Post by Eλευθερί on Aug 6, 2018 18:49:05 GMT
How about deathbed confessions?
And the most outrageous of all: deathbed conversions.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Conversion_to_Roman_Catholicism_and_repentance
www.nytimes.com/1991/01/13/us/gravely-ill-atwater-offers-apology.html
For those of you who don't know who Lee Atwater was, he was one of the most effective conservative Republican political operatives of the late 20th century. He admitted on tape that the Republicans were deliberately using racial prejudice, stoking racial hatred, to win elections.
www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
But here's the best part:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Atwater#Conversion_to_Roman_Catholicism_and_repentance
And the most outrageous of all: deathbed conversions.
In the months after the severity of his [terminal brain tumor] became apparent, Atwater said he had converted to Roman Catholicism....
Gravely Ill, Atwater Offers Apology
...
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.... 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....
He conceded that throughout his political career "a reputation as a fierce and ugly campaigner has dogged me."
"While I didn't invent negative politics," he said, "I am one of its most ardent practitioners."
...
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.... 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....
He conceded that throughout his political career "a reputation as a fierce and ugly campaigner has dogged me."
"While I didn't invent negative politics," he said, "I am one of its most ardent practitioners."
For those of you who don't know who Lee Atwater was, he was one of the most effective conservative Republican political operatives of the late 20th century. He admitted on tape that the Republicans were deliberately using racial prejudice, stoking racial hatred, to win elections.
The late, legendarily brutal campaign consultant Lee Atwater explains how Republicans can win the vote of racists without sounding racist themselves:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*g**r, n*g**r, n*g**r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*g**r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*g**r, n*g**r.”
You start out in 1954 by saying, “N*g**r, n*g**r, n*g**r.” By 1968 you can’t say “n*g**r”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “N*g**r, n*g**r.”
But here's the best part:
Ed Rollins, however, stated in the 2008 documentary Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, that "[Atwater] was telling this story about how a Living Bible was what was giving him faith and I said to Mary [Matalin], 'I really, sincerely hope that he found peace.' She said, 'Ed, when we were cleaning up his things afterwards, the Bible was still wrapped in the cellophane and had never been taken out of the package', which just told you everything there was. He was spinning right to the end."