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George Bush Sr. on Crime
President of the U.S., 1989-1993; Former Republican Rep. (TX)
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Willie Horton was a crime issue, not a racism issue
Today, after many years of Democrats and the press repeating false information, people mistakenly think the campaign used the Willie Horton story to racially divide people, not to show Dukakis's weakness on crime. (Years later, during the debate over the
Bush administration's civil rights bill, Dad sent my brothers and me a briefing paper reiterating the facts of the Horton case, because they had gotten so distorted over the years. His note read, "If anyone raises Will Horton in some context other than
the furlough abuse, flash this true explanation at 'em.")I asked Dad recently about the whole Will Horton episode: "I felt we did the right thing. It was definitely a crime issue. We got on Dukakis about having this lenient furlough program where he
let people out of jail, and here was the best example--a man who was a convicted rapist who went out and raped again when he was on furlough." The crime issue was very powerful.
Source: My Father, My President, by Doro Koch Bush, p.247
, Oct 6, 2006
1988: "Willie Horton" TV ads attacked furlough program
The inflammatory ads produced by Americans for Bush, one of George's political action committees, showed Willie Horton, a convicted black murderer who raped a white woman after he was furloughed from prison by then-Gov. Dukakis. Another ad featured the
fiance of Horton's rape victim; another the sister of Horton's murder victim. One particularly racist ad in North Dakota showed the dark visage of the 1st-degree murderer and told viewers: "Imagine life with Jesse Jackson as secretary of state."
Gov. Dukakis had never mentioned the possibility.Yet 3 years later Bush continued to deny that the issue was designed to be racially divisive: "The point of Willie Horton was not Willie Horton himself. The point was, do you believe in a furlough
program that releases people from jail so they can go out and rape, pillage and plunder again? That's what the issue was." Even Lee Atwater was so ashamed of the ugliness he had helped perpetuate that he made a public apology before his death in 1991.
Source: The Family, by Kitty Kelley, p.463-464
, Sep 14, 2004
Page last updated: Apr 28, 2013
