Hire The Hitman

by digby

Evidently Michael Steele has been miffed that he didn’t get enough credit for the GOPs sweeping takeover of American politics in the November elections (well, except for the congressional seats which all went to Democrats)so he forced out the RNC spokesman for some reason. But the spokesman has been replaced by a heavyweight:

The Republican National Committee has hired Alex Castellanos, a long-time political strategist and GOP consultant, as an adviser.

Castellanos has been described (according to his National Media biography) as the “father of the attack ad.” He’s best known for a racially-charged ad he made in 1990 for racist former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.). The ad, called “Hands,” featured a pair of white hands crumbling a job-rejection while the narrator said, “You needed that job. You were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority, because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?” More recently, Castellanos has taken the lead in crafting an anti-health care reform message for congressional Republicans.

But that doesn’t really do him justice. He’s had so more “successes.” I’m sure you’ll recall this one:

During the heated 2000 U.S. presidential campaign season, Castellanos produced an ad for the Republican National Committee attempting to discredit the prescription drug plan policy offered by U.S. Democratic Party presidential nominee and then-Vice President Al Gore.[4] Alongside images of Gore, the ad showed the word “RATS” for a split second, before the complete word “bureaucrats” appeared on-screen.

And after he became a talking head, he showed his inherent class and dignity with this:

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted on the May 20 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room that “[t]here was a column in The New York Times not too long ago where it talked about some of the humor in the campaign, and the punch line was a line that was — that Hillary Clinton was a ‘white bitch.’ ” Moments later … CNN political contributor Alex Castellanos interrupted, asserting, “And some women, by the way, are named that and it’s accurate

He’s the right guy to advise the new GOP on message. He is in perfect sync with the reactionary, bigoted, macho neanderthals that make up the rump Republicans. Excellent choice.

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