August 28, 2025 • 53 mins
Robert concludes the story of Lee Atwater by discussing his greatest success and then his sickness and fall from power and influence. We also talk about the Grammy nominated album he made with Isaac Hayes.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/lee-atwater
https://www.newberryobserver.com/news/10323/notable-newberry-alumnus
https://andrewjazprosehill.substack.com/p/the-death-bed-confession-of-a-boogie
https://www.csmonitor.com/1989/0626/elee.html
https://archive.is/yZ0Hf#selection-553.0-553.173
https://time.com/archive/6702136/saying-no-to-lee-atwater/
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brady-bad.html
https://nul.org/news/ghost-lee-atwater-haunts-2022-midterm-elections
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media, I still a Japanese kit cat in I know.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
All right, all right, let's just start the episode with that.
Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where Garrison is
the bastard by secretly revealing to us their Japanese kit
cat habit.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The Macha kit cats are so good.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, it is a twenty thousand dollars a month habit.
It's destroying their life and finances. But this is Behind
the Bastard's a show where we don't judge unless you're
one of the worst people in all of history, which
Garrison is not yet. Garrison, Welcome back to the show.
The tariffs are really really hurting this the Japanese kit
cat addict.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
My monthly budget has skyrocket.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, someone who knows something about math to please tell
Garrison how to make ends meet with their their twenty
thousand dollars a month kit cat habit.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
That's how I feel about my obsession with Korean sunscreen.
I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Oh that makes sense. Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You do kind of look like every white woman in
the Korean sunscreen shop.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Jesus, it's a better. It's frankly a better.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
This is Part three. Of our episodes on Lee Atwater.
A bastard wouldn't have been happy for us to lead
into him this way. But yes, let's let's plug some
things up there.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I just wanted to plug front of the pod Sean
Mahlen's book, The podcast Pantheon one hundred and one podcast
that change how we listen. Uh and uh, we're in it.
We're featured in it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Robert, Look what my bookmark is.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Can you tell?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Is it is it us?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
No, it's the pamphlet to the Knife you got me
after I had surgery.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh, okay, there you go. This is probably a really
interesting read.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But yeah, we're featured in We're featured in the book,
and it's available for perioder now and is out on
September sixteenth. You get books, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Anyways, presumably wherever you get books.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
He wrote nice things about us, which now I appreciate and.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Again is not in our wheelhouse because we don't write
nice things. I just write bad things about bad people.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
This water.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I just kind of want to read what's in this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
No, No, we're reading about Lee Atwater. We're not reading
about our podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
No, not our podcast. I want to read the pamphlet
for the for the knife.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Your book, which was the knife the Bowie Knife pamphlet.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, it's it's the New Zealand Bowie Knife. Yes, and
that's a good pamphlet.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Vaughan was a terror with the bowie knife. That's how
you start.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, dayone who fought with the bowie knife was a
terror with it, because that's a scary weapon. Like anyone
who's whose choice in an era with like guns and
swords is something that's shorter range than either is a
frightening person.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Gone, it's a good read. Go buy yourself a bowie knife.
People certified behind the Bastard's moment here. Yeah, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Big fan of the knife that is slightly too large
for basically in a useful purpose. I use it for
cutting down trees. In nineteen eighty four, Lee Atwater has
been brought back on the team, or has been brought
back on the election team to help Reagan get reelected. Right,
(03:11):
he's in the Reagan White House. He's kind of coasting
off his laurels from the nineteen eighty election for a while.
In eighty four, he gets given his most prestigious position yet,
which is assistant to the campaign manager Ed Rowlands talking
to PBS. Rowlands later claimed a lot of people told
me he wouldn't be loyal to me and told me
not to pick him. Roland said, I admired his work ethic. Now,
(03:34):
whenever people tell you don't pick this Republican strategist because
he'll betray you, and you're like, but his work ethic's good,
You're about to get betrayed. That's just how this story
ends one hundred percent of the time, and that's where
it ends with Lee Atwater for that PBS piece. Not
long after, Roland says, Atwater arranged what turned out to
be an ambush media interview in which Rowlands was accused
(03:55):
of running a dirty tricks campaign against the Democratic vice
presidential candidate Geraldine Farah. Lee had put a spear in
my back, Roland says, it was just a two year
effort to destroy me. He wanted to run Bush's presidential campaign.
So he starts plotting this while they're working together, and
it doesn't fully come out how badly he's fucked him
until the election is over. But from the instant they
start together, he is planning, how am I going to
(04:17):
stab this guy in the back so that by nineteen
eighty eight, his corpse is clear of my path, and
I can get the job that he's got right now.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What a cool guy.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He's always going to step ahead from, at least the
other Republicans.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Lee Atwater is.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
It's always like, how may I stab you?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And where?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
If only he had a bowie knife, if only.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Someone had told ed, this guy will definitely stab you
in the back. Oh, at Lee Atwater, the backstabber, he's
probably gonna stab your back. I don't think he's gonna
stab my back. Not the backstabber then gets his back stabbed.
You know, it's a tale as old as time.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Gonna stab me? What's he gonna do? Stab me?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Man who just got stabbed by Lee Atwater. So Reagan
wins reelection obviously, and Atwater you don't get a lot
from him during this period, So I'm going to guess
he's not he's not playing as formative a role as
he is an eighty eight. But it's easier to get
a president reelected usually historically than it is to get
them elected the first time. Things are weird now, so
(05:16):
after eighty four, Atwater's like I've spent my time working
in like politics and working under elected leaders and working
for the party directly. It's time for me to go
into private practice, right, in part because it's time for
me to make the money, and I want to set
myself up. Sit in eighty eight, I'm an independent political
campaign figure, and I have a better chance of getting
(05:36):
appointed by George H. W. Bush, who everyone knows is
going to be the Republican candidate pretty much, right. There's
a little bit of fuckery that's going to have to
happen to secure him the position, but people are pretty
much sure. In particular, there's going to be some fuckery
against Dole that atwater's going to Bob Dole. If you
remember Bob Dole, which you probably don't if your knees
don't hurt. He's he's the fruit cup guy, right, Yeah, probably,
(05:59):
I think he's the fruit cup guy. He's the guy
who the Simpsons parody by just having him say his
own name a lot. He didn't walk great because of
his war injuries. He was an astronaut, also a Democrat
by political standards today, but pretty hard Republican by the
standards of his time. He ran against Clinton too, He
was pretty boring. You watch that Simpsons Halloween episode, and
(06:22):
you get most of what you need to know about
Bob Dole and Bill Clinton to be honest. So he
starts a political consulting firm for all of the lower
level candidates who had hired him periodically to conduct push
polls or whatever. And that's what he's doing when he
starts his independent firm, well, his first I think it's
like campaign consultants or something like that.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But after the eighty four election.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He merges with a larger consulting firm, so he's not
independent for long. And the firm that he merges with
you might have heard of, we've talked about on the show.
You kind of guessed in the first episode. Actually gay
Roger Stones firm. It's Black, mat Fort and Stone. That's right, Okay, yes, yeah,
that's that's partners with Lee at Waters because they need
(07:08):
I think they need more of a domestic angle because
they're more focused on foreign dictators at this point, right
and at Waters.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
To three to get to Roger Stone though, Yeah, there's
an expanding area to operate in for non foreign dictators.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Right, right, Yeah, there's there's a chance that you could
make a non foreign dictator if you get good enough
at getting people elected domestically, and that's called Drostone's community
and man afford right. Yeah, in Lee Atwater probably would
have if he'd survived long enough. Now, Roger Stone would
later say of his friend and business partner, we both
knew he believed in nothing above all. He was incredibly competitive,
(07:44):
but I had the feeling that he sold his soul
to the devil, and the devil took it.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Roger Stone, every Roger Stone.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
If you want a guy who, as your friend, is
going to speak well of you when you're dead, Roger
Stone is not that man.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Not the kind of is.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Lee's tactics fit in with Manifort, Black and Stone, but
his interests diverged from his partners because again, they're more
interested in becoming the go to pr agency and campaign
experts for dictators and want to be dictators all over
the world, and Atwater is pretty resolutely interested in the
US and US elections. One of his former colleagues. Atwater's
(08:22):
former colleagues told The Washington Post, Charlie Black wants to
be rich. Roger Stone wants to be rich. Lee Atwater
doesn't want to be rich. He wants to be master
of the game. And there's a picture you can see
that's I believe that's Manifort. That's Roger Stone in the middle,
and then that's Lee Atwater on the right side of
your screen in this photo from their days working together.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And James Vanniak is still is still in play.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, absolutely, Now, who are you going to get to
play young Roger Stone because honestly he looks like Niles
from Fraser, but Niles from Brasier can't play that role.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
What's his name, Eddie Rhdamain?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is that his name, Eddie Redmain? Yeah, yeah, he is,
he is. He is similarly off putting.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Now where you get a man with a with a
thumb shaped head who can play Paul Manifort, that's really
gonna be the key. Is a thumb enough shaped celebrity
that could be a star maker.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Like I said in part one, at be played by
to for Grace.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Atwater could be played by to for Grace. But I
think to for Grace is is older now than Atwater
ever lived.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
To be spoiler, Manaphort, you know what, come back, Manifor.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's going to be tough, Manaphort. I went to high
school with a couple of guys who look like Paul Manifort,
but they all went and got Paul Manifort jobs. So
I don't think you're going to get controversial. This could
be controversial. Maybe you tap someone like Shane Gillis.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
It's not hard Shane Gillis type to play a Paul Manifort.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So leet Water has started working with Roger Stone and
Paul Manifort in the light. And while he's doing this,
you know, while after, right after, shortly after, he's he's
gotten I guess acquired or partnered with them. In April
of nineteen eighty five, George H. W. Bush invites his sons,
in some of his some of his close relatives to
Camp David to prepare them for his nineteen eighty eight
(10:08):
presidential run. Basically number one, he's getting ahead of things.
He wants them to meet the probable team. I don't
think he's locked down all of his team positions, but
he knows more or less the people he wants working
with him, even know even if he's not sure what
job they're going to get.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And so he wants his.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Family, who have been always been a big part of
his political campaigns, to meet the people who are going
to be running his eighty eight campaign, and one of
the people he as simbles and has come to Camp
David for this nineteen eighty five meeting is thirty four
year old Lee Atwater.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Who he's already proven to be a seasoned partier.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yes, a solid party And you have to really, especially
given how close he and w become, what kind of
shit did you guys get up to at Camp David together?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Like what were you?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I know, I think this is part during Bush's sober
period kind of, but I don't know. I feel like
Bush and Lee Atwater probably did coke together. That's my
Lee Atwater head Cannon. Uh So, Lee's double cross of
Rowlins had worked, though, right because a year earlier Rowlins
had been is shoe in for the job, and Bush
actually hadn't trusted at Water at first, which is again
(11:15):
usually a good instinct, and his son's particularly dislikedly right.
Jeb has gone on to say that, like, initially we
saw him as more self interested and interested in burning
his own reputation than in helping our dad, and we
were worried.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Really, damn, that's really someone is interested.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Only for a little while because they were They're worried.
Was that, like, well, these dirty tricks of his. Maybe
they'll work, but they'll ruin our father's reputation, his spotless
moral record as former director of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
The Family deputation.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
On contra the Bush Family spotless Wow. Eric Alterman describes
how Lee Atwater gained the Bush families trust. And this
is you know, Garre, I know you've been looking to
do this yourself. So this you might be wanting to
take some notes on this point. To prove his loyalty
and increase his leverage with the family, he invited demand it.
Actually that George Junior joined him full time in the campaign.
