Grabbed this from Meg’s Twitter feed. Hope she doesn’t mind…
Dadblastit!
I’ve been giving key personnel at the Post and Courier unmitigated hell for having ruined a perfectly good, really fun blog post that I was almost finished writing when they had to stick their noses in:
DANG! Blast those enterprising reporters on the Charleston paper! Expecting this to break TOMORROW, I was working on a really fun post about “Top Five (hypothetical) running mates for Catherine Templeton.” (No. 1 was Bonesaw McGraw from Spider-Man.) And y’all had to RUIN it! https://t.co/ucCmY8QkgA
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) May 21, 2018
This is what had me ticked off:
NEW: @TempletonCath to name prosecutor Walt Wilkins as her #SCGov running mate, @postandcourier has learned #scpol https://t.co/WUnRvGQU9H
— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) May 21, 2018
And what did I get from Andy Shain, the Columbia bureau chief? A bunch of sass:
Sorry man, we don’t let sleeping dogs lie. pic.twitter.com/Hco7gGq0mX
— Andy Shain (@AndyShain) May 21, 2018
And his boss, Executive Editor Mitch Pugh, was no better, thoroughly enjoying my pain:
“I…worked on this story for a year…and…he just…he tweeted it out.”
— Mitch Pugh📰 (@SCMitchP) May 21, 2018
I fired this back at Andy:
OK, just for that I’m not going to tell you who the other four were. Well, maybe just one: The Captain from Cool Hand Luke. She has a stated desire to get tough on prisoners, and he’d give her cred on that front. Slogan: “Whut we’ve got heah is fail-yuh to exacerbate!”
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) May 21, 2018
Fortunately, I was then able to taunt them a second time-a with this:
.@AndyShain @SCMitchP Y’all may have been First with the Burst, on the Spot while it’s Hot, but looky: Meg got an INTERVIEW! https://t.co/OUEGi7TUCM
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) May 21, 2018
But enough of my fulminations. Some of you may wish to comment on the substance of the breaking story.
Frankly, I’m surprised she went with a guy with such a mainstream pedigree, given her desire to be seen as a destructive force, an “outsider buzzsaw,” yadda-yadda. The answer to the standard South Carolina question, “Whose his Daddy?,” is respected former federal appeals judge Billy Wilkins.
And his uncle is even more establishment — our former speaker and ambassador to Canada, David, a throwback to the days when South Carolina Republicans voted for people with names like “Bush” instead of “Trump.”
So maybe she’s not quite the rebel she wants Trump voters to think she is. Or maybe she was just excited to hear that he was a “Young Gun.” Because, you know, she likes guns. Or likes us to think she likes them, anyway…
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My brother, whose daughter goes to school with a child of Wilkins’, says he’s well thought-of in those parts. I’m not a bit surprised. But the question remains, why would he agree to run with this woman?