering like we do. I think that's making God in our own image. And I disagree with that image of God.
Obviously, Stanley Rosenbluth disagrees with Ron Carlson and Sister Prejean in their views of Jesus Chris and His teachings. Which is perfectly fine; that's Rosenbluth's right as an American. However, let's have no illusions here as to what's going on. Plainly stated, Mr. Rosenbluth is now being used by the nastiest of the political slime-mongers, a man named Scott Howell, to help elect Jerry Kilgore governor of Virginia. The Kilgore campaign, in other words, has taken a personal tragedy and cynically attempted to use it in order to win an election. They've even tried to link Tim Kaine to Adolph Hitler, reminiscent of how Scott Howell linked Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein to war hero and triple-amputee Senator Max Cleland of Georgia. In other words, it's the despicable "same old, slime old" routine for Scott Howell and Company.
What makes the Kilgore campaign's "Hitler" ad even more heinous is that it wildly oversimplifies the views of murder victims' families on the death penalty issue. Again, Mr. Rosenbluth is certainly entitled to his views. However, it is important to point out that the latest CBS News poll (April 2005) on the subject indicates only 39% of Americans favoring the death penalty for people "convicted of murder" (Jerry Kilgore's and Stanley Rosenbluth's position), with 39% opting for "life in prison with no chance of parole," 6% preferring a "long sentence with a chance of parole," 13% saying "it depends" and 3% indicating they were "unsure."
In other words, on the death penalty it's NOT THAT SIMPLE, as the Kilgore/Howell "Hitler" ad would try to make it appear. As the CBS Poll indicates, Mr. Rosenbluth and Jerry Kilgore are actually in the minority (39%) of Americans who - when given a choice of punishments for murder - unequivocally choose death. The vast majority (61%) of Americans hold more nuanced beliefs on this subject. But the point of the Kilgore/Howell "Hitler" ad, of course, is not to educate Virginians about subtleties or nuance, it's purpose is to inflame peoples' passions 26 days before an election and to take out their anger on Tim Kaine for doing his job as a public defender in our American system of justice.
Well, we Virginians are a lot smarter than Kilgore and Howell must believe we are. On November 8, let's prove it by showing Kilgore and Howell what we think of their contempt for our intelligence. Let's hand them a resounding defeat that will ring loud and clear across this great nation of ours. Let's tell the whole country that the Howell-like demagogues out there should never pull this "Hitler" garbage again, because it's immoral and also because it WILL NOT WORK anymore.
In sum, electing Tim Kaine this November 8 not only will give us a great governor for the next four years, but as an added bonus it also will help us take back our democracy from the Scott Howells and other cynical political hacks of the world, people who repeatedly - and without any scruples - run despicable ads like "Hitler."