What a day…
The self-aggrandizing blowhard Bob Barr is running for President.
Susan Estrich writes morally bankrupt nonsense promoting some kind of equivalence between the Willie Horton affair and Jeremiah Wright. What planet does the women live on? Horton was an accident of bad policy with only a tangential relationship to Dukakis. The execrable racist Wright was the deliberate choice of mentor of Barack Obama. Dukakis was barely responsible. Obama is totally responsible.
Another Congressman demonstrates his low IQ and even lower impulse control. (Can you believe his paramour was an intelligence officer?)
And then of course there’s China, Myanmar, the Midwest tornadoes, etc.
And then of course there’s China, Myanmar, the Midwest tornadoes, etc.
Don’t forget world, solar system, galaxy, universe, etc.
Estrich is a hack and a partison. So, her opinions should be considered as such, just an opinion.
Lee Atwater,at the end of his life, said that the Willie Horton ad had nothing to do with race baiting. The ad’s sole purpose was to inform the voters that Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts furloughed prison inmate Horton—who then proceeded to commit robbery and rape. In other words, the ad revealed a disastrous program promoted by the Democratic Party presidential candidate. The color of Horton’s skin had nothing to with anything. It was a very legitimate campaign issue! The counterattack by the Democrats was merely a diversionary tactic to get voters to stop thinking about the furlough program, and instead focus on the GOP’s alleged racism. This leftist establishment’s big lie, sadly, has convinced most people that Atwater ran a race baiting campaign to help George H.W. Bush. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Rep. Barr must be serious as he seems to have toned down his homage to James Traficant’s gravity defying hair do!
(Can you believe his paramour was an intelligence officer?)
In this context, I don’t think that word means what you’re thinking.
Can you believe his paramour was an intelligence officer?
Everybody has this all wrong.
The congressman was only being mentored by the intelligence officer.
There might have been a debriefing or two
Let’s not forget one thing about the Willie Horton ads that will be relevant come this GE season if Obamarama is the nominee.
The first Willie Horton attack ad came from one Senator Albert Gore. The Repubs just copied a theme from the Dems.
Remember this when the Repubs use Jerry Wright the same way.
My favorite “Bias? What bias?” headline of the month also appeared among yesterday’s string of ugly news, courtesy of the always fair and balanced McClatchy Newspapers:
“Bush sets off for Middle East, unable to quell its troubles”
Feels like it should continue with “…that impotent lame-duck cowboy”, or something equally condescending.
The venom just never runs dry.
David,
That’s correct. I saw the original Willie Horton ad once. It depicted a prison with “inmates” passing through revolving doors. I don’t believe you could clearly see the faces of the “inmates.” All the commercial did was to highlight the fact that Dukakis gave this inmate a furlough and he went and raped someone.
Later ads by groups supporting VP Bush explicitly showed Willie Horton’s face.
Because I didn’t see the secondary ads right away, I didn’t realize he was black until Jesse Jackson started complaining how the ads played to white America’s “psycho-sexual” fears.
Would that be the same Jesse Jackson who admitted to feeling relieved when he turned around and noticed the footsteps behind him were coming from someone who was white? Perhaps the Reverend Jackson has some unresolved issues.
The simpler, more reliable explanation is that criminals behind bars are less of a problem than criminals on the street.
Horton was a statistically probable outcome of a bad policy condoned by a politician who was and should have been held responsible. It is never the powerful who suffer for their “principles.” Somebody else pays.