Don't know if there's anything to it, but Norwegian daily reports this. Here's a quick and dirty translation and link:
http://www.vg.no/pub/vgart.hbs?artid=220177
Bush hires PR-goon
NEW YORK(VG): He's notorious and will stop at nothing - even lies. Alex Castellanos have made some of the most negative TV-spots in USA's history.
Now he's been hired by George W. Bush to be in charge of the president's offensive ad-campaign to be aired through radio and TV.
In the coming weeks and months Castellanos will try to ruin[/crushed] Kerry's reputation as trustable and someone who would be a dependable leader in a time of crisis, before the impressions will have a chance to settle in people's minds.
Instead, Kerry will be posed as an unqualified, insecure and unreliable politician. The job suits Alex Castellanos perfectly. He's considered one of America's best and most speculative when it comes to negative ads.
Twists and Turns
Castellanos is know to take fact out of their context and twist and turn on facts in TV-spots to the unrecognisable. Sometimes it's clearly over the border when it comes to lies.
"If I were John Kerry, I'd don a protection suit," said Jim Krogh to Salon.com. [quote may not be correct as that had to be translated too, tried to find it...]
Krogh knows what he's talking about. He's been in the field of fire himself while Castellanos did the shooting. In 1994 he worked for then Florida-governor Lawton Chiles when republican Jeb Bush, big brother of the sitting president, tried to get elected to governor.
Two weeks before the election, Castellanos struck.
In one of his TV-spots, a mother came forward about her daughter which had been killed in 1980. The mother claimed Chiles had refused to sign the death penalty for the daughters killer because he was "too liberal".
"I know Jeb Bush. He let's criminals serve their sentence and he enforces the death penalty. Lawson Chiles doesn't," the mother said in the spot for Jeb Bush.
The problem was that the information was wrong. Chiles couldn't do anything about the killer as the appeal hadn't been finished. The spot then backfired to Jeb Bush with full effect.raft.
"A lie that shows why Jeb Bush is unqualified for the position as governor", Palm Beach Post summarised. "Shamelessly false, unresponsible and tasteless," The Orlando Sun-Sentinel chimed in, while Miami Herald thought Bush had "stooped to a new low".
Jeb Bush lost the election
Fired
Yet that is not Castellanos most famous spot.
That one he made during the senator's election in the southern state of North Carolina in 1990. Castellanos worked for the ultra-conservative republican Jesse Helms.
The TV-spot will be remembered as probably the most racially speculative in the USA's history. Here Castellano plays the partially strong racism in the south unsrupulously, to win votes.
The spot was named "White Hands" and portray an angry white worker whos sitting with a letter saying he hadn't gotten the job he applied for.
"You needed the job and was the best qualified. But they had to give the job to a minority worker due to racial quotation," says a voice on the spot.
In 1996 Castellanos was fired. First by Helms, then by the republican presidential candidate Bob Dole in the fight against Bill Clinton. Dole thought Castellanos was too respectless when he portrayed Clinton as a liar in a spot.
In 1998 he was in the spotlight again, thise time in Ohio at the governors election. Castellanos was then judged by the federal election committee for having lied in an ad.
But George W. Bush brought him back in the good company in 2000. There was trouble then too. In a spot against Al Gore, the word "Beurocrats" appear on an image before Al Gore.
When the word disappeared, the part "rats" hung in the air for a while.
Ruthless ads.
Now the Cuban born ad-manager sits with the biggest election budget in time. George W. Bush has over 100 million dollars he can spend on Castellanos ruthless ads until the election.
Castellanos has already made four spots for Bush, and John Kerry has already called the republican election team for liars.
In one of the ads that plays in terror fear in the USA today, a dark skinned man with large eyebrows stare into the camera.
It's gotten many Arab Americans to react. They mean the ad obviously portrays Arabs in general as terrorists.
But Alex Castellanos take the critics with great calm. He means the strong position of freedom of speech in the USA gives him the right to twist the truth.
"If you take all the negative aspects out of politics, if you take the differences out of politics, all you're left with is a pale inconsistent porrige," he's reported to have said to the TV-station PBS.
(VG 21.03.04 kl. 13:22)
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Translation bears a heavy Norwegian accent to get the feeling in Norway on this subject and America in general across more accurately. I'm sure you're well aware of Alex Castellanos and his promotion to Bush's PR-man numero uno but won't this give the democrats another angle to attacks the republicans at? The article was quite harsh, I'm just wondering what you guys have to say about this.