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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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061989
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06198900.034
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1990-09-22
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NATION, Page 33"Sorry" Is Not Enough
From his early campaigns in South Carolina through the 1988
presidential election, Lee Atwater has displayed a talent for
smearing opponents and then either apologizing or suffering memory
lapses about his role. Months after the Willie Horton issue had
polluted Campaign '88, Atwater told reporters he wished he had
never heard of the black rapist he helped pin on Michael Dukakis.
One secret of George Bush's success is to employ muck mavens
like Atwater -- even elevate them to prominence -- and then
dissociate himself from their tactics. Last week the President
acknowledged that the attack on Tom Foley was "disgusting . . .
against everything I have tried to stand for in political life."
Yet, though Atwater initially defended the Foley smear, Bush stood
up for him. Atwater's fouling the civic atmosphere with vicious
misinformation is bad enough; compounding that with White House
hypocrisy is too much. If Bush really wants to prove himself a
political environmentalist in search of a kinder, gentler America,
he should sack Atwater.