(12:07):
It was a twofer, he recalls. Not only wout it
in their questions of loyalty, but Atwater got the services
of a staff member who could organize the family at
a moment's notice. He turned out to be the most
political and the most loyal to my father. Jeb Bush
now says Atwater could go to hell tomorrow and I'd
be a supporter. He has proved himself with our family. Yeah,
and w will say basically that like this is a
(12:28):
lot of where he starts learning politics. It is from
this period when Atwater takes him under his wing. He's
working directly for Lee helping to get HW Bush elected,
Like this is a lot of W's introduction to politics,
and again Atwater has already gotten Carl Rove started in
his career. He's going to be Bush's campaign manager. So
(12:48):
even though he's not going to live to see the
Bush era, he's often given credit as an architect of
the Bush era, and he really does deserve that.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I wonder how much of that influences also like Bush's
decision to go full Cheney, right or yeah, I need.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
An evil mastermind at my side exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
My question is do you think if Lee survived longer
that Jeb exclamation point would have would have you know.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
No, no, because at that point, at that point, Lee
would never I think he'll course onto someone that much
of a loser when you have like a clear like
con man and winner in the in the game.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Like why there's two and you know, we'll talk about
this at the end. There's two possibilities for how leg
Atwater would have handled the rise of Trump. One would
have been I think he would have gone hard never
Trumper if for nothing else then like well I'm kind
of old and tired now and there's money in doing this,
and maybe I don't really care as like, I know,
I know I can't win, but I know I can
grift off this and that's good enough. Or I think
(13:47):
if he had stayed in like politics shape as he
was kind of at the peak of his career, I mean,
he would have seen Trump coming and gotten in bed
with him. But it's one of those two things. And
we'll talk at the end again about what we think
is likelier for a Lee at Water had he lived
to see this. But he takes w under his wing
and trains him up, and it's during this nineteen eighty
(14:08):
eight election that Lee would reach the peak of his career,
possibly the peak of the damage he'd caused to society.
But before I get to this, we need to pull
back again and talk about how the justice system in
this country used to work, right, because this is integral
to how Lee does what he does and the damage
that he causes doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Oh boy, really really excited for this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, we don't talk about this a lot, but by
nineteen eighty eight, all fifty states had furlough programs for inmates,
which allowed people who were incarcerated and still serving time
to earn passes to leave prison for differing like periods.
Right at the most basic level, maybe like you've got
a funeral or a wedding and you can get like
an afternoon pass to attend it. But some people got
passes that were kind of a similar to work release programs.
(14:49):
Some people got to spend weeks at a time out
with their families and they'd go back in for a while.
It was often seemed as like a transition thing with like, Okay,
this person has sort of proved themselves inside if they
can handle limited amounts of time free before we start
talking about like a commutation or about parole, depending on
the kind of conviction that they've got right and about
ten percent of all prisoners in the US received some
(15:11):
sort of furlough in nineteen eighty seven, per an article
for the Marshall Project by Beth Schwarzoptfel and Bill Keller, Nationally,
murderers served an average of eight years before they were
parole er commuted, so furloughs were in the toolkit of
a previous generation, an uncontroversial proposition. They offered incentives for
good behavior behind bars and a good way for inmates
to reacclimate to the life. They would almost certainly return
(15:32):
to outside of prison. Use of furloughs for prisoners in
the US is widespread, successful, and relatively problem free, The
editor of a magazine for corrections professionals told The New
York Times in nineteen eighty eight, So again, I have
to really emphasize this is not at all a political thing.
In fact, under Governor Ronald Reagan, California had one of
the most generous furlough programs in the country. As stated,
(15:53):
the program was really helpful to many inmates, but given
the sheer number of people involved, there were always cases
of it going wrong. And while Reagan was governor, two
prisoners were furloughed by his justice system and went on
to commit murder. This happened two separate times, and there
were criticisms of the program and of Reagan for allowing
it during this period of time. And after the first murder,
(16:13):
he responded to these criticisms by saying, more than twenty
thousand people had these passes, and this is the only murder,
ending with obviously, you can't be perfect, which is a
kind of reasonable. You just cannot have conversations like this
about the justice system today.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
No is this like so having something like this now
would be like outrageously progressive.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Like yeah, but like look at two out of twenty
thousand and eight bad you know, like that's just life.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Like the current like like crime crackdown that is like
sweeping the nation with National Guard deployments everywhere.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's like all crimes at an all time low.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, it's so opposite towards this logic, and having like
a Republican party used this logic to justify a furlough
program is so alien to the current understanding of politics.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, I mean, and that's partly what's so depressing about
it is that, like you could say, obviously, you can't
be perfect, and that's the end of it, at least
as a Republican. But then the Republicans when it happens
to a Democrat, are going, because of Lee Atwater, to
leap on this sort of thing as a way to
destroy a presidential candidate. Right, So you jump forward to
(17:21):
nineteen eighty eight. Bush's opponent is Michael ducacis governor of Massachusetts.
Two years before the election, a guy named Willy Horton,
imprisoned in Massachusetts for his part in a nineteen seventy
four robbery murder, gets out on furlough, And to be clear,
we don't know if Willy killed anybody. He was one
of three robbers. He would claim that he stayed in
the car and that his friends had no idea, that
(17:43):
he had no idea his friend's planned to kill a guy.
One of his friends would say, no, no, it was
Willy who went in. I think his friend was like,
I stayed in the car. But these people are all
dealing with We have no idea what actually happened, and
it doesn't matter to an extent because all three of
them were part of the crime. And that's the way
this sort of thing gets charged. Right, if you're part
of a robbery where someone gets shot, you can get
charged with that murder even if you don't pull the trigger. Right,
(18:03):
That's just the way the legal system works and worked. Then,
in June of nineteen eighty six, Willy gets out on furlough,
but he gets in trouble. I think he gets basically
the police come after him, and he decides to flee
the state rather than get caught and go back to prison.
He spends some time in Florida. Eventually he moves up
to Baltimore and in April of nineteen eighty seven, someone
breaks into a suburban home in Maryland owned by the
(18:26):
sales manager for a car dealership.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The intruder I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Think, stabs and ties the husband up and repeatedly rapes
his wife, Angela Miller, at gunpoint. Neither victim got a
good look at the assailant's face, but the victim stole
the homeowner's Camaro, and not long after this, the police
find that camaro with Willy Horton behind the wheel. While
he's being arrested, he waves a gun at the police
and they start shooting, and long story short, he gets
(18:50):
arrested after being shot I think a couple of times.
So Horton gets charged for the home invasion and the rape,
and when the news finds out that he is a
like the local news finds out that he's a furloughed
murderer from California.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
They flip out.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And initially it's just a local paper, the Lawrence Eagle Tribune,
who wins a Pulitzer for their coverage of this. They
are pretty relentless uncovering the story, but it proves to
have legs beyond the local area, and the first person
to use it politically is actually Al Gore because during
the primary process, Gore has to debate Ducaucus for the
(19:24):
Democratic primary election, and Gore asks, if elected president, would
you put the same program in place federally, which is
itself kind of a stupid question because there were federal
furloughs at this point in time, right, it wasn't the
same program that existed, but like, yeah, anyway, Gore is
the first person to use this story for his benefit,
but he doesn't name Horton, right. He talks about the
(19:47):
story in broad details. He doesn't name the guy, he
doesn't put his picture out there. But Lee Atwater he's
paying attention to this debate. He knows it doesn't, you know,
give Gore the win. But he also, I think, kind
of sees where Gore didn't have the killer instinct, right,
ran up short, wasn't quite willing to go through with
this to the extent that Lee is going to be
willing to. And Lee sees this and he's like, that's it.
(20:09):
That's how we win this fucking election, right, And he
insists in campaign meetings that they have to pivot to
make this the central message of the campaign. He tells
his colleagues. By the time we're finished they're going to
wonder whether Willy Horton is to Caucus's running mate, right
that they being the voters. He told a Baltimore reporter,
the Horton case is one of those gut issues that
(20:31):
are values issues, particularly in the South, and if we
hammer it these over and over, we are going to win.
So all of this culminates in one of the most
famous political ads in the history of this country, the
Willy Horton Ad, And we're going to play that, but
first let's have some ads.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So the Willy Horton ad is to this day one
of the most famous and probably one of the most
successful political ads ever run. I'm just gonna play it.
If you can watch it in the YouTube or just
go watch it separately. You could google the Will Horton
ad or type that into YouTube. You'll find it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But you'll get most of it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
We'll describe what's going on, but you're going to see
a lot of a very scary picture of Willy Horton
right after he got arrested with a couple of gunshot injuries,
a picture that Willy Horton today is like, yeah, it's
a scariest picture of me.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Bush and Doucaca's On Crime. Bush supports the death penalty
for first degree murderers. Ducacas not only opposes the death penalty,
he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.
One was Willy Horton, who murdered a boy and a robbery,
stabbing him nineteen times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received
ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple,
(21:48):
stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend weekend prison passes.
Doucaca's On Crime.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And the scary photo is the second one they show
of him where he's being led in by a who
he's easily looks, I think because a forced perspective, like
two feet taller than he's just been shot. And he yeah,
like he looks like a guy who walked away from
multiple gunshot wounds.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Like it's this I'm gonna like inundate the airwaves with
this ad. These pictures of a guy during like the
worst point in his life. And also these pictures of
a guy who I can kind of it's this Southern
strategy thing right where I can throw all of our
audience's fears of crime and their fears of black people
and mix them together and like do Caucus is voting
(22:32):
to let specifically black murderers out?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, they were, they will.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Specifically target white women, right, that's the message of the ad.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
This is the same like logic used in the last election,
but with immigrants. Like you look at the way that
they talked about like the Lake and Riley Act and
showed mugshots of alleged Venezuelan gang members during these big
press conferences, and yeah, it's attacking the same fears, like
the Bide administration or whatever is releasing these violent, violent
(23:01):
immigrants into our country.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And that's you know, the Willie Horton ad gets a
huge amount of credit. And this is a thing where
this this election had looked a lot different in the
summer of nineteen eighty eight, which is, you know, right
before the conventions, which used to matter more. The fact
that you were locking in you know, people during that
used to matter more. But by the summer of eighty eight,
Ducoccus is ahead by more than seventeen points and Bush's
people are kind of braced for a disaster and the
(23:26):
future president's Chief of Staff Mary Madaline recalls quote, Lee
held us together with pep Talk's history lessons and weird statistics,
and a lot of those statistics had to do with
how he thought white people were going to react to
this story, this Willy Horton story, right, and this does
help turn things around. Now it's not his only dirty
trick in the Ducaccas campaign. He is fucking so cruel
(23:48):
to do Caucus. He starts a rumor that Ducaccus had
liked because it had worked for him while in the
past basically been close to being institutionalized for depression over
the fact that, like du Caucus, like the Washington Times
published an article that Atwater laundered that he had received
treatment for depression.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
At one point.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And this was a fairly minor thing. But again Atwater
has it blown up. He makes sure this article gets
a lot of play, and it seems the point where
like a reporter asks Reagan, and again there's you know,
did Decaucus plant the question with the reporter? Did he
just plant the article? But this reporter asks Reagan, should
Dicacus released his medical records, you know? And the President
(24:27):
Reagan says, look, I'm not going to pick on an invalid,
which is almost the same response at Water had given
to the about like the electroshock treatment, Like he's doing
the same thing again, right, Like you see how it's
it's not a limitless playbook, although playing the hits also works, right,
And yeah, like journalists are asking Docaucus, are you going
(24:47):
to like have you seen a psychiatrist? And like if
he'd admitted that he had, like that's that also would
have been seen by a sizeable number of people as
like disqualifying. Right, we can't have a president who's ever
gone to therapy. I think we've seen where that takes
us as a culture. And yeah, this is like there's
a lot of negative statements about Decaucus's wife too as
(25:09):
a result of I think like some of her mental
health treatment and whatnot. And he kind of goes after
Kitty Ducoccus as well, and yeah, it's it's like there's
there's a lot of grossness around this election, and a
significant chunk of it is centered around at Water. Like
his whole attitude is I'm not going to like I'm
not going to pull any punches, and I will, in
(25:31):
fact invent some punches if that's what it takes to
like kick a guy when he's down as much as
it's possible, right, And yeah, I mean the end of
the story is Bush wins, like Bush beats dow Caucus.
