Wow. NOW Mia McLeod is attacking Carolyn Click

Here’s the latest escalation from Rep. Mia McLeod, who really seems to be going around the bend on this thing:

Okay, Ms. Click, so you write front-page fabrications about race in Richland Two on Sunday and then again on Tuesday and Wednesday of the same week? Guess The State must be hard-pressed for real news…and real journalists.

Race wasn’t an issue in Richland Two until you and your White Citizens Council (WCC) buddies made it one.Mia leopard jacket

The illusion of racial tension and animosity you guys have created continues to reveal your true colors. In fact, the same WCC spokesperson quoted in Sunday’s story, had this to add today,

“These people are playing hardball—if they get control they will drive off all the competent people…”

Funny thing is…”these people” kinda reminds me of “those people” and “you people.”

Clearly these are “your people,” Ms. Click, since you’re working overtime to help disseminate and lend credibility to their racist chatter.

Thankfully, somebody at The State had the good sense (not you, of course) to remove his racist rant from “the story” you originally posted online last night, as well as the printed version today.

More proof that “control”—not race, is the real issue. “If they get it,” means we’ve never had it. Guess that’s what scares y’all so much.

And you so desperately want the few readers you do have, to believe that I’m Amelia McKie’s biggest supporter. Guess that’s why you’ve conveniently omitted thousands of dollars in contributions and a diverse cross-section of her contributors from your “story.”

Too bad that while you’re working hard to undermine and discredit Mrs. McKie, the front-runner in this school board race, you’ve actually disclosed even more “evidence” of the collaboration between the current Administration and the WCC.

Obviously, the campaign contributions of current R2 Administrators to some of the WCC’s “chosen four” is evidence of collaboration and conflict—not to mention, impropriety. But I’m sure that’s well above your pay grade, Ms. Click, since The State must not require you to check the rules or the facts before you print your fabrications.

And for what it’s worth, I didn’t compare Debbie Hamm to Lillian McBride in my blog. I simply referenced incompetence as their common denominator.

Even my Senator chimed in to “reaffirm” his support for Debbie Hamm. But, this isn’t about her. Or is it?

Anyone who thinks she’s “building morale” in R2, is out of touch with everybody but the DO. For her loyal supporters, friendship trumps everything.

What a sobering reality check for the rest of us in Richland Two.

Let’s channel our energy and efforts towards a true commitment to excellence in education, for the benefit of all Richland Two students.

For those who are afraid of losing it, it’s clearly about control. For the rest of us, it’s truly about moving our students, communities and District forward, in a better direction.

It’s time to silence the rhetoric, the rancor and the manufactured issues of race. Next Tuesday, November 4, I’m counting on voters to do just that.

Maybe then, Ms. Click, you can focus your attention on real news, for a change.

Quote that….

Speaking as a 35-year newspaper veteran, I can tell you with authority that this is real news, and Carolyn Click is a real journalist. A good one. I’ve known her for a couple of decades, and I think this is the first time I’ve heard anyone call her professionalism into question.

And you can quote that….

39 thoughts on “Wow. NOW Mia McLeod is attacking Carolyn Click

  1. Bryan Caskey

    “And for what it’s worth, I didn’t compare Debbie Hamm to Lillian McBride in my blog. I simply referenced incompetence as their common denominator.”

    Huh? As I read that part, I sort of turned my head at an angle like a confused dog, then read it again. It still didn’t make sense. Referencing two people’s “common denominator” is a comparison, isn’t it?

    Also, (honest question) when has anyone ever even alleged that Debbie Hamm was incompetent? I must have missed that.

    1. Doug Ross

      Same response for me. “Huh????” A common denomitor is not a comparison? But woe be unto him who calls her on that statement. Don’t go there, boyfriend.

      Maybe it’s similar to Brad saying Nikki Haley was sorta like Hitler – not as a comparison but as a common denominator. Nikki can’t get the trains to run on time, however.

  2. Kathryn Fenner

    Carolyn reported facts, including what people said, appropriately written in quotation marks. I did not read the story as slanted, although I do have white goggles on. Mia seems to be playing to the “base.” Shades of Nimrata, Mistress of the Dark, as Eva Moore hilariously names her in this week’s FT!

    1. barry

      Your take seems quite reasonable.

      She’s playing to her base – or this is a personal thing and she’s decided to make it public in a very unprofessional way.

      1. Kathryn Fenner

        Well, Nikki sure seems to take things rather personally, as well. (As do plenty of male polticians, fwiw.)

            1. Matt Bohn

              I thought you re-watched The Dirty Dozen recently and thought it was bad compared to your take on it as a teen. I’ve always liked it. Guilty pleasure. Posey shaving in cold water. Sutherland: “Madison City? Never heard of it.” Bronson on the book in the Geman chateau: “I think it’s dirty.” I could go on. Just fun.

              1. Brad Warthen Post author

                Oh, you’re right. I just had it built up in my mind as Great Art when I was 14, and was disappointed to realize it wasn’t. You should read the novel upon which it was based, if you haven’t. By E. M. Nathanson. A real page-turner. The Telly Savalas character was based on three very different characters in the book — a Bible-thumper from Tennessee, a career criminal from Phenix City, AL, and a wimpy guy with sexual repression issues who was convicted of murdering a woman, but had no memory of it…

            2. Brad Warthen

              And the black guy, Napoleon White, was really interesting. He was a college graduate — a football star — who had been an officer before committing murder (he killed a redneck who had tried to kill him just for being a black officer). He had all these intellectual conversations about books with Reisman. I guess they thought Jim Brown wouldn’t be convincing in that role, so they made Charles Bronson the ex-officer, which wasn’t as interesting.

