Reply #1: I watched the PBS Frontline show on Lee Atwater last night, and [View All]

[Warpy]

was struck by the similarities between the two men. Lee Atwater was said not to be an ideologue but was a man who was motivated to get into a position where he held total power and could destroy other people on a whim. The program made the point early on that it was arbitrary which party Atwater joined, that he'd have done the same things for either of them.

Jones was what Atwater might have been had he decided to become the flip side of the coin, the hippie dippie leader of a Utopian society in the bush. Both men were psychopaths. Both men desired nothing more than complete control over other people. Both men had the drive and the charisma to make that come true.

Jones poisoned hundreds of people and killed them. Atwater poisoned politics in this country for a generation.

The only real difference is that early in his career, Jones actually did some good in the world.

Atwater never did.