Now there's also Docuccus rides around in a tank, uh
and doesn't look great in the tank. There's a very
(25:51):
a very silly video, like the helmet looks a little
too big on his head. But that's paired with the
reason people saw it is it's paired by an ad
that Atwater help to orchestrate, where people are talking about
all that ducac has had done to trim defense budget,
to like stop spending and basically to disarm America during
the height of our conflict with the USSR. And Ducaccus
(26:13):
was a governor, like he wasn't voting to.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Like it was all lies. They don't even chieft it.
It's just lies.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, but again the truth doesn't matter, right. What matters
is you get this, You get this shit in people's ears,
and that does all of the damage you need it
to do. Right, And that's that's what Lee Atwater knows.
And that's kind of his prime his major contribution to
Republican politics, and specifically to Republican electoral victories is he
(26:42):
is the guy like he gets credited with getting Bush
Senior elected and because of when he dies, he'll sometimes
his death will be blamed on Bush Senior failing to
get re elected. Bush Senior denies this, but I don't
know if he's the best source on things that got
him elected and didn't get him elected, given his record.
So this is like the peak of his life and
(27:04):
the peak of his success, right, Things turn around rapidly
for him after this. Obviously, the Willie Horton ad in particular,
gives that water a reputation for being a racist. And
this is one of the few things that really seems
to bug him, right because he would always bring up
the fact that he visited James Brown in prison, the
fact that he played with a number of he cuts
(27:25):
an album. One of the people he cuts an album
with is Isaac Hayes. Like he cuts this like R
and B he blues album and whatnot. That's like, yeah,
has Isaac Hayes on a couple of tracks, and there's
a very funny.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Review of it. Once SECU you pull it up. I
should have had this. Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited to
hear this.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
We can try to get a track together for the
end here. But yeah, so he production. The album was
recorded in nineteen eighty nine. One guess is to the
title Garrison, I ooh my god, because Lee Atwater cuts this.
His goal was to bring a wider audience the sounds
of the nineteen sixties, right, so he gets some all
(28:04):
time great rhythm and blues singers. There's Isaac Hay's, Chuck Jackson,
BB King, the Memphis Horns, Sam Moore, ar Leten Nightingale. Yeah,
like some heavy hitters on there, and then Lee Atwater
featured first. The critical reception was not entirely bad. The
Los Angeles Times called at Water not any better than
(28:25):
a singer in an average bar band, but he is
more convincing than other such pop celebrity figures such as
the Blues Brothers or Bruce Willis, which I think is
an insult to the Blues Brothers. Let's let's stop right there,
but fair enough when we're talking about Bruce Willis and
his period of time in music.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Look, he's no William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Okay, he's he does not have Shatner's instincts. No USA
Today wrote even able assist from BB King and Isaac
Hays can't mask the utter amateurism of Atwater, soulish chirping.
That's a little devastating, that's a little mate, that's a
little cruel, and it's going to come out at a
time that's extra painful for him. Anyway, He again as
(29:05):
a result of his friendship with a lot of these guys,
he's really going to get heated. One of the ever
journalists will suggest maybe there was something racist about that
racist ad, and his ultimate argument was not even that, like,
it wasn't racist, It was that I didn't have anything
to do with it. It was produced by a third party,
an independent like or basically a pack made it and
they put it out there, right, so we're not to blame.
(29:27):
We had nothing to do with it, right, And this
was a lie. Evidence has since come out tying Atwater
in the Bush campaign to directing and funding the ad,
and more recently Roger Stone has come forward to admit
that like, yeah, that was Lee. PBS summarizes his recollection
of events, Well, he was running the Bush campaign. Atwater
said that he had secretly arranged financing for the Horton ad.
(29:48):
At Water locked the office door, says Stone, and he
popped the famous Willy Horton spot onto a television He said,
I got a couple boys who were going to put
up a couple million dollars for this independent and I said,
that's a huge mistake. And Stone always has an agenda.
I think in this case, he didn't want to be
associated with an ad this famously poisonous and racist, and
so he really wanted to jam it onto Atwater's head.
(30:10):
But there's independent people taught who will make the same
claim that, like, yes, this was funded, as this kind
of shit often is by the campaign. They just wanted
plausible deniability. Right, Everyone who's anyone knows it was Atwater.
He gets the next big like because of this, because
of not just the Willie Horton add but his altogether
(30:30):
successful role helping to get Bush Senior elected. He gets
appointed head of the r n C immediately after the
eighty eight election.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
That's his next job.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yes, like he was he was cutting that album well
while the head of the r n C. Yes, Garrison
to the head of the r and C. He is
the head of the r n C when he records
with Isaac Hayes. So this is the peak of Atwater's career,
and while his only.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yeah, you can't, you can't get a higher seems like
everything he wants out of life.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
In a way, he's he has and life is just
about done for him, and I shouldn't stay here before
we get further into his life. While his only lingering
interest in the Willie hort Nad was separating himself from
it right after it had done what he needed to
do for Bush's campaign. The repercussions for our criminal justice
system continue on to this day. During the election, Governor
Dukakis froze and then banned furloughs for people with life sentences.
(31:22):
This is in nineteen eighty eight, and the Marshall Project
describes how chaotic this is at the time. Inmates and
staff in Massachusetts prisons at the time describe how dozens
of lifers who had moved over the course of years
from maximum to medium to minimum, even to work release programs,
were gathered up in the middle of the night and
brought back to more secure facilities. They went out at
midnight and scooped up all these lifers to get them
(31:42):
back behind the walls in case any of them had
any mind to take off, said Greg Diatchenko. Who had
recently begun serving a life sentence in Massachusetts at that time.
Some of these lifers were out there for many, many years,
these first degrees, hoping for commutation, getting furloughs and everything.
Those guys kept their hopes up even after all that
that the political climate would died out and they would
eventually work their way out. We were told it would
just be a short while, maybe a year or two,
(32:03):
before the political climate changed and guys would get back out.
But things never changed back as we're all unfortunately aware,
stayed after State and the wake of the Willy Horton
had began restricting parole and eliminating work releases, commutations, furloughs,
and conjugal visits. This marked the start of the Republican
Party's embrace of just build more prisons as the solution
(32:24):
to every crime related problem. But Democrats got on the
action too. When stumping for his crime bill, Joe Biden
described his objective as to lock Willy Horton up in jail,
and Joe Willy Horton was already locked up like From
then on, it was known that any attempt to make
life easier for prisoners or provide chances for clemency, especially
(32:45):
as a member of the as an elected leader, as
an executive. Right, if you're a governor or something. If
you show mercy on a prison, all it takes is
one of the thousands of people you might provide clemency
to to commit a crime. And that's your career, the
politic career, the lesson they take. Right, it's great. Now,
(33:06):
would something like this have happened, like the Willy Horton
Horton ad have happened later if it weren't for Lee
at Water, Probably, but it happened when it did, and
how it did because of him, right, Well.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Yeah, and it reflects the type of stuff that he's
talking about after like the Nixon campaign, right and like
a continuation of the Southern strategy.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, all of this is the Willy Horton ad is
another way of just not saying the N word in
campaign ads when you really want to. So nineteen eighty nine,
Lee's recording a real album. He's on top of the world,
he's running the RNC. Eric Alterman spent time with him
in April to write that New York Times article that
we've quoted from, and the article describes his dirty tricks
(33:46):
in detail, but also lingers on how cool at Water
seems to this journalist. Here's how it opens. It's two
am on a sultry Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina. Does
the Republican Party know where its chairman is? Harvey Lee, atwater,
hometown boy, is on stage at Bullwinkles, a smoky dive
with two pool tables, dollar beers, and the raunchy, long
haired Mojo blues band shaking the rafters. The overflow crowd
(34:09):
is packed against the wall, forcing overdressed Republican gentry to
slip to rub elbows with the Bullwinkle regulars. Atwater has
changed out of his blue blazer and tie into a
late night t shirt that David Letterman gave him. His
guitar was a gift from Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones,
a souvenir of Atwater's gala blue celebration at a presidential
inaugural ball, Drinking beers straight from the pitcher, sweat pouring
down his face, Atwater apologizes for going home so early,
(34:33):
but the Saint Patrick's Day Parade is just seven hours
away and he is the Grand Marshal. His final number
is a repeat of his opener, Eddie Taylor's bad boy.
I'm bad, I'm bad, cries the man who masterminded George
Bush's nineteen eighty eight presidential campaign. I'm the worst you
ever had.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It's the drinking straight from the picture.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
For me, this ain't your grandpa's republiced grandplas Republican party.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They're cool now that they want to be cool so bad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It's so funny, it's so funny. It's the literally the
only thing denied to them.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
It's such this like psycho sexual driver for conservatives to
be the real rebels, for them to be like like
the actual cool kids, and they will move mountains. Yeah,
and it's because try to achieve this cool kids status.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The ones who are smart and influential are together enough
to like have interests outside of politics and to know
vaguely that like what I'm doing is really uncool and
fucked up. I wonder if I could just sort of
punish everyone into pretending that's not true, you know, and
then they'd have to treat me like I'm a good
musician and not right mean things about how Isa case
his voice is better than mine. So even that soon
(35:42):
after the eighty eight election, Lee's tactics were being adopted
by campaign managers across the political spectrum. Patricia Schroeder, a
Democratic congressman, told The Times, the real problem with Lee
Atwater is that his tactics are contagious, and in his article,
Alterman ads, Indeed, the question Democrats around the country are
asking themselves is can you beat Lee Atwater unless you
join him? And you know, the answers no. But also
(36:05):
they never quite figure it out, do they. They're always
bad at it.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, Yeah, we're still here. We're still here.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
We're still here, still getting dunked down by the guy
doing shots at buwinkers.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Maybe we can just copy the Republicans' rategy over and
over and over again. Yeah, after they've already done it,
Maybe it's going to finally work.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Maybe being exactly like the Republicans will take the Democrats
where they want to be one of these days. The
thing they never learn is, like, what you should learn
from their Republicans is that it's okay to be a
dick to your enemies. You don't have to treat them
respectfully just because you're running against them, and you watch
the West wing right, you don't have to, for example,
lie about their wives.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
But the consequences right in a disaster for the US politics.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So Lee's tactics live on. He does not.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
On March fifth, nineteen ninety one, at Water collapsed at
a fundraiser for a Republican senator. And there's a very
funny store in the documentary Boogeyman that covers Lee Atwater
where he ed Rowlands, who worked several floors above him.
When Lee starts having seizures, his aides go get ed
Rowlands because at Water's like, You're the only guy I trust.
(37:15):
They're gonna kill me otherwise, and I don't know who
they are. It's either is it the Democrats? Is it
other nefarious people? But like Ed is like I thought,
you know, we'd really reached a point of like rapproch
mock because he was like, I'm sorry for like fucking
you over and all the bad shit I did. You're
the only one I trust, and Lee, like Rolands will
be like Lee said that I was his rock basically
(37:37):
during this period. And I found interviews with like the
like a major figure at the DNC saying the same
things about Lee that like, after Lee got sick, he
reached out to them and was like I now like
we're friends now, even though like I we're I can
respect this person. I was never able to do that
when I before I got sick, But now I can
respect this person who I disagree with. They've become by
rock And it's just I think Lee just lied a
(37:59):
lot about who how much support he was getting, because
he wanted other people to talk well about him after
he died. I think that's most of what this is.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's really bizarre. Yeah, and that's kind of what Roland's concludes.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We'll talk about that in a little bit, but like, yeah,
on a so, yeah, he collapses at this at this fundraiser,
gets taken to the hospital. Doctors find out he's got
a brain tumor. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times wrote, quote,
after the tumor was diagnosed, mister Atwater assigned friends and
aids to research all aspects of the disease to help
decide on the best course of treatment. Our research, said,
(38:34):
and the further study of my scans kept us on
a roller coaster of good news and bad he said.
Then on March twenty first, we hit bottom, and it
was then that he learned that the tumor was way
worse than they had originally thought. He sees a healer
who tells him to get rid of his black t
shirts and start wearing red underwear, and he does this.
