If you will recall, these critics like to call him a "liberal" judge. They don’t provide evidence of this. What they do is show his picture. Get it? He’s black. Black equals liberal. Liberal equals black. He’s black, therefore he’s the kind of judge we don’t like. It’s moronic, and it’s racist.
To give you further perspective, I urge you to peruse this column of Cindi’s from last year. Yeah, you might think the judge’s rhetoric is over the top. But he sure as hell has had to put up with stuff he shouldn’t have been subjected to. Here’s the column:
THE STATE
ANTI-BEATTY CAMPAIGN A DISTURBING TURNING POINT IN JUDICIAL RACES
Published on: 06/06/2007
Section: EDITORIAL
Edition: FINAL
Page: A6
Cindi Ross Scoppe
Associate Editor
THE PHONE message was from a long-time acquaintance who was simply beside himself because I as a woman wasn’t beside myself over the fact that a capable, talented woman wasn’t the odds-on favorite to be elevated to the state Supreme Court.
This wasn’t the only person who mistook my opposition to the below-the-belt attacks on Appeals Court Judge Don Beatty as support for his candidacy. Understandable, I suppose, since I didn’t pick a favorite in the three-way race between what looked to me like three capable judges.
Simply put, I don’t like to offer opinions unless I feel sure I know what I’m talking about, and I didn’t feel like I knew enough about the three would-be justices — only one of whom I had ever said more than "hello" to as far as I can recall — to make an informed choice.
As anyone who watched the circus that surrounded last month’s contest in the Legislature knows by now, others didn’t let their ignorance stand in the way. For the first time in S.C. history, several specialinterest groups not only took a position, and took to the airwaves with it; they demanded that legislators follow their orders — even when the basis for their position was at best flimsy and at worst fabricated.
What’s worse, that spectacle was likely only a taste of what’s to come as South Carolina’s judicial selection process takes on many of the corrupting and degrading influences of public elections.
Let’s get the hot-button stuff out of the way first: I’m not convinced that everybody who opposed the only African-American candidate in the race was doing so for racist reasons; I think much of the opposition to Justice-elect Beatty was a mindless, knee-jerk reaction to the fact that he had been a Democrat when he served in the House in the 1990s.
But the TV attack ad by a fringe group with a demonstrated absence of scruples: That was race-baiting. Not because it showed Mr. Beatty’s face; it would be strange not to show a picture of the person you’re attacking. What made it race-baiting was the way it managed to juxtapose his black face with the image of that extremely white young family just as it called for a judge with "South Carolina values." That, according to
my ad-savvy friends, is classic; anything more blatant would have been a turnoff to all but the most unreconstructed racists.
Distasteful as it was, though, the race-baiting isn’t what makes it important that we examine the ad campaign. There’s nothing new about using race in politics, and besides, we probably won’t see that again in a judicial race, since it’s unlikely that another African- American will be a serious contender for the high court for years to come.
The reason it’s important to examine the ad is that we almost certainly will see further attempts to turn judicial contests into the same kind of "our team vs. your team" contest that has come to define our actual elections. That’s bad enough when serious people are trying to figure out who would make the best governor or who should represent them in the Legislature — positions that are supposed to be filled by politicians. When it comes to judges — who if they have even an ounce of integrity rule based on the law, without conscious regard to their own personal, political preferences — the political language doesn’t even apply.
The ad, a $13,000 effort by Greenville-based "Conservatives in Action" that you can see at http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v= T463tgvvrdg, centers on the same largely irrelevant charges about cherry-picked votes from Rep. Beatty’s legislative career that had been making the e-mail rounds among other interest groups. But it frames them in the context of federal judicial appointments. As the screen fills with a farcical picture of two plump tuxedo-clad men at what apparently is supposed to be their wedding, the announcer intones: "Liberal judges continue to wreak havoc on America, from banning prayer in schools to legalizing gay marriage to restricting property rights. Outof- control judges have hurt our country. So how come some South Carolina Republican legislators are supporting a left-wing politician for our state Supreme Court?"
The announcer is unperturbed by the fact that no one has been able to cite any such liberal lawmaking from the S.C. bench — and particularly not by Mr. Beatty. He informs us that "as a legislator, Beatty opposed a measure to prohibit public funding of abortion; he also voted against gun rights and opposed tax and spending cuts." And finally: "South Carolina doesn’t need an ultra-liberal Democrat partisan on the state Supreme Court. We need somebody who represents South Carolina values."
A spokesman for Conservatives in Action told The Greenville News that the group "very well may" air more TV spots "to educate the public" in future races.
If you’re trying to place that name, think back to those pink pigs that were stuffed into Midlands mailboxes in the days leading up to last year’s Republican primary. This is the secretive group — believed by many to be a front group for the voucher lobbying group SCRG — that failed rather spectacularly in its attempt to unseat Rep. Bill Cotty for the sin of not licking SCRG’s boots.
The Conservatives in Action spokesman said the group would be "watching" the legislators who voted for Judge Beatty. It would make more sense to watch Judge Beatty, to see whether he actually does morph into South Carolina’s first activist justice. But don’t hold your breath: There’s an awfully good chance that would require the group to admit it was wrong about him.
Ms. Scoppe can be reached at [email protected] or at (803) 771-8571.
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