LEE Atwater – the brash, rash, blues-playing kid from South Carolina who oozed southern charm, stabbed his friends in the back and invented dirty politics for the Republican Party – gets the warts-and-all treatment in tonight’s excellent “Frontline,” an in-depth biography that will stick to your ribs like molasses on barbecue.
“Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story” is 90 minutes of astounding clips of the man who engineered Reagan’s response to the Iran-Contra scandal, turned Bush Sr.’s 17-point deficit against Michael Dukakis into a win by leaking “information” that Dukakis had been mentally ill (President Reagan at the time declined comment, saying, “I’m not going to pick on an invalid”) and moving a false story about Kitty Dukakis burning the American flag.
But it was Atwater’s “revolving door” Willie Horton ads that really began the no-holds-barred, gentlemen-not-invited presidential campaign tactics that turned Atwater into the icon of winning.
Dukakis didn’t know what hit him and, worse, didn’t know how to fight back. He ended up losing the election and putting Atwater into the catbird seat at the White House.
We learn that, early on, Atwater had been taken under the wing of Ed Rollins, Reagan’s campaign manager, even though Rollins says on the program that Atwater had always had “the eyes of a killer.”
The “killer” later convinced Rollins to do an interview with NBC in which he was ambushed by a reporter who happened to be Atwater’s ex-girlfriend. Rollins got the boot and Atwater took his place at the right hand of Reagan.
Like the story of the scorpion and the frog, Atwater couldn’t help himself. It was just in his nature to sting like that.
Atwater developed a brain tumor and died young, saying he regretted all the nastiness he’d created. He told Rollins that he’d come to believe in the “Living Bible” as a guide to life. When he died, they found the Bible unthumbed, unread and still wrapped in cellophane.
The political strategists Atwater mentored – including Karl Rove and Mary Matalin – are all here.
Matalin even describes how Atwater and George W. Bush became best buds because “both were deeply intellectual and incredibly well-read.”
She can’t help herself either. It’s just in her nature to spin like that.
“Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story”
Tonight at 9 on PBS