Rogues and Redcoats

Last week I caught two documentaries that could fuel a meaty "compare and contrast" homework assignment: Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story and The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. Both men were roundly denounced in their heyday, and yet both have their admirers.

Atwater grew up in South Carolina, where campaigning is particularly toxic. He changed the rules of national politics by bringing the smear into the modern age. He and his acolyte Karl Rove have done much to promote the idea of politics as total war with no holds barred.

Ellsberg was an analyst with the Rand Corporation, which was commisioned by the Pentagon to study America's involvement in Vietnam. When the study determined the war was far from just an idealistic effort to build democracy, Ellsberg took it upon himself to make the findings public.

Atwater was condemned for his death-blow against decency in public discourse. Ellsberg was denounced as a traitor for airing America's dirty linen.

One fascinating detail is that both men suffered childhood traumas that shaped their lives.

When Atwater was a boy, his younger brother pulled a pan of hot grease off the stove onto himself and within a few days died of the injuries. Atwater was devastated; the world was revealed as cruel and unfair, and Atwater developed a deep cynicism about life.

The young Ellsberg was riding with his family in a car driven by his father, who dozed off behind the wheel. In the ensuing crash, Ellsberg's mother and sister were killed. Ellsberg remained an idealist, but this tragedy taught him that authority figures are fallible.

In his early forties, Atwater was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. He searched frantically for a religion or philosophy to give meaning to his life. In the end, he repented the tactics that had brought him such success in politics, and he asked forgiveness of those whom he had attacked.

Ellsberg, still alive today, doesn't repent his leaking of the Pentagon papers, and history seems to have ratified his actions. America got out of Vietnam (though we eventually found other places to send our soldiers).


In researching our involvement in Vietnam, Ellsberg joined a patrol of soldiers, who were beset by Viet Cong snipers hiding in the jungle. It occurred to him that America was playing the role of the redcoats in this war, while the Cong were the revolutionaries, taking their opportunistic shots and then fading into the bushes.

Atwater was a sort of revolutionary, too. He decided on his own rules of campaigning, and his flummoxed opponents were often caught out in the open, taking fire from all sides. Michael Dukakis, featured in the documentary, still doesn't seem to know what hit him. He might as well have been wearing a red coat when he rode that tank.