Ken Cuccinelli’s Big Lie Campaign, Brought to You by Chris LaSwiftboatvita

The sad thing is, a Big Lie campaign like the one being run by Ken Cuccinelli (see the graphic at the right for the latest, glaring example, from yesterday’s forum in Manassas) isn’t at all surprising, it’s exactly what one would expect from Cuccinelli’s senior strategist Chris “Swift Boat” LaCivita. Let’s not forget, “During the 2004 US Presidential campaign, LaCivita served as consultant and principal media advisor to the Swift Boat Veterans, writing and producing the group’s memorable (and controversial) commercials…” I would use different words than “memorable” and “controversial” to describe the Swift Boat smear of John Kerry. In fact, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ranks (down) there with some of the most disgusting, scum-sucking Republican operations of the past few decades, along with the racist Willie Horton attacks on Michael Dukakis (“credit” for those go to “Southern Strategy” master Lee Atwater) and the Arkansas Project against Bill Clinton.

In addition, in 2008, LaCivita’s group [American Issues Project – AIG] ran “ads in battleground states seeking to raise questions about Democratic Party presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama’s ties to former student radical William Ayers.” It is also worth noting that LaCivita “was the direct supervisor of James Tobin, another former employee of the DCI Group…sentenced [in 2005] to 10 months in federal prison for his role in the 2002 NH phone jamming scandal…LaCivita was on Tobin’s witness list but never called.”

So, that’s who and what we’re dealing with here – Chris LaSwiftboatvita, a master of the Big Lie who has no sense of morality, ethics, or shame apparently. In this case, you can see how they completely twisted what Terry McAuliffe said – which was perfectly inoffensive, innocuous, even admirable (who wants a governor who makes decisions without all the facts?) – into something completely different – and much, much worse of course. It’s sort of like what Romney et al. tried to do last year with Barack Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment, which anyone with half a brain cell understood meant this. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your story, when you’re a Republican operative with no sense of shame or ethics. Just keep Swift Boatin’ along.