Rush Limbaugh has advanced lung cancer

[Demovictory9]

78. when gravely ill, Lee Atwater began apologizing for ugly political tactics (Willie Horton ad)

In a detailed and candid article about his career and his fight against an inoperable brain tumor, Lee Atwater has apologized to Michael S. Dukakis for the "naked cruelty" of a remark he made about the Democratic Presidential nominee in the 1988 campaign.

The apology by Mr. Atwater, who is now in his last month as chairman of the Republican National Committee, is included in an article in the February issue of Life magazine, where he also starkly describes his often-desperate attempts to deal with his illness and his fear on some nights that if he falls asleep, "I will never wake up again."

As manager of Mr. Bush's campaign, Mr. Atwater succeeded in making the case of Willie Horton, a convicted murderer, an issue against Mr. Dukakis.

Mr. Horton, who is black, raped a white woman and stabbed her husband while on a weekend furlough from a Massachusetts prison. The Bush campaign used the case to portray Mr. Dukakis, then Governor of Massachusetts, as a liberal who was soft on crime.


"In 1988," Mr. Atwater said, "fighting Dukakis, I said that I 'would strip the bark off the little bastard' and 'make Willie Horton his running mate.' I am sorry for both statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not." Reputation as 'Ugly Campaigner'

Since being stricken last year, the 39-year-old Mr. Atwater has apologized on several occasions for many of the campaign tactics he once employed and for which he was criticized. But rarely has he spoken in such detail or with such candor as in the interview for the first-person Life article.

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/13/us/gravely-ill-atwater-offers-apology.html