As I've said elsewhere, I came out of this presidential election with a desire to better understand what really happened the last couple decades. One aspect of that questioning is wanting to understand what it was that brought the Republican party to the state that would lead to the past eight years and to such a damaging defeat?Tonight's Frontline begin to put those pieces into place in my search for this explanation as it focused on Lee Atwater and his arc through the Republican party starting in the 70's and ending with his death shortly before Clinton took office.
Sure this is a look into a politics of disgust that I and others have grown to hate intensely, but more striking then that for me was how this child of the South had to say about my own upbringing. Quite frankly, the South that Atwarter used so deftly in his career was the south that I grew up in.
One more piece in a puzzle that I shake my head in bafflement looking back to even before Regan's win in 1980. Looking into the eyes of the beast is not so easy when even in some small way you feel you see yourself looking back.
For those hungry to understand our current politics and the politics of the last eight years, this is a good place to start.
via www.pbs.org on 11/11/08
The rise and fall of the charming, Machiavellian godfather of modern take-no-prisoners Republican political campaigns.
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