Lee Atwater "Boogie Man" now on PBS -- 9:00 EST

[Samantha]

Talk to you later.

Sam

[ErinBerin84]

1. mine was preempted for a Town Hall with the NY Governor.

I'm pissed off.

[Samantha]

3. I would be too

[ErinBerin84]

13. oh good, it's on now.

I was worried because it was scheduled for 9 and the town hall wasn't in the guide at all, but it's on now at 10.

[Tallison]

2. Watching...

Been waiting months for this...

[AllieB]

4. Too much Karl Rove.

I feel dirty. :scared:

[erinlough]

5. This is really good.

So far what a creepy angry guy. And Strom Thermond..........terrible.

[GodlessBiker]

6. This is like a show on Roy Cohn. A show about an asshole and we know how it ends.

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. Know thine enemy. These people are seriously twisted. They use religion

but do not have an atom of religion in their soul.

[erinlough]

8. "Anything goes, lie, cheat steal, whatever it takes, make it up"

that is the legacy of Lee Attwater, and the political legacy of the Republicans. Disgusting.

[Berry Cool]

9. It comes on my local channel at 10 ET.

Check your listings.

[EconomicLiberal]

10. I really like Michael Dukakis.

And fucking hate Lee Atwater.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

21. The only pleasant part of this show was the Dukakis interview

Michael Dukakis is a good and decent man. He would have made a fine POTUS had he not been slandered and repeatedly knifed by that consummate piece of human sewage, Lee Atwater.

[erinlough]

11. The longer I watch this the more I can't stand the values of the Repubs.

It is a con, and everyone knows it. We all have to help Obama be successful and insure at least 8 years for this country to recover from the republican values of pander to the stupid for votes, promise them everything and then take everything away from the middle class and give it to the rich. What a horrible party.

[Corgigal]

12. They , meaning Republicans called the anti abortion

people the extra chromosome group. I hope some republicans, the righteous one, watched that part. You've been used and they never intended to do a damn thing about that issue.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

14. No thanks

I might end up destroying my TV if I watch that crap.

[erinlough]

15. I know how you feel, but this is really interesting and should be widely seen.

[Samantha]

16. This was one of the best political shows I have ever seen

In an hour and one-half, it explained how we got where we have been the last 27 or so years. It further underscores the miracle of the Obama success, because he was able to circumvent the political techniques honed into a fine devastating political weapon Atwater created. Everything you have ever seen in the Reagan rule, the first Bush encore, the smears against Clinton, the renewal of the Bush* legacy, via Atwater techniques, the demise of the McCain campaign, can be explained by watching this show.

If you missed it, you might want to go to the PBS website and join the discussion or watch clips from the show. The DVD is also available for sale. It is a must see for all students of politics.

Sam

[book_worm]

17. I watched it. Atwater represents all that is bad with politics but I wouldn't

wish the way he died on my worst enemy. I don't know if he truly repented at the end, but his party thru him and his protege Rove have been stinking up politics ever since.

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

18. Karma won't be denied

Atwater was pure evil on a Goebbels-like scale and the universe paid him back in richly-deserved kind.

[Beausoir]

25. "Atwater was pure evil on a Goebbels-like scale ." What an incredibly ignorant comment.

Are you THAT ignorant of history??

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

32. I've read plenty of European/German history of the WWII era

The Willie Horton ad was every bit as egregious as Goebbels' racist propaganda films equating Jews with rats, just updated for the 1980s. If the little shit hadn't died, he would be continuing to drag this nation's politics into the sewer that was his home. Like Goebbels, he was a masterful of the Big Lie; Atwater would say or do anything, however hateful, racist, untrue or slanderous to advance his bosses. No ethics, no morality, no honor or honesty, only the slavish advancement of his superiors by whatever unethical, deceitful and dishonest means necessary.

Atwater was a lying, power-hungry propagandist so utterly divorced from truth and humanity that he deserves to be considered on the same level as his predecessors in mid-1930s Germany. His protege, KKKarl, was directly responsible for bringing this country so close to fascism that it may take a generation to undo the astonishing amount of damage that has been done to this country's politics and government. The universe took its just revenge on Atwater by visiting an appropriately horrible death on him. At least he was one Repuke shitmeister who didn't get to enjoy an old age living off of what he stole.

I should clarify that Atwater was more the equivalent of pre-WWII Goebbels than his even more loathesome wartime incarnation.

