Remember Wille Horton? He helped George H. W. Bush get elected. Not voluntarily of course.
Horton was a Massachusetts-based convicted murderer who, while on a prison furlough for the weekend, killed someone . The governor of Massachusetts, who tacitly approved of furloughs, was Michael Dukakis. And so Lee Atwater, Bush's campaign manager and the political godfather of Big Head Karl Rove, seized upon Horton as a way to defeat Dukakis.
Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, bragged that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name." Horton had never gone by the name Willie, but rather William.
See, William is a man's name but Willie, well, that's the name of a boy. And in case you can't connect the dots, yes, Horton is black.
Scooter is the name of a boy, too, but a WASP boy from the 1950s. And Scooter's fast becoming a household name.
If I were a Dem running for a seat in 2006, I couldn't say Scooter's name fast enough. I couldn't play six-degree-of-separation from my GOP opponent to Dickie's boy often enough.
Scooter Libby: the Willie Horton for Democrats in 2006.