I had not remembered Atwater apologised:
"In 1991, Bush's 1988 campaign manager, Lee Atwater, apologized to Dukakis for promising in 1988 to "make Willie Horton his [Dukakis's] running mate." According to a January 14, 1991, Associated Press report, Atwater, who was gravely ill at the time, regretted the statement "because it makes me sound racist, which I am not."
I think while he may not have thought he was a racist, that sort of acceptance of using race, in that particular way, was a product of his upbringing in the racist South, and it would be hard to completely escape that. Of course he could have been a real out and out racist, and was just embarrassed about it (as he should have been), but it's impossible to know.
I'll accept his claim that he didn't think he was a racist, but ended up acting/sounding like one in the campaign. |