He tries massage therapy, but his particular cancer, it's this
(38:56):
brain tumor he's got, the only way they have of
treating it at that time. I don't know if we're
much better at it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
They're literally drilling a hole into his head and dropping
little radioactive specs in there. So he has to like
sleep in a lead lined room in his own house,
and it swells his head up. Like he's too embarrassed
to be seen in public because his like head gets
massively swollen, like he does not. He looks like he's
dying horribly right, Like this is a really terrible death
that he dies, and he's aware of it the whole time.
(39:23):
There's a very unfortunate video of him like going out
in South Carolina one last time and singing I'm Bad
while deeply ill and like not able to get the lyrics,
and you can tell he just desperately wants to be
back at his height again, back like at this this
peak he'd inhabited not long earlier. He talks about that
(39:44):
a lot about like, and he'll give crowd pleasing speeches
about how I had everything just a little while ago,
and now I understand that like friends and family are
all that matter. But you can also tell like, I
don't know how much you believe that, Lee, I think
you would. You'd throw your friends and family away in
the second to be healthy, and a will to do
this for another.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Thirty years, just for a chance to go back to
what you were. Yeah, yeah, but he does.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
There's a public perception that a change sweeps over at water.
He writes like an article for The Times about how
Baddie feels about all his dirty tricks. He starts reaching
out to people he'd harmed over the years. He sends
a letter to Tacaucus. He apologizes to him for the
making Willy Horton your running mate comment and also for
saying he intended to strip the bark off the little bastard.
(40:27):
He admitted to the naked cruelty of the remarks. He
also claimed to have sent an apology for Willy Horton. Now,
the Marshall Project talked to Horton, and Horton was like,
I didn't I don't remember getting it, but I got
a lot of mail back then, So maybe I just
missed it. That one's going to have to come down
as like kind of unknown because Horton wasn't willing to
didn't say it was a liar. Was like, no, I
(40:48):
literally might have missed it. Like there were a lot
of shit coming in back then. He does write apologies
to a lot of people. Now, depending on who you
ask his people who remained his critics will be like
he never repudiated the tactics. He never said that he
regretted helping out the Republican Party or everything he did
to win. He just regretted how hurtful some of the
(41:10):
specific things he did were, and he apologized to those individuals, right,
But he never repudiated the strategies that had brought him
wealth in power. And Jane Mayer who goes through after
his death and then after his wife's death, his kids
let Jane Mayer go through his papers for The New Yorker, right,
and like one of his daughters, who went on to
be a Democrat, is like, I'm not going to talk
(41:32):
about like my dad, what he did is in politics.
He was a good father during the time that I
knew him, But like you know, obviously as adults, they
thought that this stuff was important to get to a
journalist like given the influence he had creating the modern
Republican Party, and Mayer also interviewed members of his family,
His old partner, Roger Stone, she writes his memoir, calls
(41:53):
on politicians to instead follow the Golden Rule. Roger Stone,
who formed an early consulting and lobbing firm in the
Washington area with Atwater, remains unconvinced about atwater spiritual awakening.
Lee was a great storyteller, Stone told me in a
recent interview, but in the end he was just grasping
its straws. The Atwater family disagrees and has no doubt
that he became a Christian, but at that point he
was also a Buddhist, Hindu and everything else. He converted
(42:14):
to every faith under the sun, whatever religious leader he sees,
he's making a conversion.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's that oldly that I know. That's that oldly we
know in love old.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Deathbed conversion Lee Atwater. And we'll talk some more about
Lee Atwater dying horribly, but first here's some ads and
we're back, so I want to read. There's a fascinating
paragraph from a Brooklyn Rail article Letter from the Trail
(42:47):
Atwater's Ghost that really gets into how Atwater paved the
way for Trump not just by normalizing ugly attacks and
making rhetoric meaner, but by destroying the credibility of even
mainstream Republican candidates. In other words, decades of Atwater politics
convinced conservative voters that there were no good candidates, not
even on their side, which was a necessary precursor to
(43:07):
Trump's rise to power. And this is something I didn't
really get the.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Time this article. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, let me read this quote first and we'll talk
about it as that Water's progeny have become embedded in
the party. In its process, the constant stoking of fears
and the consistent personal attacks have eaten away at the
credibility if it's candidates, and in turn, the candidates don't
actually particularly require credibility to become the nominee. Far more
important is money, organization, effective destruction of the other, and
an ability to address as little as possible. The campaign
(43:33):
is now only about the campaign. Accordingly, mere electability becomes
the only major issue. The ability to campaign all that matters.
It is not he who is best to will win,
but he who best runs that will be awarded the
chance to run again.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
It's so much of it is like disregarding, like accepting
that each each candidate, as like a person, obviously is
going to be terrible. And it's it's just about this
theatrical prosit right.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
And who is best able to withstand it and endure it,
and which is not ever going to be someone who's
a good person anywhere clothes. Not that that's who was
getting elected before, but man, are you going to be worse? Right?
And there's one story from that Boogeyman documentary that I
find really funny about Lee near the end, which is
they talked to one of his like many R and
(44:22):
B singer friends, like one of these guys that who's
like a legitimate, like actual legend within the field, Chuck Jackson,
who like he played with from time to time and
who thought himself a friend of Lee's. And Chuck was
like when he got sick, you know, I gave him
a Bible and he told me, you know that this
really helped. This was like the one thing that helped
(44:42):
get me through. It was like, you know, coming back
to finding my faith, and you know, thank you you
played a big role in that giving me this Bible
and meant everything to me. And the documentary then cuts
to Ed Rowlands being like, well, I was talking to
a friend after they cleaned the stuff out of his
office and she found the Bible and it was still
wrapped in cell a fane and he was like.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Hell, that was Lay, that was Lee. That so every time,
and like he dies.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
He dies at fucking forty, right at March nineteen ninety one,
after a year long fight against a brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
He is forty years old.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
He probably never even got to sea Wild at Heart,
never got to see Wild at Heart. He did get
nominated for a Grammy that he does not get, for
this terrible album of his he gets not which is
listed as like one of the only things he wanted
out of life that he hadn't gotten is a Grammy.
But at least he got nominated before he died. He's
buried in his jogging suit and holding his Red, Hot
(45:38):
and Blue album.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So Grave Robbers, there's no yead water for his other work.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Better known for his other work destroying the country, helping
to right God, it's so funny. He's such a such
a fantastic piece of shit. There's a really good quote.
I also like that Brooklyn rail article describes his end
like his last months of life. So I'm going to
read that really quickly as we close out telling a
(46:06):
friend that it's all bullshit. The truth has nothing to
do with it.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
At Water talk with you.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Regret of his actions, seemingly fearful of that which he
was leaving behind. Whether the repentance was genuine or just
a calculated attempt to gain passage to a peaceful afterlife
will never be discovered, but the damaging effects of his
earth bound legacy were plained to see in his home
of South Carolina. If one is seeking an analogy to
describe the current incarnation of the Republican Party, one could
do worse than a dying Lee at Water. It's brain
(46:31):
consumed with a deadly cancer, its words erratic, their credibility
under assault by its own crisis, its body radiated, fattened, atrophied.
At the last, the analogy runs dry, for while Lee
let out a cry for forgiveness, a plead to heaven,
the party in its voters seemed to be headed in
the opposite direction, and all of us going with them.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's the one thing all of these negative articles about
Lee tended to have wrong was they all were written
more in the aughts. A lot of them came out
during like like this particular one that I'm quoting from
came out into the twelve so it's like the middle
of the Obama years, and like, no, no, no, this
is gonna work out a lot better for them than
you think it is. You're just irrationally optimistic right now
because we're in between shit storms. But uh boy, howdy,
(47:13):
oh he give you a couple more years, you'll be
writing different things about only Oh my, yep, how are
we doing?
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Oh well, anyway, I mean.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Yeah, I don't know what else there is to say.
I mean, he it's not it's not necessarily that like
he won, but like his shadow, I guess looms.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, he taught them what they needed to know to
get to the next step. He was a trailblazer.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
I guess people are contributing that trail even further than
what he had in mind. And yeah, maybe saw the
extension of where that trail would go and maybe that
like frightened him a little bit, but making the trail
was just too much fun.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, Yeah, he may have hoped kind of half heartedly
that like, ah, well, I got kids, he's starting because
his kids are young when he dies. So maybe there's
a maybe there's a moment in there where he's like,
oh no, I may have left them a much worse world.
And I had always kind of hoped I'd get enough
time to like redeem myself, help somebod who didn't suck
ask get elected president. Maybe I'm giving Lee too much
(48:14):
credit there, right, I don't really think he became much better,
but I'll believe he was worried about the future that
he helped make.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
You know, we've got to have like a like a
like a political position in the country, like like our
like our national like riddler, you know, just somebody that
can have fun, play some games, like we need we need.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
A fourth branch of the government that's the Riddler. Yes,
because we could.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
We could save so much, so much trouble by just
having people who who like need to be entertainment but
can't quite cut it serve in public office. In some ways,
it's kind of an extension of like of like of
like a court gestor role. And I think this would
be really helpful, Like if we should like nationalize like
wrestling or something.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, we should nationalize wrestling. I've been saying for a
while we need one one real use for like all
of the AI chatbots, is we can create a fake
Hollywood where like you give people like Ben Shapiro, like
Hallmark movie budgets to write make better our movies, and
we just generate fake fans for him, and we tricked
them all into thinking that they're beloved creators. Can you
(49:20):
give him award every now and then?
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Let's give me one of the greatest harbor mitigation operations
of all time.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We could have saved the country, you know, if we
if we'd really gotten out of this early enough, we
could have done a lot of good.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Even even people on the left like this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Like just this past weekend, Zoran did a massive scavenger
hunt around New York City. Everyone wants to do this
sort of stuff. Yeah, and I think we should have
a proper place for it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
We should let that man play some mediocre blues.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, yeah, ah, god, if only I mean we started
to figure that out. He got his album at the end,
and you really got the feeling that, like, man, if
if we.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Had let him cut a blues album earlier, if he
got that Grammy in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, we need we need an organization doing what like
the CIA used to do for like democracies in Latin America,
but for like failed comedians that are clearly heading for
the far right. We're like, no, no, no, you got
to save this man's career.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
We got a possible Stephen Crowder situation developing. And look, look, Iowa, if.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Joe Rogan gets too into podcast, it's going to be
a disaster for everybody else. You need to make get
his acting career going, Get him a gig every two
years with Adam Sandler in some dressing.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Movie is a go.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I can just imagine, like Adam Sandler's out in like
the fucking Woods of Montana. A helicopter touches down a
man from the ennis. Mister Sandler, sir, we need you
to make another movie. Here's your cast list, sir. I
get out of this business years ago.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Jesus Christ, So what's your job of government. I'm Adam
Krolla is a fish handler.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, yeah, I convinced Adam Carolla. Things are still going well.
He's popular. Yes, it is a full time job.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
If the democratic like a leade cabal was real. This
is what they should be doing.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
This, this is this is the actual need.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah anyway, Oh well, got anything you want to plug gear.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Sure news podcast. It could happen here our weekly news
roundup executive Disorder. I post about about yowie and conspiracy
theories and other fun stuff that tackles my fancy on
on Blue, Sky and X the everything app at by
shown in type wrapping up a series right now for
(51:46):
it could happen here on Blue and On Liberal conspiracy theories.
So that'll probably be out by the time you listen
to this, So fine to find that on it could
happen here that will not.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Be out by the time they listened to this. That'll
be coming out well a couple days after this.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
Wrap after labor days. I'm still polishing this conspiracy turd.
So yeah, yeah, after labor Day, checkout check out my
piece on Blue and On.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, all right, everybody, And remember, folks, if you need
to get a copy of the original album pressing of Red,
Hot and Blue. Just finally at Water's Grave, there's a
track sat in there too.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Oh my god, Jesus Christ, send it up with Voyager.
We need the aliens to listen to this, Oh my God.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the
Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday
and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash
(52:57):
at Behind the Bastards
Also media, I still a Japanese kit cat in I know.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
All right, all right, let's just start the episode with that.
Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where Garrison is
the bastard by secretly revealing to us their Japanese kit
cat habit.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
The Macha kit cats are so good.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, it is a twenty thousand dollars a month habit.
It's destroying their life and finances. But this is Behind
the Bastard's a show where we don't judge unless you're
one of the worst people in all of history, which
Garrison is not yet. Garrison, Welcome back to the show.
The tariffs are really really hurting this the Japanese kit
cat addict.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
My monthly budget has skyrocket.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, someone who knows something about math to please tell
Garrison how to make ends meet with their their twenty
thousand dollars a month kit cat habit.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
That's how I feel about my obsession with Korean sunscreen.
I'm like, God, damn it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Oh that makes sense. Yeah, no, totally.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
You do kind of look like every white woman in
the Korean sunscreen shop.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Jesus, it's a better. It's frankly a better.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
This is Part three. Of our episodes on Lee Atwater.
A bastard wouldn't have been happy for us to lead
into him this way. But yes, let's let's plug some
things up there.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I just wanted to plug front of the pod Sean
Mahlen's book, The podcast Pantheon one hundred and one podcast
that change how we listen. Uh and uh, we're in it.
We're featured in it.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Robert, Look what my bookmark is.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Can you tell?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Is it is it us?
Speaker 3 (01:29):
No, it's the pamphlet to the Knife you got me
after I had surgery.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Oh, okay, there you go. This is probably a really
interesting read.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
But yeah, we're featured in We're featured in the book,
and it's available for perioder now and is out on
September sixteenth. You get books, I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Anyways, presumably wherever you get books.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
He wrote nice things about us, which now I appreciate and.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Again is not in our wheelhouse because we don't write
nice things. I just write bad things about bad people.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
This water.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
I just kind of want to read what's in this.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
No, No, we're reading about Lee Atwater. We're not reading
about our podcast.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
No, not our podcast. I want to read the pamphlet
for the for the knife.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Your book, which was the knife the Bowie Knife pamphlet.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, it's it's the New Zealand Bowie Knife. Yes, and
that's a good pamphlet.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Vaughan was a terror with the bowie knife. That's how
you start.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, dayone who fought with the bowie knife was a
terror with it, because that's a scary weapon. Like anyone
who's whose choice in an era with like guns and
swords is something that's shorter range than either is a
frightening person.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Gone, it's a good read. Go buy yourself a bowie knife.
People certified behind the Bastard's moment here. Yeah, I'm a.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Big fan of the knife that is slightly too large
for basically in a useful purpose. I use it for
cutting down trees. In nineteen eighty four, Lee Atwater has
been brought back on the team, or has been brought
back on the election team to help Reagan get reelected. Right,
(03:11):
he's in the Reagan White House. He's kind of coasting
off his laurels from the nineteen eighty election for a while.
In eighty four, he gets given his most prestigious position yet,
which is assistant to the campaign manager Ed Rowlands talking
to PBS. Rowlands later claimed a lot of people told
me he wouldn't be loyal to me and told me
not to pick him. Roland said, I admired his work ethic. Now,
(03:34):
whenever people tell you don't pick this Republican strategist because
he'll betray you, and you're like, but his work ethic's good,
You're about to get betrayed. That's just how this story
ends one hundred percent of the time, and that's where
it ends with Lee Atwater for that PBS piece. Not
long after, Roland says, Atwater arranged what turned out to
be an ambush media interview in which Rowlands was accused
(03:55):
of running a dirty tricks campaign against the Democratic vice
presidential candidate Geraldine Farah. Lee had put a spear in
my back, Roland says, it was just a two year
effort to destroy me. He wanted to run Bush's presidential campaign.
So he starts plotting this while they're working together, and
it doesn't fully come out how badly he's fucked him
until the election is over. But from the instant they
start together, he is planning, how am I going to
(04:17):
stab this guy in the back so that by nineteen
eighty eight, his corpse is clear of my path, and
I can get the job that he's got right now.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What a cool guy.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
He's always going to step ahead from, at least the
other Republicans.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Lee Atwater is.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
It's always like, how may I stab you?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
And where?
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
If only he had a bowie knife, if only.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Someone had told ed, this guy will definitely stab you
in the back. Oh, at Lee Atwater, the backstabber, he's
probably gonna stab your back. I don't think he's gonna
stab my back. Not the backstabber then gets his back stabbed.
You know, it's a tale as old as time.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Gonna stab me? What's he gonna do? Stab me?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Man who just got stabbed by Lee Atwater. So Reagan
wins reelection obviously, and Atwater you don't get a lot
from him during this period, So I'm going to guess
he's not he's not playing as formative a role as
he is an eighty eight. But it's easier to get
a president reelected usually historically than it is to get
them elected the first time. Things are weird now, so
(05:16):
after eighty four, Atwater's like I've spent my time working
in like politics and working under elected leaders and working
for the party directly. It's time for me to go
into private practice, right, in part because it's time for
me to make the money, and I want to set
myself up. Sit in eighty eight, I'm an independent political
campaign figure, and I have a better chance of getting
(05:36):
appointed by George H. W. Bush, who everyone knows is
going to be the Republican candidate pretty much, right. There's
a little bit of fuckery that's going to have to
happen to secure him the position, but people are pretty
much sure. In particular, there's going to be some fuckery
against Dole that atwater's going to Bob Dole. If you
remember Bob Dole, which you probably don't if your knees
don't hurt. He's he's the fruit cup guy, right, Yeah, probably,
(05:59):
I think he's the fruit cup guy. He's the guy
who the Simpsons parody by just having him say his
own name a lot. He didn't walk great because of
his war injuries. He was an astronaut, also a Democrat
by political standards today, but pretty hard Republican by the
standards of his time. He ran against Clinton too, He
was pretty boring. You watch that Simpsons Halloween episode, and
(06:22):
you get most of what you need to know about
Bob Dole and Bill Clinton to be honest. So he
starts a political consulting firm for all of the lower
level candidates who had hired him periodically to conduct push
polls or whatever. And that's what he's doing when he
starts his independent firm, well, his first I think it's
like campaign consultants or something like that.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But after the eighty four election.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
He merges with a larger consulting firm, so he's not
independent for long. And the firm that he merges with
you might have heard of, we've talked about on the show.
You kind of guessed in the first episode. Actually gay
Roger Stones firm. It's Black, mat Fort and Stone. That's right, Okay, yes, yeah,
that's that's partners with Lee at Waters because they need
(07:08):
I think they need more of a domestic angle because
they're more focused on foreign dictators at this point, right
and at Waters.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
To three to get to Roger Stone though, Yeah, there's
an expanding area to operate in for non foreign dictators.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Right, right, Yeah, there's there's a chance that you could
make a non foreign dictator if you get good enough
at getting people elected domestically, and that's called Drostone's community
and man afford right. Yeah, in Lee Atwater probably would
have if he'd survived long enough. Now, Roger Stone would
later say of his friend and business partner, we both
knew he believed in nothing above all. He was incredibly competitive,
(07:44):
but I had the feeling that he sold his soul
to the devil, and the devil took it.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Roger Stone, every Roger Stone.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
If you want a guy who, as your friend, is
going to speak well of you when you're dead, Roger
Stone is not that man.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Not the kind of is.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
So.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Lee's tactics fit in with Manifort, Black and Stone, but
his interests diverged from his partners because again, they're more
interested in becoming the go to pr agency and campaign
experts for dictators and want to be dictators all over
the world, and Atwater is pretty resolutely interested in the
US and US elections. One of his former colleagues. Atwater's
(08:22):
former colleagues told The Washington Post, Charlie Black wants to
be rich. Roger Stone wants to be rich. Lee Atwater
doesn't want to be rich. He wants to be master
of the game. And there's a picture you can see
that's I believe that's Manifort. That's Roger Stone in the middle,
and then that's Lee Atwater on the right side of
your screen in this photo from their days working together.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And James Vanniak is still is still in play.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, absolutely, Now, who are you going to get to
play young Roger Stone because honestly he looks like Niles
from Fraser, but Niles from Brasier can't play that role.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
What's his name, Eddie Rhdamain?
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is that his name, Eddie Redmain? Yeah, yeah, he is,
he is. He is similarly off putting.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Now where you get a man with a with a
thumb shaped head who can play Paul Manifort, that's really
gonna be the key. Is a thumb enough shaped celebrity
that could be a star maker.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Like I said in part one, at be played by
to for Grace.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Atwater could be played by to for Grace. But I
think to for Grace is is older now than Atwater
ever lived.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
To be spoiler, Manaphort, you know what, come back, Manifor.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
It's going to be tough, Manaphort. I went to high
school with a couple of guys who look like Paul Manifort,
but they all went and got Paul Manifort jobs. So
I don't think you're going to get controversial. This could
be controversial. Maybe you tap someone like Shane Gillis.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
It's not hard Shane Gillis type to play a Paul Manifort.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
So leet Water has started working with Roger Stone and
Paul Manifort in the light. And while he's doing this,
you know, while after, right after, shortly after, he's he's
gotten I guess acquired or partnered with them. In April
of nineteen eighty five, George H. W. Bush invites his sons,
in some of his some of his close relatives to
Camp David to prepare them for his nineteen eighty eight
(10:08):
presidential run. Basically number one, he's getting ahead of things.
He wants them to meet the probable team. I don't
think he's locked down all of his team positions, but
he knows more or less the people he wants working
with him, even know even if he's not sure what
job they're going to get.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
And so he wants his.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Family, who have been always been a big part of
his political campaigns, to meet the people who are going
to be running his eighty eight campaign, and one of
the people he as simbles and has come to Camp
David for this nineteen eighty five meeting is thirty four
year old Lee Atwater.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Who he's already proven to be a seasoned partier.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yes, a solid party And you have to really, especially
given how close he and w become, what kind of
shit did you guys get up to at Camp David together?
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Like what were you?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I know, I think this is part during Bush's sober
period kind of, but I don't know. I feel like
Bush and Lee Atwater probably did coke together. That's my
Lee Atwater head Cannon. Uh So, Lee's double cross of
Rowlins had worked, though, right because a year earlier Rowlins
had been is shoe in for the job, and Bush
actually hadn't trusted at Water at first, which is again
(11:15):
usually a good instinct, and his son's particularly dislikedly right.
Jeb has gone on to say that, like, initially we
saw him as more self interested and interested in burning
his own reputation than in helping our dad, and we
were worried.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Really, damn, that's really someone is interested.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Only for a little while because they were They're worried.
Was that, like, well, these dirty tricks of his. Maybe
they'll work, but they'll ruin our father's reputation, his spotless
moral record as former director of the CIA.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
The Family deputation.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
On contra the Bush Family spotless Wow. Eric Alterman describes
how Lee Atwater gained the Bush families trust. And this
is you know, Garre, I know you've been looking to
do this yourself. So this you might be wanting to
take some notes on this point. To prove his loyalty
and increase his leverage with the family, he invited demand it.
Actually that George Junior joined him full time in the campaign.
(12:07):
It was a twofer, he recalls. Not only wout it
in their questions of loyalty, but Atwater got the services
of a staff member who could organize the family at
a moment's notice. He turned out to be the most
political and the most loyal to my father. Jeb Bush
now says Atwater could go to hell tomorrow and I'd
be a supporter. He has proved himself with our family. Yeah,
and w will say basically that like this is a
(12:28):
lot of where he starts learning politics. It is from
this period when Atwater takes him under his wing. He's
working directly for Lee helping to get HW Bush elected,
Like this is a lot of W's introduction to politics,
and again Atwater has already gotten Carl Rove started in
his career. He's going to be Bush's campaign manager. So
(12:48):
even though he's not going to live to see the
Bush era, he's often given credit as an architect of
the Bush era, and he really does deserve that.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
I wonder how much of that influences also like Bush's
decision to go full Cheney, right or yeah, I need.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
An evil mastermind at my side exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
My question is do you think if Lee survived longer
that Jeb exclamation point would have would have you know.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
No, no, because at that point, at that point, Lee
would never I think he'll course onto someone that much
of a loser when you have like a clear like
con man and winner in the in the game.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Like why there's two and you know, we'll talk about
this at the end. There's two possibilities for how leg
Atwater would have handled the rise of Trump. One would
have been I think he would have gone hard never
Trumper if for nothing else then like well I'm kind
of old and tired now and there's money in doing this,
and maybe I don't really care as like, I know,
I know I can't win, but I know I can
grift off this and that's good enough. Or I think
(13:47):
if he had stayed in like politics shape as he
was kind of at the peak of his career, I mean,
he would have seen Trump coming and gotten in bed
with him. But it's one of those two things. And
we'll talk at the end again about what we think
is likelier for a Lee at Water had he lived
to see this. But he takes w under his wing
and trains him up, and it's during this nineteen eighty
(14:08):
eight election that Lee would reach the peak of his career,
possibly the peak of the damage he'd caused to society.
