Welcome back to the re-education. I apologize for missing two shows last week. It was the Jewish High Holidays and I had some other work commitments. But I'm back and today's show is terrific. We have our first return guest, my good friend Jamie Kirchick, the author of The Secret City. Any contributor at Tablet Magazine, our topic today is asking the question, would Abraham Lincoln support the Lincoln Project?

Stay tuned. It's a fun episode.

Bush and Dukakis on crime. Bush supports the death penalty for first degree murderers.

Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty,

he allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.

One was Willie Horton, who murdered a boy in a robbery, stabbing him 19 times.

Despite a life sentence, Horton received 10 weekend passes from prison.

Horton fled, kidnapped a young couple, stabbing the man, and repeatedly

raping his girlfriend. Weekend prison passes. Ducacus on crime.

You just heard one of the most infamous ads in the history of American politics.

It was George H.W. Bush against Mike Dukakis in 1988. And this Willie Horton ad is seen

as a textbook example of dog whistle

politics. On the surface, it's about criminal justice and the policy of allowing furloughs to prisoners

serving life sentences. And that, I guess, is all fair game, but it's really about race. Willie Horton is a

black man and his mugshot featuring a menacing scowl and an unkempt afro is prominent in the spot.

The images and the mood and the music of the ad appealed to the lizard brain of the voter,

the part of our mind, most prone to fear and rage.

Now for the political consultant who made this ad,

a guy by the name of Lee Atwater,

it became his calling card.

Here he is in 1988 assuring a reporter

that the ad was not racist.

...