From the Editor

■ It is now an Article of Faith among liberal mediapersons that Willie Horton was invented by Lee Atwater as part of a racist campaign that stole the 1988 election.

The facts, as excavated in a forthcoming column by Warren Brookes, are somewhat different. To begin with, the Massachusetts newspaper that broke the Horton story got a Pulitzer Prize for it. Brookes took it up just before the primary in Maryland (where Horton’s second victims lived) under the headline: Two Votes Dukakis Won’t Get. And this alerted the first politician to use the Horton case against Michael Dukakis: Democrat Al Gore in the New York primary.

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Presidential Election

■ It is now an Article of Faith among liberal mediapersons that Willie Horton was invented by Lee Atwater as part of a racist campaign that stole the 1988 election.

The facts, as excavated in a forthcoming column by Warren Brookes, are somewhat different. To begin with, the Massachusetts newspaper that broke the Horton story got a Pulitzer Prize for it. Brookes took it up just before the primary in Maryland (where Horton’s second victims lived) under the headline: Two Votes Dukakis Won’t Get. And this alerted the first politician to use the Horton case against Michael Dukakis: Democrat Al Gore in the New York primary.