But before I get to this, we need to pull
back again and talk about how the justice system in
this country used to work, right, because this is integral
to how Lee does what he does and the damage
that he causes doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Oh boy, really really excited for this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, we don't talk about this a lot, but by
nineteen eighty eight, all fifty states had furlough programs for inmates,
which allowed people who were incarcerated and still serving time
to earn passes to leave prison for differing like periods.
Right at the most basic level, maybe like you've got
a funeral or a wedding and you can get like
an afternoon pass to attend it. But some people got
passes that were kind of a similar to work release programs.
(14:49):
Some people got to spend weeks at a time out
with their families and they'd go back in for a while.
It was often seemed as like a transition thing with like, Okay,
this person has sort of proved themselves inside if they
can handle limited amounts of time free before we start
talking about like a commutation or about parole, depending on
the kind of conviction that they've got right and about
ten percent of all prisoners in the US received some
(15:11):
sort of furlough in nineteen eighty seven, per an article
for the Marshall Project by Beth Schwarzoptfel and Bill Keller, Nationally,
murderers served an average of eight years before they were
parole er commuted, so furloughs were in the toolkit of
a previous generation, an uncontroversial proposition. They offered incentives for
good behavior behind bars and a good way for inmates
to reacclimate to the life. They would almost certainly return
(15:32):
to outside of prison. Use of furloughs for prisoners in
the US is widespread, successful, and relatively problem free, The
editor of a magazine for corrections professionals told The New
York Times in nineteen eighty eight, So again, I have
to really emphasize this is not at all a political thing.
In fact, under Governor Ronald Reagan, California had one of
the most generous furlough programs in the country. As stated,
(15:53):
the program was really helpful to many inmates, but given
the sheer number of people involved, there were always cases
of it going wrong. And while Reagan was governor, two
prisoners were furloughed by his justice system and went on
to commit murder. This happened two separate times, and there
were criticisms of the program and of Reagan for allowing
it during this period of time. And after the first murder,
(16:13):
he responded to these criticisms by saying, more than twenty
thousand people had these passes, and this is the only murder,
ending with obviously, you can't be perfect, which is a
kind of reasonable. You just cannot have conversations like this
about the justice system today.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
No is this like so having something like this now
would be like outrageously progressive.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Like yeah, but like look at two out of twenty
thousand and eight bad you know, like that's just life.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Like the current like like crime crackdown that is like
sweeping the nation with National Guard deployments everywhere.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
It's like all crimes at an all time low.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
Yeah, it's so opposite towards this logic, and having like
a Republican party used this logic to justify a furlough
program is so alien to the current understanding of politics.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Yeah, I mean, and that's partly what's so depressing about
it is that, like you could say, obviously, you can't
be perfect, and that's the end of it, at least
as a Republican. But then the Republicans when it happens
to a Democrat, are going, because of Lee Atwater, to
leap on this sort of thing as a way to
destroy a presidential candidate. Right, So you jump forward to
(17:21):
nineteen eighty eight. Bush's opponent is Michael ducacis governor of Massachusetts.
Two years before the election, a guy named Willy Horton,
imprisoned in Massachusetts for his part in a nineteen seventy
four robbery murder, gets out on furlough, And to be clear,
we don't know if Willy killed anybody. He was one
of three robbers. He would claim that he stayed in
the car and that his friends had no idea, that
(17:43):
he had no idea his friend's planned to kill a guy.
One of his friends would say, no, no, it was
Willy who went in. I think his friend was like,
I stayed in the car. But these people are all
dealing with We have no idea what actually happened, and
it doesn't matter to an extent because all three of
them were part of the crime. And that's the way
this sort of thing gets charged. Right, if you're part
of a robbery where someone gets shot, you can get
charged with that murder even if you don't pull the trigger. Right,
(18:03):
That's just the way the legal system works and worked. Then,
in June of nineteen eighty six, Willy gets out on furlough,
but he gets in trouble. I think he gets basically
the police come after him, and he decides to flee
the state rather than get caught and go back to prison.
He spends some time in Florida. Eventually he moves up
to Baltimore and in April of nineteen eighty seven, someone
breaks into a suburban home in Maryland owned by the
(18:26):
sales manager for a car dealership.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
The intruder I.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Think, stabs and ties the husband up and repeatedly rapes
his wife, Angela Miller, at gunpoint. Neither victim got a
good look at the assailant's face, but the victim stole
the homeowner's Camaro, and not long after this, the police
find that camaro with Willy Horton behind the wheel. While
he's being arrested, he waves a gun at the police
and they start shooting, and long story short, he gets
(18:50):
arrested after being shot I think a couple of times.
So Horton gets charged for the home invasion and the rape,
and when the news finds out that he is a
like the local news finds out that he's a furloughed
murderer from California.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
They flip out.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
And initially it's just a local paper, the Lawrence Eagle Tribune,
who wins a Pulitzer for their coverage of this. They
are pretty relentless uncovering the story, but it proves to
have legs beyond the local area, and the first person
to use it politically is actually Al Gore because during
the primary process, Gore has to debate Ducaucus for the
(19:24):
Democratic primary election, and Gore asks, if elected president, would
you put the same program in place federally, which is
itself kind of a stupid question because there were federal
furloughs at this point in time, right, it wasn't the
same program that existed, but like, yeah, anyway, Gore is
the first person to use this story for his benefit,
but he doesn't name Horton, right. He talks about the
(19:47):
story in broad details. He doesn't name the guy, he
doesn't put his picture out there. But Lee Atwater he's
paying attention to this debate. He knows it doesn't, you know,
give Gore the win. But he also, I think, kind
of sees where Gore didn't have the killer instinct, right,
ran up short, wasn't quite willing to go through with
this to the extent that Lee is going to be
willing to. And Lee sees this and he's like, that's it.
(20:09):
That's how we win this fucking election, right, And he
insists in campaign meetings that they have to pivot to
make this the central message of the campaign. He tells
his colleagues. By the time we're finished they're going to
wonder whether Willy Horton is to Caucus's running mate, right
that they being the voters. He told a Baltimore reporter,
the Horton case is one of those gut issues that
(20:31):
are values issues, particularly in the South, and if we
hammer it these over and over, we are going to win.
So all of this culminates in one of the most
famous political ads in the history of this country, the
Willy Horton Ad, And we're going to play that, but
first let's have some ads.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
And we're back.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
So the Willy Horton ad is to this day one
of the most famous and probably one of the most
successful political ads ever run. I'm just gonna play it.
If you can watch it in the YouTube or just
go watch it separately. You could google the Will Horton
ad or type that into YouTube. You'll find it.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
But you'll get most of it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
We'll describe what's going on, but you're going to see
a lot of a very scary picture of Willy Horton
right after he got arrested with a couple of gunshot injuries,
a picture that Willy Horton today is like, yeah, it's
a scariest picture of me.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Bush and Doucaca's On Crime. Bush supports the death penalty
for first degree murderers. Ducacas not only opposes the death penalty,
he allowed first degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.
One was Willy Horton, who murdered a boy and a robbery,
stabbing him nineteen times. Despite a life sentence, Horton received
ten weekend passes from prison. Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple,
(21:48):
stabbing the man and repeatedly raping his girlfriend weekend prison passes.
Doucaca's On Crime.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
And the scary photo is the second one they show
of him where he's being led in by a who
he's easily looks, I think because a forced perspective, like
two feet taller than he's just been shot. And he yeah,
like he looks like a guy who walked away from
multiple gunshot wounds.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Like it's this I'm gonna like inundate the airwaves with
this ad. These pictures of a guy during like the
worst point in his life. And also these pictures of
a guy who I can kind of it's this Southern
strategy thing right where I can throw all of our
audience's fears of crime and their fears of black people
and mix them together and like do Caucus is voting
(22:32):
to let specifically black murderers out?
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Well, they were, they will.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Specifically target white women, right, that's the message of the ad.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
This is the same like logic used in the last election,
but with immigrants. Like you look at the way that
they talked about like the Lake and Riley Act and
showed mugshots of alleged Venezuelan gang members during these big
press conferences, and yeah, it's attacking the same fears, like
the Bide administration or whatever is releasing these violent, violent
(23:01):
immigrants into our country.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
And that's you know, the Willie Horton ad gets a
huge amount of credit. And this is a thing where
this this election had looked a lot different in the
summer of nineteen eighty eight, which is, you know, right
before the conventions, which used to matter more. The fact
that you were locking in you know, people during that
used to matter more. But by the summer of eighty eight,
Ducoccus is ahead by more than seventeen points and Bush's
people are kind of braced for a disaster and the
(23:26):
future president's Chief of Staff Mary Madaline recalls quote, Lee
held us together with pep Talk's history lessons and weird statistics,
and a lot of those statistics had to do with
how he thought white people were going to react to
this story, this Willy Horton story, right, and this does
help turn things around. Now it's not his only dirty
trick in the Ducaccas campaign. He is fucking so cruel
(23:48):
to do Caucus. He starts a rumor that Ducaccus had
liked because it had worked for him while in the
past basically been close to being institutionalized for depression over
the fact that, like du Caucus, like the Washington Times
published an article that Atwater laundered that he had received
treatment for depression.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
At one point.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
And this was a fairly minor thing. But again Atwater
has it blown up. He makes sure this article gets
a lot of play, and it seems the point where
like a reporter asks Reagan, and again there's you know,
did Decaucus plant the question with the reporter? Did he
just plant the article? But this reporter asks Reagan, should
Dicacus released his medical records, you know? And the President
(24:27):
Reagan says, look, I'm not going to pick on an invalid,
which is almost the same response at Water had given
to the about like the electroshock treatment, Like he's doing
the same thing again, right, Like you see how it's
it's not a limitless playbook, although playing the hits also works, right,
And yeah, like journalists are asking Docaucus, are you going
(24:47):
to like have you seen a psychiatrist? And like if
he'd admitted that he had, like that's that also would
have been seen by a sizeable number of people as
like disqualifying. Right, we can't have a president who's ever
gone to therapy. I think we've seen where that takes
us as a culture. And yeah, this is like there's
a lot of negative statements about Decaucus's wife too as
(25:09):
a result of I think like some of her mental
health treatment and whatnot. And he kind of goes after
Kitty Ducoccus as well, and yeah, it's it's like there's
there's a lot of grossness around this election, and a
significant chunk of it is centered around at Water. Like
his whole attitude is I'm not going to like I'm
not going to pull any punches, and I will, in
(25:31):
fact invent some punches if that's what it takes to
like kick a guy when he's down as much as
it's possible, right, And yeah, I mean the end of
the story is Bush wins, like Bush beats dow Caucus.
Now there's also Docuccus rides around in a tank, uh
and doesn't look great in the tank. There's a very
(25:51):
a very silly video, like the helmet looks a little
too big on his head. But that's paired with the
reason people saw it is it's paired by an ad
that Atwater help to orchestrate, where people are talking about
all that ducac has had done to trim defense budget,
to like stop spending and basically to disarm America during
the height of our conflict with the USSR. And Ducaccus
(26:13):
was a governor, like he wasn't voting to.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Like it was all lies. They don't even chieft it.
It's just lies.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, but again the truth doesn't matter, right. What matters
is you get this, You get this shit in people's ears,
and that does all of the damage you need it
to do. Right, And that's that's what Lee Atwater knows.