              Reisman, who was younger and only a captain instead of a major as Lee Marvin played him, had a fascinating backstory. He had killed a man himself back in Chicago as a teenager, giving him an identification with the Dozen…

            3. Matt Bohn

              I never read the book. Instead it was a staple war movie that took the boys in my fifth grade class by storm. That along with a young adult book about Peleliu called Marine at War by Russell Davis defined the two theaters for us as kids. I’ll check out the book by Nathanson. I would recommend The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan if you wannt a really good non-fiction look at the hopeless defese of Berlin in the spring of 1945. You really want the Germans to lose, but the book makes you empathize with the preofessionals that are charged with a hopeless task and the civilians who are doomed.

            4. Brad Warthen Post author

              Matt, that’s fascinating, because I had a similar experience. Only my Pacific book was Battle Cry by Leon Uris.

              I bought The Dirty Dozen when I was 13 or 14, and it was the first real grown-up modern novel (complete with some pretty hot sex passages) I can remember reading. It made a big impression on me.

              When I recommended it to a friend a couple of years later, he urged me to read Battle Cry, which if anything made an even bigger impression. So for a long time, my images of WWII were greatly influenced by those novels.

              Not that they were my only sources; they just loom larger than most. In those high school years, I was reading other fiction from the war period, such as Steinbeck’s The Moon is Down, Hersey’s A Bell for Adano, Heggen’s Mister Roberts, and Crichton’s The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

              I didn’t really start reading nonfiction about the war until later.

        1. barry

          All politicians take things personally.

          But usually they don’t even disguise it by bringing up other issues.

          Ms. McLeod is responding like I would expect someone that has a personal beef (maybe a family member in the public school with a problem) with the super.

  3. barry

    I can understand someone not agreeing with a school super- but what Ms. McLeod is doing in a public way is personal.

    I am not privy to inside politics of Richland 2 – but my wife (A public school teacher in R2) indicates that Ms. Hamm is well liked by teachers, and they appreciate her approach.

    I have a nagging feeling this Ms. Hamm is taking the brunt of Ms. McLeod’s anger because of a personal matter – and of course that would be extremely unprofessional on Ms. McLeod’s part.

    I’ll repeat – Ms. McLeod is acting silly.

  4. Doug Ross

    I had one specific incident with a meeting with Ms. Hamm back in 2002 and it did not go well. She wasn’t incompetent, she simply stuck to the script dictated by the district office.

    I had filed a FOIA request to see the individual teacher test scores from PACT testing for my kids’ elementary school. She called a meeting to respond to the request and brought in two other people who had no knowledge of nor any comments during the meeting. It was purely a “strength in numbers” tactic. She refused my request for teacher scores on the basis that it might somehow allow me to determine individual student scores. All I asked for was the percentage of students who met the standard and exceeded the standard.

    Shortly after, I decided to run for school board. Shortly after that, I was approached in the parking lot at the district office following a meeting and told that my wife would lose her job with the district if I won. My wife was an aide in a library at that time. Apparently that doesn’t apply any more because at least one school board member has a spouse who works as a teacher.

  5. Doug Ross

    Someone should ask Mayor Benjamin what he thinks on this topic. He lives in the Richland 2 district and maybe his kids attend school there. He could offer a unique perspective.

        1. Kathryn Fenner

          Hence the haha. I mean, Woodcreek should not be in Columbia when Wildewood isn’t, say…

  6. Kathryn Fenner

    Apparently Democratic candidates are frequently using racially charged approaches this round to get out the (black) vote. I read this somewhere yesterday, but cannot find it now.
    I am sorry on behalf of my party.

    1. Barry

      Not new.

      I travel a lot in South Carolina and around election season you hear some nutty campaign commercials on small radio stations- including urban radio stations.

      1. Bryan Caskey

        My favorite ad (for this cycle) is the one they’re playing in Colorado, where NARAL is running an ad about how the GOP candidate (Gardner) would ban all forms of birth control except condoms, and in this bizzaro-world, all the condoms are sold out. So…vote the the Democrat.

        It’s good for a laugh.

        I can’t wait for the follow-up ad: “If he’s elected, Gardner is going to require that all toilet seats be left up!”

          1. Brad Warthen Post author

            They can be if you DO it right.

            Joke remembered from my junior high school days…

            Guy and his wife complain to the pharmacist that they used the condoms he sold them, but she still got pregnant. Pharmacist asks whether they followed the instructions. At that point, they get a little sheepish. “Not exactly,” admits the man. “What do you mean?” asks the pharmacist.

            “Well, the instructions said, ‘Place over organ.’ We don’t have one, so we hung it up over the piano…”

            1. Brad Warthen Post author

              Of course, I didn’t know it was called a “condom” then. We called these unfamiliar, mysterious things “rubbers.”

              I don’t think I knew the word “condom” until I read The Dirty Dozen when I was 14 — coincidentally, since we were talking about that earlier

            2. Kathryn Fenner

              Ha. Ha.
              No, actual scientists evaluate this, and the efficacy is far less than the “Pill” or an IUD, both in theory and in practice.

          2. Bart

            When I was in high school, we were standing in line for the late show at the local theater. A white ’55 chevy drove by and the guy had his elbow sticking out the window while holding the steering wheel. His right arm was around his girlfriend’s shoulder. As he drove by, we started laughing our butt’s off and apparently he thought he had done something really funny and cool. He circled the block and as he approached us, he hit his brakes, made some comic faces, hit the gas and roared off again. What he didn’t know was when he threw the condom out the window, it didn’t go far enough and was stuck on the side of the door for all to see. Always wondered if it fell off before he took her home or if it was still there. It was my considered opinion it was still on the door when he took her home because we never saw him, his chevy, or her again.

            Just a short anecdote from my younger days.

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