No, he wasn’t. He simply brought up the furlough issue. That is a lie and anyone who repeats it is lying. But not only are they, and you, lying, but they are morally equivicating a sin that GWHB specifically did commit. It is a sleazy lie.

JMJ

One can listen to a folk song in the style of Woody Guthrie’s lighter numbers, called “Run Al Run!” by Paul Kaplan, whose refrain is:

Run, Al, run
How can you lose when you already won
Way back before all the damage was done
Now you’re the number one favorite son
So run, Al, run.

Today, we’ve reviewed two more Standard Press Corps Tales, stories the press corps has now pushed for years. Al Gore was the first to bring up Willie Horton! All the major scribes know to say it! And George Bush surely must have served in the Guard! They all know they must sing that song too.

JMJ

“I’ve heard this one before, too many times. Moral equivication aside, it’s not entirely true, whereas it was entirely true of GHWB.”

I didnt know that Bush asked Horton to write that song ?
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Jersey. You have never been able to prove anything you say about Bush as even remotly true.

Ew. Then McCain would be my senator. Ew.

I’ve heard this one before, too many times. Moral equivication aside, it’s not entirely true, whereas it was entirely true of GHWB.

http://www.slate.com/id/1003919/

“… Gore did ask Dukakis, in a debate right before the 1988 New York primary, about “weekend passes for convicted criminals.” Here is how Sidney Blumenthal, now a Clinton White House aide but then a reporter for the Washington Post, wrote it up a few months later:

An uncomfortable Dukakis, after dispassionately reciting statistics, conceded that the Massachusetts furlough program for murderers sentenced to life imprisonment had been canceled.

The issue did not take for Gore, but the exchange attracted the interest of Jim Pinkerton, the research director for the then flailing Bush campaign. “That’s the first time I paid attention,” said Pinkerton. “I thought to myself, ‘This is incredible’ …It totally fell into our lap.”

In reviewing this history, it’s important to make some crucial distinctions. Gore never mentioned that Horton was black; indeed, he never mentioned Horton by name. He merely drew attention, correctly, to the damaging fact that Dukakis had tolerated a furlough program for especially violent criminals in his state even after a horrific incident strongly suggested this was a bad policy. It’s conceivable, of course, that Gore was warming up for more explicit and racially tinged use of Horton’s story later in the primary fight. But that would have been uncharacteristic of him. In any event, Gore dropped out of the race shortly after the debate. …”

Not to nitpick, but that one always bothered me. Carry on.
JMJ