Dear FRONTLINE,

I was astonished. Frontline has a track record of fairness and impartiality. The Lee Atwater story was a radical divergence - filled with partisan distortions and half-truths. An example: the campaign against Mike Dukakis was portrayed as untruthful and unfair, centering on the Willie Horton matter. Yet the truth is that the felon furlough program, as extended to convicted murderers by the Massachusetts supreme court and Governor Dukakis, was a telling example of the governor's bad judgment. The issue was first raised to the public by Al Gore. Yet Frontline would have us believe that the whole issue was somehow a false, defamatory and racist attack unfairly launched by Mr. Atwater. It was not until the last few moments of the program that any positive perspective on Atwater was allowed to make it past the editors' cutting bin. Frontline has proved itself time and again to be much better than this, and I certainly hope that this program was an aberration and not a harbinger of things to come.

John Hackman
Mt. Pleasant, MI

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have been a devoted and enthusiastic viewer of Frontline for three decades, and have never been anything but pleased with the program. While I found the Lee Atwater documentary to be overall quite good, I was distressed by the ending. The last comment seemed to imply that Atwater's brain cancer was somehow a divine chastening for his amoral political activities. As a person with brain cancer, I find the suggestion that a disease might be viewed as a divine retribution on its sufferer to be equally as offensive as any of the outrageous statements made by Atwater and his disciples in their campaigns to discredit their political opponents. It's as objectionable as conservative evangelicals asserting that AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuals. Lee Atwater definitely deserved some kind of punishment for his lies and his shameless manipulation of the political process, but to imply that his death from gliablastoma multiforme was some kind of karmic retribution is insulting to the millions who have died from brain cancer without ever having harmed anyone.

BRIAN PERRY
BOSTON, MASS

Dear FRONTLINE,

Lee Atwater was a deeply malign influence on American politics, an influence that is still felt to this day and may have changed our politics forever. The Republican playbook since Atwater has been "attack and slime," with no regard for the truth. When Randolph Churchill had surgery for cancer, someone said, How could they tell which part was Randolph, and which part was the cancer? I've always thought this could apply very well to Atwater. George H.W. Bush will wear the stain of the 1988 forever.

Charles Miller
Ellicott City, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

What a horrible man. What a horrible media that supplies energy to such misdeeds. What a horrible populace that cannot discern the nature of such tactics from important, relevant issues. America, the greatest democracy? Perhaps once so, but now a joke.

Tom Tonon
West Windsor, NJ

Dear FRONTLINE,

Great documentary on Atwater, although I found his tactics backhanded and at times dishonest I can't imagine a national political hopeful who wouldn't want a Lee Atwater on his side. I also find it interesting that the media types who found him so revolting didn't hesitate to run with any tidbit he threw them. Its always the other guy who has no morals. As for me, I call myself a Goldwater style libertarian, so I'll use his words to sum up my view of all things political; "In order to disagree, one need not be disagreeable."

Mark Kelly
Clinton, N.J.

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am not a psychiatrist, but having just read a gripping article about psychopaths in the New Yorker I can't help but wonder how Atwater would have rated. His brother's tragic death, his shallowness, quest for power and ability to manipulate are all pretty classic traits for the diagnosis. More than anything though, conveyed even through the lens of the camera, those invasive and chilling eyes. Am I the one out of three that gets a visceral reaction to a psychopath? I certainly reacted to The Boogieman that way.

Rebecca Jones MD
cambridge, MA

Dear FRONTLINE,

This program has impelled me to be sure to call my Republican senator and let him know that I deplore....the fact that a Republican Congress allowed PBS to continue to receive taxpayer money, and remember that most Federal income taxes paid in this nation are paid by Republicans. Yes, PBS has the right to put on Republican bashing garbage like this, but we don't have to be made to pay for it.

David Levine
Hobe Sound, FL

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have always watched and enjoyed Frontline. However, I found the documentary on Lee Atwater to be, as biased as a program as I have seen. Do you really believe that Lee Atwater got brain cancer and died because of his political actitivies? Do you really imagine that Lee Atwater was evil? The whole story had an undercurrent that the Republican party and especially George W Bush were and are illegimiate. I found the whole program to be profoundly biased. It attempted to portray Lee Atwater as truly evil, and his protege and the next evil guy is Karl Rove. It was like an opportunity for failed democratic candidates, to say "see we lost unfairly, and Lee Atwater got his brain cancer in the end and justly so". If this is the best that Frontline can do for programming, then I will eventually find programming that provides fair and unbiased documentaries. I am sorry to see that PBS has lowered its standards to those of the likes of Michael Moore, and his documentaries.

Robert Winters
Oakdale, Pennsylvania

Dear FRONTLINE,

Lee Atwater was as evil a man in American politics as I have seen since 1949 and I'm now 74 years old. People tell me not to speak ill of the dead. I then ask back "Tell me something nice about Hitler!"

Boca Raton, FL

Dear FRONTLINE,

The Republican party needs more Lee Atwaters and less weak-knee'd, let's get-a-long with 'em, McCains!

Jack Schilling
Lubbock, TX

Dear FRONTLINE,

I thought the most telling moment was Ed Rollins saying that Atwater's bible still had the original cellophane on it when he died. Although I would like to think he had a catharsis toward the end, it appears more likely that had he recovered he would have gone back to his old ways. What does it say about Karl Rove who having witnessed Atwater's rise and fall was bound an determined to outdo his mentor in the politics of destruction. Hopefully the country has turned that sorry chapter in our history with the election of Barack Obama.

roy herbst
ridgefield, CT

Dear FRONTLINE,

I worked in the District in various Rublican campaign posts when Lee Atwater was in his heyday. He was a mythological figure to us all...we will never see the same brilliance in political strategy that we realized in Lee.

Nancy McCaffrey
Elkins Park, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

It was an incredibly produced show that made me ill to watch. Particularly those that today see nothing wrong in the tactics used. The hypocrisy - people like this do not love their country or care for its people. It is only about power and destruction. It was very telling in McCain/Palin's negativity, and the mantra of "fight..fight...fight". Thank God that Obama won the election. Anyone who votes for candidates that are supported by these tactics are voting fully against their best interests.

Craig LeHoullier
Raleigh, NC

Dear FRONTLINE,

I'd heard of Lee Atwater and that Karl Rove was his protoge, but never realized what a despicable human being he was. He harmed this country greatly, and we still live with the filth he perfected as politics. I can't help but think that in the end he got just what was coming to him.

Margaret Jones
Indianapolis, IN

Dear FRONTLINE,

This show is not a documentary - it is a well-made hit job on Lee Atwater and the Republican Party. At one time, Frontline was a high-quality show, focused on facts and perspective. It is unfortunate to see that this is no longer the case.

Natick, MA