A tense moment on set

I was pretty curious about meeting former Dem nominee Mike Dukakis. After having suffered Lee’s relentless attacks in ‘88 (and utterly failing to respond in time), he was hit with one of the worst mixtures of ridicule and obscurity the Dem party ever gave a losing candidate. How had The Duke weathered the storm? Would he be defensive about Lee Atwater, Willie Horton, and other painful memories?

Wanting to give our historical doc more immediacy, my producer Noland and I decided to confront our interviewees with powerful video footage and record their reactions. I had a clip of Lee holding forth to an admiring gaggle of reporters, calling Dukakis “a hypocrite” and ridiculing him as “out-of-touch…one of those double-dipped frostbelt Kennedy liberals.”

I didn’t want to make Governor Dukakis feel disrespected by this footage of someone insulting him. But he’d agreed to the concept. He’d never met Lee face-to-face. Now, in a way, he would.

I’ve got to admit, as I pressed ‘play’, I was a little tense. Would he get pissed off and kick me out of his house?

 

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