The Vast Conspiracy Within Terry McAuliffe's Mind
By Jim Geraghty
May 20, 2013 8:35 AM
Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s campaign looks at the results of the Virginia state GOP convention and sees an opportunity; they feel that they can portray lieutenant-governor nominee E. W. Jackson, the Harvard Law graduate, Baptist minister, law professor, and former Marine, as an unhinged, know-nothing radical, and use him to drag down the Republican candidate for governor, Ken Cuccinelli.
Virginia Republicans, however, note that if the McAuliffe campaign wants to make this race about who’s made the more outlandish statement or who has views further from the mainstream, they’re fine with that. They have the option of pointing to any one of McAuliffe’s views, including . . .
- McAuliffe’s statement that [Michael Moore's] "Fahrenheit 9/11" was essentially fair and factually based, and that there were “legitimate questions” about whether the war in Afghanistan was fought to build an oil pipeline for Unocal.
= His declaration that Osama bin Laden’s video statement released in fall 2004 was designed to reelect George W. Bush: “‘Bin Laden knew what he was doing,’ McAuliffe said. ‘He was scaring the American electorate just before the election. He felt that reelecting Bush would be good for his recruitment in the Middle East.’”
- Then, of course, there’s his belief that the 1980 Reagan campaign was in cahoots with the Iranian mullahs to humiliate President Jimmy Carter in the Iranian hostage crisis.
There’s always a conspiracy around every corner, huh?