"Sorry" Is Not Enough

From his early campaigns in South Carolina through the 1988 presidential election, Lee Atwater has displayed a talent for smearing opponents and then either apologizing or suffering memory lapses about his role. Months after the Willie Horton issue had polluted Campaign '88, Atwater told reporters he wished he had never heard of the black rapist he helped pin on Michael Dukakis.

One secret of George Bush's success is to employ muck mavens like Atwater -- even elevate them to prominence -- and then dissociate himself from their tactics. Last week the President acknowledged that the attack on Tom Foley was "disgusting . . . against everything I have tried to stand for in political life." Yet, though Atwater initially defended the Foley smear, Bush stood up for him. Atwater's fouling the civic atmosphere with vicious misinformation is bad enough; compounding that with White House hypocrisy is too much. If Bush really wants to prove himself a political environmentalist in search of a kinder, gentler America, he should sack Atwater.