And that's kind of his prime his major contribution to
Republican politics, and specifically to Republican electoral victories is he
(26:42):
is the guy like he gets credited with getting Bush
Senior elected and because of when he dies, he'll sometimes
his death will be blamed on Bush Senior failing to
get re elected. Bush Senior denies this, but I don't
know if he's the best source on things that got
him elected and didn't get him elected, given his record.
So this is like the peak of his life and
(27:04):
the peak of his success, right, Things turn around rapidly
for him after this. Obviously, the Willie Horton ad in particular,
gives that water a reputation for being a racist. And
this is one of the few things that really seems
to bug him, right because he would always bring up
the fact that he visited James Brown in prison, the
fact that he played with a number of he cuts
(27:25):
an album. One of the people he cuts an album
with is Isaac Hayes. Like he cuts this like R
and B he blues album and whatnot. That's like, yeah,
has Isaac Hayes on a couple of tracks, and there's
a very funny.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Review of it. Once SECU you pull it up. I
should have had this. Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited to
hear this.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
We can try to get a track together for the
end here. But yeah, so he production. The album was
recorded in nineteen eighty nine. One guess is to the
title Garrison, I ooh my god, because Lee Atwater cuts this.
His goal was to bring a wider audience the sounds
of the nineteen sixties, right, so he gets some all
(28:04):
time great rhythm and blues singers. There's Isaac Hay's, Chuck Jackson,
BB King, the Memphis Horns, Sam Moore, ar Leten Nightingale. Yeah,
like some heavy hitters on there, and then Lee Atwater
featured first. The critical reception was not entirely bad. The
Los Angeles Times called at Water not any better than
(28:25):
a singer in an average bar band, but he is
more convincing than other such pop celebrity figures such as
the Blues Brothers or Bruce Willis, which I think is
an insult to the Blues Brothers. Let's let's stop right there,
but fair enough when we're talking about Bruce Willis and
his period of time in music.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Look, he's no William Shatner.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Okay, he's he does not have Shatner's instincts. No USA
Today wrote even able assist from BB King and Isaac
Hays can't mask the utter amateurism of Atwater, soulish chirping.
That's a little devastating, that's a little mate, that's a
little cruel, and it's going to come out at a
time that's extra painful for him. Anyway, He again as
(29:05):
a result of his friendship with a lot of these guys,
he's really going to get heated. One of the ever
journalists will suggest maybe there was something racist about that
racist ad, and his ultimate argument was not even that, like,
it wasn't racist, It was that I didn't have anything
to do with it. It was produced by a third party,
an independent like or basically a pack made it and
they put it out there, right, so we're not to blame.
(29:27):
We had nothing to do with it, right, And this
was a lie. Evidence has since come out tying Atwater
in the Bush campaign to directing and funding the ad,
and more recently Roger Stone has come forward to admit
that like, yeah, that was Lee. PBS summarizes his recollection
of events, Well, he was running the Bush campaign. Atwater
said that he had secretly arranged financing for the Horton ad.
(29:48):
At Water locked the office door, says Stone, and he
popped the famous Willy Horton spot onto a television He said,
I got a couple boys who were going to put
up a couple million dollars for this independent and I said,
that's a huge mistake. And Stone always has an agenda.
I think in this case, he didn't want to be
associated with an ad this famously poisonous and racist, and
so he really wanted to jam it onto Atwater's head.
(30:10):
But there's independent people taught who will make the same
claim that, like, yes, this was funded, as this kind
of shit often is by the campaign. They just wanted
plausible deniability. Right, Everyone who's anyone knows it was Atwater.
He gets the next big like because of this, because
of not just the Willie Horton add but his altogether
(30:30):
successful role helping to get Bush Senior elected. He gets
appointed head of the r n C immediately after the
eighty eight election.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
That's his next job.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yes, like he was he was cutting that album well
while the head of the r n C. Yes, Garrison
to the head of the r and C. He is
the head of the r n C when he records
with Isaac Hayes. So this is the peak of Atwater's career,
and while his only.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yeah, you can't, you can't get a higher seems like
everything he wants out of life.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
In a way, he's he has and life is just
about done for him, and I shouldn't stay here before
we get further into his life. While his only lingering
interest in the Willie hort Nad was separating himself from
it right after it had done what he needed to
do for Bush's campaign. The repercussions for our criminal justice
system continue on to this day. During the election, Governor
Dukakis froze and then banned furloughs for people with life sentences.
(31:22):
This is in nineteen eighty eight, and the Marshall Project
describes how chaotic this is at the time. Inmates and
staff in Massachusetts prisons at the time describe how dozens
of lifers who had moved over the course of years
from maximum to medium to minimum, even to work release programs,
were gathered up in the middle of the night and
brought back to more secure facilities. They went out at
midnight and scooped up all these lifers to get them
(31:42):
back behind the walls in case any of them had
any mind to take off, said Greg Diatchenko. Who had
recently begun serving a life sentence in Massachusetts at that time.
Some of these lifers were out there for many, many years,
these first degrees, hoping for commutation, getting furloughs and everything.
Those guys kept their hopes up even after all that
that the political climate would died out and they would
eventually work their way out. We were told it would
just be a short while, maybe a year or two,
(32:03):
before the political climate changed and guys would get back out.
But things never changed back as we're all unfortunately aware,
stayed after State and the wake of the Willy Horton
had began restricting parole and eliminating work releases, commutations, furloughs,
and conjugal visits. This marked the start of the Republican
Party's embrace of just build more prisons as the solution
(32:24):
to every crime related problem. But Democrats got on the
action too. When stumping for his crime bill, Joe Biden
described his objective as to lock Willy Horton up in jail,
and Joe Willy Horton was already locked up like From
then on, it was known that any attempt to make
life easier for prisoners or provide chances for clemency, especially
(32:45):
as a member of the as an elected leader, as
an executive. Right, if you're a governor or something. If
you show mercy on a prison, all it takes is
one of the thousands of people you might provide clemency
to to commit a crime. And that's your career, the
politic career, the lesson they take. Right, it's great. Now,
(33:06):
would something like this have happened, like the Willy Horton
Horton ad have happened later if it weren't for Lee
at Water, Probably, but it happened when it did, and
how it did because of him, right, Well.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
Yeah, and it reflects the type of stuff that he's
talking about after like the Nixon campaign, right and like
a continuation of the Southern strategy.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yeah, all of this is the Willy Horton ad is
another way of just not saying the N word in
campaign ads when you really want to. So nineteen eighty nine,
Lee's recording a real album. He's on top of the world,
he's running the RNC. Eric Alterman spent time with him
in April to write that New York Times article that
we've quoted from, and the article describes his dirty tricks
(33:46):
in detail, but also lingers on how cool at Water
seems to this journalist. Here's how it opens. It's two
am on a sultry Saturday in Columbia, South Carolina. Does
the Republican Party know where its chairman is? Harvey Lee, atwater,
hometown boy, is on stage at Bullwinkles, a smoky dive
with two pool tables, dollar beers, and the raunchy, long
haired Mojo blues band shaking the rafters. The overflow crowd
(34:09):
is packed against the wall, forcing overdressed Republican gentry to
slip to rub elbows with the Bullwinkle regulars. Atwater has
changed out of his blue blazer and tie into a
late night t shirt that David Letterman gave him. His
guitar was a gift from Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones,
a souvenir of Atwater's gala blue celebration at a presidential
inaugural ball, Drinking beers straight from the pitcher, sweat pouring
down his face, Atwater apologizes for going home so early,
(34:33):
but the Saint Patrick's Day Parade is just seven hours
away and he is the Grand Marshal. His final number
is a repeat of his opener, Eddie Taylor's bad boy.
I'm bad, I'm bad, cries the man who masterminded George
Bush's nineteen eighty eight presidential campaign. I'm the worst you
ever had.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
It's the drinking straight from the picture.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
For me, this ain't your grandpa's republiced grandplas Republican party.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
They're cool now that they want to be cool so bad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
It's so funny, it's so funny. It's the literally the
only thing denied to them.
Speaker 4 (35:06):
It's such this like psycho sexual driver for conservatives to
be the real rebels, for them to be like like
the actual cool kids, and they will move mountains. Yeah,
and it's because try to achieve this cool kids status.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
The ones who are smart and influential are together enough
to like have interests outside of politics and to know
vaguely that like what I'm doing is really uncool and
fucked up. I wonder if I could just sort of
punish everyone into pretending that's not true, you know, and
then they'd have to treat me like I'm a good
musician and not right mean things about how Isa case
his voice is better than mine. So even that soon
(35:42):
after the eighty eight election, Lee's tactics were being adopted
by campaign managers across the political spectrum. Patricia Schroeder, a
Democratic congressman, told The Times, the real problem with Lee
Atwater is that his tactics are contagious, and in his article,
Alterman ads, Indeed, the question Democrats around the country are
asking themselves is can you beat Lee Atwater unless you
join him? And you know, the answers no. But also
(36:05):
they never quite figure it out, do they. They're always
bad at it.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, Yeah, we're still here. We're still here.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
We're still here, still getting dunked down by the guy
doing shots at buwinkers.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
Maybe we can just copy the Republicans' rategy over and
over and over again. Yeah, after they've already done it,
Maybe it's going to finally work.
Speaker 5 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Maybe being exactly like the Republicans will take the Democrats
where they want to be one of these days. The
thing they never learn is, like, what you should learn
from their Republicans is that it's okay to be a
dick to your enemies. You don't have to treat them
respectfully just because you're running against them, and you watch
the West wing right, you don't have to, for example,
lie about their wives.
Speaker 4 (36:43):
But the consequences right in a disaster for the US politics.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So Lee's tactics live on. He does not.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
On March fifth, nineteen ninety one, at Water collapsed at
a fundraiser for a Republican senator. And there's a very
funny store in the documentary Boogeyman that covers Lee Atwater
where he ed Rowlands, who worked several floors above him.
When Lee starts having seizures, his aides go get ed
Rowlands because at Water's like, You're the only guy I trust.
(37:15):
They're gonna kill me otherwise, and I don't know who
they are. It's either is it the Democrats? Is it
other nefarious people? But like Ed is like I thought,
you know, we'd really reached a point of like rapproch
mock because he was like, I'm sorry for like fucking
you over and all the bad shit I did. You're
the only one I trust, and Lee, like Rolands will
be like Lee said that I was his rock basically
(37:37):
during this period. And I found interviews with like the
like a major figure at the DNC saying the same
things about Lee that like, after Lee got sick, he
reached out to them and was like I now like
we're friends now, even though like I we're I can
respect this person. I was never able to do that
when I before I got sick, But now I can
respect this person who I disagree with. They've become by
rock And it's just I think Lee just lied a
(37:59):
lot about who how much support he was getting, because
he wanted other people to talk well about him after
he died. I think that's most of what this is.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's really bizarre. Yeah, and that's kind of what Roland's concludes.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
We'll talk about that in a little bit, but like, yeah,
on a so, yeah, he collapses at this at this fundraiser,
gets taken to the hospital. Doctors find out he's got
a brain tumor. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times wrote, quote,
after the tumor was diagnosed, mister Atwater assigned friends and
aids to research all aspects of the disease to help
decide on the best course of treatment. Our research, said,
(38:34):
and the further study of my scans kept us on
a roller coaster of good news and bad he said.
Then on March twenty first, we hit bottom, and it
was then that he learned that the tumor was way
worse than they had originally thought. He sees a healer
who tells him to get rid of his black t
shirts and start wearing red underwear, and he does this.
He tries massage therapy, but his particular cancer, it's this
(38:56):
brain tumor he's got, the only way they have of
treating it at that time. I don't know if we're
much better at it.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
They're literally drilling a hole into his head and dropping
little radioactive specs in there. So he has to like
sleep in a lead lined room in his own house,
and it swells his head up. Like he's too embarrassed
to be seen in public because his like head gets
massively swollen, like he does not. He looks like he's
dying horribly right, Like this is a really terrible death
that he dies, and he's aware of it the whole time.
