I have ancestors who were life-long Republicans who would have found the actions and legacy of Lee Atwater deeply unacceptable. Yet, amidst all the darkness, are many teachable moments. That is why this film, among a plethora out there, is so important... Peace ~ Molly
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'Boogie Man' Lee Atwater: Truly Scary
Washington Post Staff Writer
In the can't-look-away documentary "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story," the career of the wildly successful, and wildly controversial, late Republican political operative comes back to us in ways that are funny, sad and mean. There is more than one moment in this film that will likely pop your jaw open.
Consider then-Secretary of State James A. Baker eulogizing Atwater at his 1991 funeral as "Machiavellian . . . in the very best sense of that term." (My dictionary defines the term as "characterized by unscrupulous cunning, deception, expediency or dishonesty.") There's Ed Rollins, the veteran Republican campaign manager, describing how Atwater went from protege to backstabber in such outrageous fashion that Rollins profanely threatened to beat him up. And then there's one of Atwater's musician buddies, a white guy, insisting that Atwater had so much soul that he was actually a "black person in a white body."
The last is particularly jolting, since we also see Howard University students staging a massive (and successful) protest to have Atwater, a veteran race-baiter, kicked off the university's board of trustees.
Such morsels help shape this riveting look at a green-eyed South Carolina kid who grew up under the political wing of Strom Thurmond and rose to become a consultant to three presidents, including a stint as the 1988 campaign manager for George Bush the elder. He helped perfect the ugly art of "wedge issues" and "driving up the negatives" on opposition candidates. Entertaining, guitar-playing, insecure and hardworking -- he delighted in achieving a victory through fair means or foul -- Atwater was compared by one journalist to a "wolverine . . . sort of always chewing through the plywood."
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Atwater was a trusted advisor of U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was also a political mentor and close friend of Karl Rove. Atwater invented or improved upon many of the techniques of modern electoral politics, including promulgating reputation-destroying rumors. For more, please go here: Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story.
From Frontline, Nov 11, 2008 ... The rise and fall of the charming, Machiavellian godfather of modern take-no- prisoners Republican political campaigns. More... FRONTLINE: boogie man: the lee atwater story PBS
From NPR, 'Boogie Man': The Paradox Of Lee Atwater -- http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94931206
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"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light." -- Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams
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