AMY GOODMAN: During his 1988 presidential bid, his campaign released a now-notorious television ad called "Weekend Passes."
NATIONAL SECURITY PAC AD: Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first-degree murderers. Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty, he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison. One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes: Dukakis on crime.
AMY GOODMAN: That was the ad that Lee Atwater -- Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater, top aides to George Bush at the time --
MEHDI HASAN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: --would apologize for on his deathbed. Explain how significant this was.
MEHDI HASAN: Hugely significant, Amy. And even today, in media journalism classes across the country, that ad is taught, that ad is studied. Until Donald Trump came along, until the migrant caravan ad came along, it was considered to be the most racist ad in modern American political history. It was the 1988 election, and George Bush Sr. and his team decided that they were going to tie Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts liberal, to this black rapist who had been released on a weekend furlough program. I think Atwater -- there's a quote from Atwater where he said, "We're going to talk about Willie Horton so much that people are going to think he's Michael Dukakis's running mate." And this was -- Bush Sr. approved of this campaign ad. Bush Sr. talked about Willie Horton in press conferences.
And he never apologized. He never -- you know, Atwater, on his deathbed, apologized. Bush Sr. never apologized. Roger Stone, Amy, one of the most vile political operatives of our time, close adviser to Donald Trump, former adviser to Richard Nixon, he went up to Atwater and the Bush campaign and said, "You will regret this, because this is a clearly racist ad." When Roger Stone is telling you that you're too racist, you know you've gone too far. And yet, on Saturday, on Sunday, I heard former Bush aides and advisers going on cable news saying, "He was a thoroughly decent man. He believed in civility. He didn't believe in rancor. He wanted, you know, to unify Americans." And I have two words in response to that: "Willie Horton."
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, as you quote, Lee Atwater bragged at the time, "By the time we're finished, they're going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis's running mate."
MEHDI HASAN: Exactly.
AMY GOODMAN: And he was talking about a policy that was actually a law in a number of states --
MEHDI HASAN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: -- including California.
MEHDI HASAN: Yes, indeed. I think Reagan had signed off on a similar thing, if I'm not correct. But, you know, it was a deliberate attempt to stoke racial division, to scare white voters into thinking that Michael Dukakis was going to release a bunch of black murderers and rapists who were going to come and kill and rape them. It was vicious. And even recently, Amy, what's so ironic is the same cable news hosts who have been kind of, you know, praising George Bush Sr. to the hilt since Saturday morning, a few weeks ago they were all referring to Willie Horton when they were condemning Donald Trump's migrant caravan ad, you know, the ad that came out during the midterms about the Democrats let in this murderer, cop killer. We were all reminded of Willie Horton back then, but it seems like we won't make the logical connection which says that Willie Horton, that ad, came from the Bush Sr. campaign, this guy who was supposed to be a throwback to an era of civility and decency, yet he had no problem running this racist election campaign. Nor did he have a problem escalating a racist drug war.
AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about that drug war and what George H.W. Bush did, especially around the issue of crack.
MEHDI HASAN: Yeah. So, he sat in the White House, in the Oval Office, in 1989, and he held up a bag of crack cocaine, which he said, famously, "Well, this was found just outside the White House, in a park across from the White House. That's how bad the drug problem is." It was a great dramatic visual prop. And yet, we discovered, thanks to reporting from The Washington Post, that that drug dealer, the drug seller, had been arrested by federal agents, yes, in Lafayette Square, but he had been "lured" there, to quote The Washington Post, by those federal agents. He was told to come and sell his -- by an undercover operative. And he's even heard on tape, I believe, saying, "Well, where is the White House? What's the address? I have no idea how to get there."
This was -- I mean, this is pure cynicism, Amy, to use this prop in this fake stunt basically to mislead the nation, from this supposedly honest Republican president, which then led to a $1.5 billion increase in spending, which is what Bush Sr. called for. He called for more prosecutors, more jails, more prison, more courts. And we know how that story ends, Amy: mass incarceration, the imprisonment, disproportionately, of young black men, lives lost, thousands of innocent lives lost in the so-called drug war both at home and abroad. And today you have people like Rand Paul, a Republican senator, who will admit, Republican senators who will admit -- Chris Christie -- will say this was a failed and racist drug war.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