(39:23):
There's a very unfortunate video of him like going out
in South Carolina one last time and singing I'm Bad
while deeply ill and like not able to get the lyrics,
and you can tell he just desperately wants to be
back at his height again, back like at this this
peak he'd inhabited not long earlier. He talks about that
(39:44):
a lot about like, and he'll give crowd pleasing speeches
about how I had everything just a little while ago,
and now I understand that like friends and family are
all that matter. But you can also tell like, I
don't know how much you believe that, Lee, I think
you would. You'd throw your friends and family away in
the second to be healthy, and a will to do
this for another.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Thirty years, just for a chance to go back to
what you were. Yeah, yeah, but he does.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
There's a public perception that a change sweeps over at water.
He writes like an article for The Times about how
Baddie feels about all his dirty tricks. He starts reaching
out to people he'd harmed over the years. He sends
a letter to Tacaucus. He apologizes to him for the
making Willy Horton your running mate comment and also for
saying he intended to strip the bark off the little bastard.
(40:27):
He admitted to the naked cruelty of the remarks. He
also claimed to have sent an apology for Willy Horton. Now,
the Marshall Project talked to Horton, and Horton was like,
I didn't I don't remember getting it, but I got
a lot of mail back then, So maybe I just
missed it. That one's going to have to come down
as like kind of unknown because Horton wasn't willing to
didn't say it was a liar. Was like, no, I
(40:48):
literally might have missed it. Like there were a lot
of shit coming in back then. He does write apologies
to a lot of people. Now, depending on who you
ask his people who remained his critics will be like
he never repudiated the tactics. He never said that he
regretted helping out the Republican Party or everything he did
to win. He just regretted how hurtful some of the
(41:10):
specific things he did were, and he apologized to those individuals, right,
But he never repudiated the strategies that had brought him
wealth in power. And Jane Mayer who goes through after
his death and then after his wife's death, his kids
let Jane Mayer go through his papers for The New Yorker, right,
and like one of his daughters, who went on to
be a Democrat, is like, I'm not going to talk
(41:32):
about like my dad, what he did is in politics.
He was a good father during the time that I
knew him, But like you know, obviously as adults, they
thought that this stuff was important to get to a
journalist like given the influence he had creating the modern
Republican Party, and Mayer also interviewed members of his family,
His old partner, Roger Stone, she writes his memoir, calls
(41:53):
on politicians to instead follow the Golden Rule. Roger Stone,
who formed an early consulting and lobbing firm in the
Washington area with Atwater, remains unconvinced about atwater spiritual awakening.
Lee was a great storyteller, Stone told me in a
recent interview, but in the end he was just grasping
its straws. The Atwater family disagrees and has no doubt
that he became a Christian, but at that point he
was also a Buddhist, Hindu and everything else. He converted
(42:14):
to every faith under the sun, whatever religious leader he sees,
he's making a conversion.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
That's that oldly that I know. That's that oldly we
know in love old.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Deathbed conversion Lee Atwater. And we'll talk some more about
Lee Atwater dying horribly, but first here's some ads and
we're back, so I want to read. There's a fascinating
paragraph from a Brooklyn Rail article Letter from the Trail
(42:47):
Atwater's Ghost that really gets into how Atwater paved the
way for Trump not just by normalizing ugly attacks and
making rhetoric meaner, but by destroying the credibility of even
mainstream Republican candidates. In other words, decades of Atwater politics
convinced conservative voters that there were no good candidates, not
even on their side, which was a necessary precursor to
(43:07):
Trump's rise to power. And this is something I didn't
really get the.
Speaker 1 (43:10):
Time this article. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Yeah, let me read this quote first and we'll talk
about it as that Water's progeny have become embedded in
the party. In its process, the constant stoking of fears
and the consistent personal attacks have eaten away at the
credibility if it's candidates, and in turn, the candidates don't
actually particularly require credibility to become the nominee. Far more
important is money, organization, effective destruction of the other, and
an ability to address as little as possible. The campaign
(43:33):
is now only about the campaign. Accordingly, mere electability becomes
the only major issue. The ability to campaign all that matters.
It is not he who is best to will win,
but he who best runs that will be awarded the
chance to run again.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
It's so much of it is like disregarding, like accepting
that each each candidate, as like a person, obviously is
going to be terrible. And it's it's just about this
theatrical prosit right.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
And who is best able to withstand it and endure it,
and which is not ever going to be someone who's
a good person anywhere clothes. Not that that's who was
getting elected before, but man, are you going to be worse? Right?
And there's one story from that Boogeyman documentary that I
find really funny about Lee near the end, which is
they talked to one of his like many R and
(44:22):
B singer friends, like one of these guys that who's
like a legitimate, like actual legend within the field, Chuck Jackson,
who like he played with from time to time and
who thought himself a friend of Lee's. And Chuck was
like when he got sick, you know, I gave him
a Bible and he told me, you know that this
really helped. This was like the one thing that helped
(44:42):
get me through. It was like, you know, coming back
to finding my faith, and you know, thank you you
played a big role in that giving me this Bible
and meant everything to me. And the documentary then cuts
to Ed Rowlands being like, well, I was talking to
a friend after they cleaned the stuff out of his
office and she found the Bible and it was still
wrapped in cell a fane and he was like.
Speaker 1 (44:56):
Hell, that was Lay, that was Lee. That so every time,
and like he dies.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
He dies at fucking forty, right at March nineteen ninety one,
after a year long fight against a brain tumor.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
He is forty years old.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
He probably never even got to sea Wild at Heart,
never got to see Wild at Heart. He did get
nominated for a Grammy that he does not get, for
this terrible album of his he gets not which is
listed as like one of the only things he wanted
out of life that he hadn't gotten is a Grammy.
But at least he got nominated before he died. He's
buried in his jogging suit and holding his Red, Hot
(45:38):
and Blue album.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
So Grave Robbers, there's no yead water for his other work.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Better known for his other work destroying the country, helping
to right God, it's so funny. He's such a such
a fantastic piece of shit. There's a really good quote.
I also like that Brooklyn rail article describes his end
like his last months of life. So I'm going to
read that really quickly as we close out telling a
(46:06):
friend that it's all bullshit. The truth has nothing to
do with it.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
At Water talk with you.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Regret of his actions, seemingly fearful of that which he
was leaving behind. Whether the repentance was genuine or just
a calculated attempt to gain passage to a peaceful afterlife
will never be discovered, but the damaging effects of his
earth bound legacy were plained to see in his home
of South Carolina. If one is seeking an analogy to
describe the current incarnation of the Republican Party, one could
do worse than a dying Lee at Water. It's brain
(46:31):
consumed with a deadly cancer, its words erratic, their credibility
under assault by its own crisis, its body radiated, fattened, atrophied.
At the last, the analogy runs dry, for while Lee
let out a cry for forgiveness, a plead to heaven,
the party in its voters seemed to be headed in
the opposite direction, and all of us going with them.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
You know.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's the one thing all of these negative articles about
Lee tended to have wrong was they all were written
more in the aughts. A lot of them came out
during like like this particular one that I'm quoting from
came out into the twelve so it's like the middle
of the Obama years, and like, no, no, no, this
is gonna work out a lot better for them than
you think it is. You're just irrationally optimistic right now
because we're in between shit storms. But uh boy, howdy,
(47:13):
oh he give you a couple more years, you'll be
writing different things about only Oh my, yep, how are
we doing?
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Oh well, anyway, I mean.
Speaker 4 (47:26):
Yeah, I don't know what else there is to say.
I mean, he it's not it's not necessarily that like
he won, but like his shadow, I guess looms.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
Yeah, he taught them what they needed to know to
get to the next step. He was a trailblazer.
Speaker 4 (47:40):
I guess people are contributing that trail even further than
what he had in mind. And yeah, maybe saw the
extension of where that trail would go and maybe that
like frightened him a little bit, but making the trail
was just too much fun.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
Yeah, Yeah, he may have hoped kind of half heartedly
that like, ah, well, I got kids, he's starting because
his kids are young when he dies. So maybe there's
a maybe there's a moment in there where he's like,
oh no, I may have left them a much worse world.
And I had always kind of hoped I'd get enough
time to like redeem myself, help somebod who didn't suck
ask get elected president. Maybe I'm giving Lee too much
(48:14):
credit there, right, I don't really think he became much better,
but I'll believe he was worried about the future that
he helped make.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
You know, we've got to have like a like a
like a political position in the country, like like our
like our national like riddler, you know, just somebody that
can have fun, play some games, like we need we need.
Speaker 1 (48:35):
A fourth branch of the government that's the Riddler. Yes,
because we could.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
We could save so much, so much trouble by just
having people who who like need to be entertainment but
can't quite cut it serve in public office. In some ways,
it's kind of an extension of like of like of
like a court gestor role. And I think this would
be really helpful, Like if we should like nationalize like
wrestling or something.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, we should nationalize wrestling. I've been saying for a
while we need one one real use for like all
of the AI chatbots, is we can create a fake
Hollywood where like you give people like Ben Shapiro, like
Hallmark movie budgets to write make better our movies, and
we just generate fake fans for him, and we tricked
them all into thinking that they're beloved creators. Can you
(49:20):
give him award every now and then?
Speaker 1 (49:22):
Let's give me one of the greatest harbor mitigation operations
of all time.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
We could have saved the country, you know, if we
if we'd really gotten out of this early enough, we
could have done a lot of good.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Even even people on the left like this sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
Like just this past weekend, Zoran did a massive scavenger
hunt around New York City. Everyone wants to do this
sort of stuff. Yeah, and I think we should have
a proper place for it.
Speaker 1 (49:44):
We should let that man play some mediocre blues.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Yeah, yeah, ah, god, if only I mean we started
to figure that out. He got his album at the end,
and you really got the feeling that, like, man, if
if we.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Had let him cut a blues album earlier, if he
got that Grammy in the seventies.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, we need we need an organization doing what like
the CIA used to do for like democracies in Latin America,
but for like failed comedians that are clearly heading for
the far right. We're like, no, no, no, you got
to save this man's career.
Speaker 4 (50:21):
We got a possible Stephen Crowder situation developing. And look, look, Iowa, if.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Joe Rogan gets too into podcast, it's going to be
a disaster for everybody else. You need to make get
his acting career going, Get him a gig every two
years with Adam Sandler in some dressing.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Movie is a go.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
I can just imagine, like Adam Sandler's out in like
the fucking Woods of Montana. A helicopter touches down a
man from the ennis. Mister Sandler, sir, we need you
to make another movie. Here's your cast list, sir. I
get out of this business years ago.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Jesus Christ, So what's your job of government. I'm Adam
Krolla is a fish handler.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Yeah, yeah, I convinced Adam Carolla. Things are still going well.
He's popular. Yes, it is a full time job.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
If the democratic like a leade cabal was real. This
is what they should be doing.
Speaker 1 (51:16):
This, this is this is the actual need.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yeah anyway, Oh well, got anything you want to plug gear.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
Sure news podcast. It could happen here our weekly news
roundup executive Disorder. I post about about yowie and conspiracy
theories and other fun stuff that tackles my fancy on
on Blue, Sky and X the everything app at by
shown in type wrapping up a series right now for
(51:46):
it could happen here on Blue and On Liberal conspiracy theories.
So that'll probably be out by the time you listen
to this, So fine to find that on it could
happen here that will not.
Speaker 3 (51:55):
Be out by the time they listened to this. That'll
be coming out well a couple days after this.
Speaker 4 (52:00):
Wrap after labor days. I'm still polishing this conspiracy turd.
So yeah, yeah, after labor Day, checkout check out my
piece on Blue and On.
Speaker 1 (52:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yeah, all right, everybody, And remember, folks, if you need
to get a copy of the original album pressing of Red,
Hot and Blue. Just finally at Water's Grave, there's a
track sat in there too.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
Oh my god, Jesus Christ, send it up with Voyager.
We need the aliens to listen to this, Oh my God.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the
Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday
and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash
(52:57):
at Behind the Bastards
Behind the Bastards News
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Robert Evans
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