George HW Bush, the 41st President of the United States, gave an interview to CBS Radio, on the occasion of a speech at Texas A+M, decrying incivility in politics.
George HW Bush employed Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes.
Pot, I'd like you to meet Kettle. Kettle, this is Pot.
How was Atwater incivil?
ReplyDeleteReally, DMarks?
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater
"Atwater's aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater's tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by "independent pollsters" to inform white suburbanites that Turnipseed was a member of the NAACP. He also sent out last-minute letters from Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) telling voters that Turnipseed would disarm America and turn it over to liberals and Communists."
"During the [1988] election, a number of allegations were made in the media about Dukakis's personal life, including the unsubstantiated claim that Dukakis's wife Kitty had burned an American flag to protest the Vietnam War, and that Dukakis himself had been treated for a mental illness. In the film Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, Robert Novak reveals for the first time that Atwater personally called him to spread these mental health rumors."
Well, I had no idea that the Turnipseed campaign existed. If I had heard about nominee Turnipseed passing, I would have thought that it was something made up in the Shoe comic strip.
ReplyDeleteWell, I see that there was a lot more to Atwater than the valid criticism of Dukakis prison policies (a mess Dukakis stepped right into).
Well put, DM.
ReplyDeleteTurnipseed does sound like a Shoe character, though, right? He also sounds like a character in a Robert Penn Warren novel.
The President's point is a good one-there should be no personal destruction in politics. I just found it a little precious that Bush, who rose to power using negative campaigning, is now speaking out against it. It doesn't make him wrong, though.