[erinlough]

38. I have to agree with you

that was my first thought on watching the show. I also saw comparison to Charlie Manson, ie: need for control, need to be famous, no guilt (no I don't believe in a conversion on his death bed), and his control of others with disarming charm. This show was a truly eye-opening experience for me.

[Samantha]

19. Did you see the part where they found his Bible after his death

and it was still in the cellophane?

Sam

[book_worm]

20. yep, was his end of life conversion just another shell game? perhaps.

[Beausoir]

22. He died a horrific death. His beloved GOP deserted him in the end....sorta....

He was driven around in a limo, had the best medical care available and his funeral was a cavalcade of famous people.

I don't blame him for trying to atone for his egregious sins. He suffered a terribly inglorious decline and death.

It can happen to anyone.

[crispini]

23. What a horrid, horrid man.

No sense of "this is what is good and true" but just "win at all costs."

Sure, winning is great, but there's got to be more than that.

[book_worm]

24. What really got me, too, was that Atwater and Rove stole a college republicans election!

they had to steal elections to win from the very beginning.

[crispini]

26. So much for "thou shalt not steal"

Assholery really is the cause of the day with that crowd, isn't it?

[Samantha]

27. Well I knew that ... stealing elections was nothing new for Rove in 2000

By then, he had that process perfected. But I had always heard the part that Lee Atwater was afraid to face death because of all the people's lives he had ruined. I thought at the very end he truly was trying to find forgiveness through religion and apology, but apparently that was just more words to get attention.

I also knew that George W. Bush* learned a lot about Rove's techniques during the 1988 campaign, but one would think he would not be so proud of that. I thought this film unequivocally showed the Bush* family has always wiped its political face with the Atwater washcloth. We here at DU always propounded that theory; PBS showed the world. And thank you PBS for that. It was long overdue.

Sam

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

28. The funny thing is that Poppy Bush awarded them the election then the Supreme Court

awarded the Boy King his election.

[Samantha]

29. Was that "irony" or simply a pattern

I go with the latter. It is just the rest of us ordinary people in the mainstream who think there might be something wrong with stealing an election ... obviously the Bush* family is okay with it.

When I saw Jim Baker there with Atwater, it truly made me ill. The damage the Atwater legacy did, and continues to do, is a Grand political Canyon, the depth of which cannot be measured.

Sam

[Samantha]

30. Was that "irony" or simply a pattern

I go with the latter. It is just the rest of us ordinary people in the mainstream who think there might be something wrong with stealing an election ... obviously the Bush* family is okay with it.

When I saw Jim Baker there with Atwater, it truly made me ill. The damage the Atwater legacy did, and continues to do, is a Grand political Canyon, the depth of which cannot be measured.

Sam

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

31. Actually that was the wrong word. Shit bush's stupidity must be rubbing off on me. nt

[DU GrovelBot]

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[lunatica]

34. I'm glad I watched it. It made me finally get what they're all about

And to see the people I loath like Mary Matalin and Robert Novak and other Republican operatives have so much admiration for Lee Atwater's bare-faced lying and the way he destroyed people's reputations has made me understand that their lives are all about the win at any cost. They feel no shame. They are actually proud of what they do. They think it's brilliant. Lee Atwater is like a little god to them. Someone to be emulated. A real master of the game they think it's all about.

The love of power is as bad as the love of money.

[AllentownJake]

35. The part about Clinton was the most chilling

He was after Clinton in 1989 because he was the most likely opponent of Bush I. Wow I always knew there was a RW conspiracy didn't know it was that bad.

Kind of reminds me of what they did to Governor Siegelman in Alabama.

[Samantha]

36. Absolutely

24 hours later, I cannot remember who actually said in the show that if Lee Atwater were still living, he would not have allowed the Clinton election to have happened (this comment as the video of Clinton being sworn in was played). Of course, having run the campaign for George H.W. Bush* the first time around, and we saw Atwater's hand in that, it made me shudder to think of what might have happened at Atwater lived to influence the 1992 election. Think back to all of the persecution Bill Clinton endured because he deprived George H.W. Bush from a second term, and then try to imagine on top of that the hand of Atwater in the mix, had he lived. It does make one shudder.

Sam

[formercia]

37. The feral side of George W Bush

I watched it last night. The Atwater part didn't surprise me, but what I noticed is the chemistry between Junior and Atwater. You could really see Junior's predatory side coming through. It really creeped me out.