I wasn’t there when S.C. House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham tore into Nikki Haley on June 29, claiming her office misled lawmakers on the budget. But I had heard it was really something. After all, it got Kenny a standing ovation, which sort of tells you where our governor stands in the estimation of that Republican-dominated body.
Somehow, it didn’t occur to me to look for the speech on YouTube until someone mentioned it this week. I urge you to watch it.
By the way, for a fuller explanation of what happened, read Cindi Scoppe’s column of July 3.
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“There is no educational value in the second kick of the mule.” Would that all SC voters understand that simple principle. I still have my “Republicans for Sheheen” sticker on my vehicle. It’s the way I say “I told you so” to all those folks who ignored the glaring warning signs flashing around the not-so-honorable governor of South Carolina. Ugh. I am so ashamed of my beloved home state. She has lied so many times (kicked us, if you will) – how can anyone possibly trust a word out of her mouth?
Cry me a river. These legislative bumpkins sit around on their backsides and pass useless resolutions and waste the taxpayers money on sheer, unadulterated crap like the damn vegitable resolution then we’re supposed to have sympathy for them over the governor’s attempt to actually get them to do something. The whole damn bunch of ’em should be thrown out on their backside. I’m just sick of this crap.
Haley’s actions in this case made it pretty clear she has no legislative agenda, and is simply looking for a way to advance a career and get out of the Governor’s Office, and probably out of South Carolina permanently as soon as she can. Just watch.
Bud, you’re completely misunderstanding what happened here, particularly if you think the gov’s action was in any way defensible. I’ll explain when I’m on something better than my phone later…
Bud, here’s what happened (and Cindi’s column, linked above, explains it better)…
Far from “sitting on their backsides,” Kenny et al. had worked hard with the governor’s office to come up with a mutually agreeable plan on that portion of the budget.
Nikki went back on that, without warning, without a polite word to the people her office had been working with to let them know they were about to be stabbed in the back. Grown-up people don’t do that. They don’t do it in government; they don’t do it in business. It’s pretty grotesque.
But the main thing you’re misunderstanding is this idea that the governor was trying “to actually get them to do something.” No. Far from it.
What she was doing was a standard Mark Sanford tactic: Veto something that is red meat to the right — in this case, ETV — with full confidence that she will be overridden, so that she doesn’t have to live with the political consequences of ETV actually being defunded.
So, she paints herself as the extreme libertarian heroine who TRIED to shut down that wicked, wasteful, liberal ETV — but those worthless, do-nothing good old boys wouldn’t go along.
It works, because for some reason among the public it’s easier to believe the governor they think they know (in spite of all the indications that they should not) than to believe those faceless legislators they don’t. It worked, over and over, for Sanford, and she’s following the same game plan.
She double-crossed these guys, she used them — not to accomplish anything, but to posture — and you’re blaming THEM?
Welcome to the Tea Party, Bud…
I suppose in a technical sense Haley did stab the leadership of the General Assembly in the back on a procedural matter. So I’m not defending her. I don’t like her nor do I trust her. But that to me is a rather minor point.
My beef is that the general assembly is such a bunch of cry babies that can’t get anything done. Then they turn around and start growsing and complaining about the governor. They should have just passed a simple, straight-forward resolutuion to fund ETV. Then if the Governor vetoed it they can then over-ride it. That way the voters know exactly where everyone stands and they can decide. I’m sick of all these games and about as equally sick of the press for actually defending the games. Give me a clean, defensible legislative body without all this deceptive chicanery. Then when someone’s word is broken I’ll have a bit more sympathy.
Re: ETV—the programming we watch and hear is funded by viewers/listeners and grants. The ETV she was vetoing is the sort of rural outreach programs, teacher training and so on.
Since we found out at Rotary that she watches Fox News and reality TV shows and listens to 80s music, this distinction was lost on her and her rabid followers.
It’s sad to see a grown man throw a hissy-fit.
Bud, forgive me for insisting on these particulars when you’re trying to meet me halfway, but…
It was NOT “in a technical sense” and it was not “on a procedural matter.”
She betrayed them in a fundamental way that even kids on a playground would understand. It’s simple, basic human relations we’re talking here, a lack of honest dealing, and there’s nothing technical about that. Hence the honest anger.
Nor was this procedural. This wasn’t some vote on whether to send a proposal back to committee or something. This was THE decision on a matter of actual effect in the real world — and SHE played symbolic, empty politics with it. Her betraying them provided extra insurance that they would override her, thereby guaranteeing that her veto would have no effect in the real world other than scoring points with the kinds of people she cares about scoring points with.
Also, “growsing and complaining about the governor” is NOT the default mode of the Legislature. Although, unfortunately, making lawmakers the scapegoats has become the default mode of the governor’s office since 2002 — don’t actually try to accomplish anything; just make empty, dramatic gestures and blame the Legislature for not going along.
For a GOP leader (particularly a House GOP leader) to get up like this and vent his spleen toward the governor’s office — the REPUBLICAN governor’s office — goes against all of his instincts and habits. It doesn’t happen very often. These guys want so badly to get along with the governor of their party, and to be SEEN as getting along with the governor of their party, that they will generally take quite a bit of abuse before even quietly, carefully, complaining off the record.
For a guy like Kenny Bingham to get up and put on a display like this is FAR from the norm. It’s man-bites-dog stuff, actual news. Which is why when I heard it was available on YouTube, I right away thought, “I’ve gotta see THAT.” And also why I wanted to share it with y’all as soon as I saw it. It’s remarkable stuff.
