Why the free press for Willie Horton?

Willie Horton?
Willie Horton is in the news again? What, did someone let him out again or something? Nope, Willie Horton is still in jail, in Maryland though.

On April 18, 1996, Horton was transferred to the Maryland House of Correction Annex, a maximum security prison in Jessup, Maryland, where he remains today
There's two parts to the Willie Horton story. Which one you prefer will probably turn on your basic politics.

In one scenario, it's all about the way that Willie Horton was used in the campaign adds for the election of Bush I.

Republicans would pick up the Horton issue after Dukakis clinched the nomination. In June of 1988, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush seized on the Horton case, bringing it up repeatedly in campaign speeches. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a household name."[1] According to one political writer, Horton never went by the name "Willie"; Atwater called him that "hoping to get more racial mileage".[2] Media consultant Roger Ailes was reported to remark "the only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it."

There have been accusations of negative campaigning, racism and generally sleazy politics (all of which are pobably true) over the way in which the issue was made into a political football. Here's the actual Willie Horton ad:
The second way of looking at the whole willie Horton thing is how incompetent government (no, not specific politicians, thos whole edifice) can be. Horton was in jail for life no chance of parole. Life really was meant to mean life. But they let him out for the weekend.
Hunh? You let somebody out of jail for the weekend, thinking he'll come back, when he knows that he's in that jail until the day he dies? Of course Horton legged it: any other rational being would have done the same.

Now why is all of this back in the news again? Ah, boring stuff.
Pundits and opponents may be drawing parallels, but the case of a killer released by a Mitt Romney judicial appointee won�t likely hurt the GOP candidate the way Willie Horton haunted Michael Dukakis.

Rudy Giuliani�s camp seized on the controversy almost immediately. Giuliani last week said Romney was accountable for convicted murderer Daniel Tavares Jr.'s release from prison last July.

Tavares was set free by Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Kathe Tuttman, a Romney appointee, despite protests from prison officials who said Tavares has assaulted other inmates and might still be dangerous.
Tavares has since been charged in the Nov. 17 murders of Brian and Beverly Mauck of Graham, Wash.

�The governor is going to have to explain his appointment,� Giuliani said. �And the judge is going to have to explain her decision.�
But campaign watchers say efforts to equate the case with the infamous Willie Horton incident fall far short.

Horton had been sentenced to life imprisonment and was incarcerated at the Concord Correctional Facility in Massachusetts when he was released in June 1986 as part of a weekend furlough program.

While on furlough in April 1987, Horton twice raped a woman in Oxon Hill, Md. He stabbed and pistol-whipped her fianc�.
At the time, Michael Dukakis was the Democratic governor of Massachusetts. While Dukakis had not initiated the furlough program, he supported it as a measure to help with criminal rehabilitation.

After the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that this right extended to first-degree murderers, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill prohibiting furloughs for such inmates. However, in 1976, Dukakis vetoed this bill.

Thus, the program remained in effect, and Dukakis continued to support it.
In 1988, allies of Republican George H.W. Bush broadcast a demonic photo of inmate Horton in ads against his opponent Dukakis. The spots accused Dukakis of being soft on crime.
Not that I thought Bush I or Dukakis were amazing politicians but compared to hte mental pygmies running this time around they were at least interesting.

http://timworstall.typepad.com/timworstall/2007/11/willie-horton.html