Talk:Willie Horton
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I want to make a point here since this article seems to have a 'tit for tat' argumentation between Republicans and Democrats. Al Gore DID mention the furlough program in the context of the NY Daily News debate. He did NOT mention Willie Horton by name nor did he run a commercial with Horton's picture. BUT BUSH DID NOT RUN A COMMERCIAL WITH HORTON EITHER!! Bush DID mention Horton by name at least twice, once at the Texas GOP Convention in June 88 and in the first debate on 9/25/88. Bush DID run a furlough commercial, a rather misleading one - but that commercial DID NOT feature either Horton's picture or mention his race.
But it is ALSO true that the Bush campaign FOUND OUT ABOUT Horton by watching the NY debate. Hence, they discovered Horton because of Gore's reference. I will concede that they probably would have found out about it anyway since they were combing for information as all campaigns do. Yet if the argument is that Gore's mention was somehow okay because he didn't run a commercial about it, it seems pretty inconsistent to blame Bush when he also didn't run a commercial featuring Horton.
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What's the "evidence" that the Bush campaign had any involvement in the Revolving Door ad? To say that the Bush campaign "claimed" not to have produced it, is like saying (to take an example from the same campaign) that Dukakis "claimed" that Donna Brazile was acting on her own when she accused Bush of being an adulterer. Brazile said she was, Dukakis said she was, and that's accepted as being the way it was. Seems to be much the same with Revolving Door. Ellsworth 18:59, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
- The rules for independent expenditures are very strict -- it's not just a matter of whether the Bush campaign produced the ad directly, but whether they had any kind of involvement ("cooperation or coordination" is the official phrase, I think) in its creation, production, or airing. The evidence is that Ailes openly bragged that they would use Horton in TV ads, McCarthy's close relationship with Ailes, the suspicious timing with "Revolving Doors", and the fact that an employee of Ailes's firm worked on both ads. RadicalSubversiv E 19:13, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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- I think the re-write you did is a fair assessment. Thanks. Ellsworth 19:50, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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[edit] Let's work on this
"Sordid" is almost invariably rife with POV; it's also non-NPOV to find it "surprising" that Atwater claimed a deathbed conversion to "Born-again Christianity". But I am not the arbriter of non-NPOV and won't appoint myself such in this case, unless no one steps up, I suppose.
Rlquall 17:06, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
[edit] huh?
"Attempting to counter-attack, Dukakis's campaign ran a similar ad about a Hispanic murderer named Angel Medrano who murdered a pregnant mother of two while on furlough from federal prison. Dukakis's ad stated Medrano's name and showed his photograph."
Am I missing something? How could this help Dukakis? --Tothebarricades 09:29, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
- Well, it didn't help Dukakis that much -- but presumably it was motivated by the idea that if Dukakis could be held answerable for Massachusetts prison furloughs, then Bush was similarly responsible for federal prison furloughs. Determining whose political campaign was the more hypocritical is left as an exercise for the reader. 67.169.116.21 09:16, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Joseph Fournier
Willie Horton is a household name but who the hell is Joseph Fournier? Does anyone else but me care?
I would like to know more about this young man. I do know a few things about him that I remember from a Reader's Digest that I have not been able to verify on the net. The net is so new that much of the info about this case is not available on line. But I do remember a few things like:
There was a brave lady from the Boston Globe(was that it?) that exposed this case that everyone else wanted to sweep under the carpet. What was her name? She and Mr. Fournier's sister helped expose this policy to the national public. What was her name?
The way in which Horton killed young Mr. Fournier needs to be listed. I recall he was shoved the boy into a barrel with his feet up to his chin. It was cruel. He bleed to death and no doubt suffered much pain and fear. But all I ever hear about this case is how unfair it all was -- to Horton.
-- mccommas
- Dukaki has the idea of "rehabilitated prisoners" which branched from the "restorative justice" movement which started as early back as the 60's. This is one of Dukaki's statements during an interview by CNN's Berrie Shaw:
-
- (When asked if Dukaki would change his mind about the death penality if his wife was raped and
- murdered.) Dukaki said, "No, I don't, Bernard. And I think you know that I've opposed the death
- penalty all of my life. I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent, and I think there are
- better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. We've done so in my own state. And
- it's one of the reasons why we have the biggest drop in crime of an industrial state..."
- Unfortunately this was never successful in Dukaki's case. He and his allies wanted to shovel Horton's case under the rock. Joey Fournier's sister then formed an organization called "Citizens Against and Unsafe Society. Then when it was surfaced (mostly by Joey Fournier's sister, who's name I can't remember), they turned the Horton case into a "racist" situation, saying that everything about the Horton case was made just because he was black. On one occasion, Jamieson claims that it was Bush (Sr's.) administration's dirty trick to change William Horton's name to Willie (like an act of racism). In July 1988 Reader's Digest Jamieson refers to Willie Horton as William J. Horton., Jr, saying that it's his real name (though she, Jamieson, never states how she found that out [did she personally walk down the cell blocks and ask his cell block buddies?]). The fact that the word "Willie" was used instead of William was supposed to be the Republicans making a cruel, racist slur. Of course, this is completely false, as during an interview with liberal columnist Jimmy Breslin the day of Bush's inauguration, Horton referred to himself in the third person as "Willie Horton."
- Instead of being treated as a criminal who murdered and mutilated a 17 year old boy (Joey Fournier), stabbed Cliff Barnes repeatedly and raped and stabbed his wife twice, the entire case turned Willie Horton into a saint before the public as it tried to pit Republicans as racist for wishing to apply fair justice in the case of Willie. As Paul Harvey says, "And now you know the rest of the story."--NWalterstorf 17:12, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Al Gore?
Why does half this article involve Al Gore? It seems to me that a few commentators at the time the ads were run tried to shift the issue onto Al's shoulders, saying that the Democrats brought it on themselves. So why does an article on the entire Willie Horton series of events read like an indictment of Al Gore, of all people? What place do quotes from Novak and Kristol criticizing Al Gore ten years after the fact have in an article that should deal with the ads, their creators, their funding, and their effect?
I'm pulling the nonsense quotations out of the article now. Even if they do pertain (and they don't), they're poorly formatted and they don't belong in the middle of the body. --electric counterpoint 17:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
- I am going to edit down the "Al Gore" part of the interview quite a bit. I know Wikipedia subscribes to the NPOV standard, but NPOV is not the same as "including information known to be false". There is no evidence--no film, no audio, no news article, nothing--to indicate that Al Gore mentioned Horton during the 1988 primary campaign. It's probably true that "some believe" Gore did, but "some believe" the Earth to be flat. The several paragraphs about Gore, who never mentioned Horton, distract from the actual Horton story. Vidor 12:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Reasoning behind the furlough
It would be helpful, if someone could explain the reasoning behind letting life-without-parole convicts be eligible for a furlough. What arguments did D. use when he vetoed the the bill eliminating this? 213.243.182.3 20:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Willie Horton: The Person
It seems odd to me that most of this article is about the Dukakis political campaign, when it is supposed to be an article about a person. Maybe we should put in some more stuff about Willie Horton? Kinghy 06:28, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