I’m curious as to how listening to 80’s music and watching TV shows has anything to do with ETV.
Does the reverse work the same way? If you watch ETV do you not listen to 80’s music or watch reality TV shows?
The FOXNews is another argument. She should have messed with you and said she watches MS-NBC.
Nikki listens to 1980s music. If you watch ETV, you listen to 1780s music.
Or, come to think of it, 1950s music or early 1960s (pre-Beatles) music. I’m going by the stuff they show on pledge week. They apparently believe that everyone who might give money is an ardent shagger in his or her 60s.
Ok, so on this particular point I won’t defend the governor. (Not sure that I was actually doing that with any real zeal to begin with. Whatever). I just find it gauling that there was ever a deal about ETV to begin with. So let me strip any reference to the governor by simply saying the General Assembly should have put forth a simple, honest, straight-forward, up or down vote to fund ETV. Had they done that in the first place we wouldn’t even be discussing the Governor’s bad manners.
i’m not sure that Haley’s own preferences in entertainment (unpleasant and unedifying though they are) have much to do with her position. There are people who vote for her who believe ETV is a hotbed of liberalism. They won’t be happy unless they can serve Big Bird’s drumsticks at Thanksgiving with a side of cranberry sauce. She doesn’t care one way or another what is or isn’t a good source of news or entertainment, she is just giving the crowds their bread and circuses so she can continue her personal campaign for fame and fortune unimpeded.
I think that Nikki positioned herself as lowbrow, on purpose–maybe she actually watches CSpan and CNBC and Washington Week in Review and is just pretending to be the “common man”—
I used to be the announcer, among other things, for a Renaissance choir, and we said that we sang the hits of the 50s and 60s–the 1650s and 1560s….
Well I watch ETV AND listen to 80’s music. But I guess I’ve always been a contrarian, if in a quiet sort of way.
The part of his speech where he explains what ETV really does with that funding (which is not broadcast TV shows) is also quite good, since apparently only about 2 people in the state actually get that point. I very much respect that he takes the time to understand what ETV does since the Governor clearly does not.
I would like to understand how exactly the Governor did this. I mean, did she authorize her people to make this arrangement and then knowingly go back on it, or could it be that she somehow did not know what her people had worked out in her name? Neither is good, but one is a little more sinister rather than merely incompetent.
I cannot think of a better way for our Govenor to ensure that the legislative branch will not work with her in any way. She has just succeeded in crippling our government for the next 3 years. Maybe she figures that if she can’t drown it in the bathtub she can at least make it a quadriplegic.
Well I like 80’s music, I guess I’m banished from the ETV scene. Oh well, as little ETV as I watch I don’t think it’ll impact my life too badly.
I thoroughly enjoyed the hissy fit. I think ETV ought to run highlights of it periodically between shows.
I finally got a chance to watch Mr. Bingham’s speech. What a sad and disgusting display of pure hypocricy. For a Republican congressman to lecture someone else about “honor” and “integrity” just makes me sick to my stomach. Let’s be very, very clear about what they were trying to do. They were trying to dishonestly fund ETV burying it in an unrelated piece of legislation. Brad and Cindi can try to defend the nonsense all they want but this is what makes me sick to my stomach about the way our government operates. It’s gauling to see such a display of vitriol over the defense of what was basically a big fat lie. l
It is honorable to do the right thing the best way you can.
What disgusts you is that people vote Republican — which most in SC do.
You want lawmakers to fund ETV in a way that proclaims, “Look at me; I saved ETV!”
But if they do that, they’ll be replaced by people who WON’T do that.
Fact of life.
I agree with Brad and Joanne here. Bud, get over it. As a liberal living in Lexington County, I’ve sure had to. I doubt I’ll live to have representatives who remotely share the majority of my political ideologies. (Setzler is at least somewhere in the same universe.) But I can and do commend them when they do what I believe is right for my community, like fighting for Amazon and standing up to Haley.
Hissy fit? Nah, he just got a little emotional about Nikki’s audacious lies.
I watched it live on ETV. It was stunning.
I wonder why bud lives in SC and not Mass. or California or Minnesota. If I was as unhappy and obsessed with government the way he is I’d live somewhere where I was happy with the state government.
’70s clasic rock ROCKS!
According to @fitsnews, SC Guv’not @nikkihaley enjoys going to strip clubs. She and her hubby, First Guy, have been spotted as strip clubs in Myrtle Beach, New York, and Chicago.
I know of one Republican that could not vote for Guv’not Haley.
I feel like Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres. He was the only sane person in the insane world of Hooterville. Why is it such an odd thing to want a legislative body to simply put forth a simple funding proposal (for ETV) and then vote it up or down? Seems dishonest to me to do it any other way. But I concede defeat. We’re just stuck with a General Assembly that conducts business in a weird, convoluted manner. What I don’t get is when the Governor does it everyone goes ballistic. Just seems like business as usual.
OK, Ralph. I give up — who is the one Republican that could not vote for Haley?
“I feel like Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres”
I was thinking more along the lines of Eb.
Eb was my favorite. Eb was in that world and of that world more intensely than anyone. He was LIVING the Hooterville Reality…
Mr. Douglas was a pitiable figure…
Arnold Ziffel, ftw!
“I feel like Oliver Wendell Douglas from Green Acres. He was the only sane person in the insane world of Hooterville.”
I know that feeling. But like others mentioned, you have a choice. Move to San Francisco or keep fighting the good fight in the land of the kooks.