Category Archives: Character

Warren’s absolutely right, Moe

What caused him to change his mind?/Photo by Brett Flashnick

I certainly hope Moe Baddourah read Warren Bolton’s column this morning, and took it to heart. Excerpts:

WHILE COLUMBIA City Councilman Moe Baddourah will take his first formal vote at today’s council meeting, it’s doubtful that many of his official votes loom as large as an unofficial decision he made following a May 8 public hearing.

That was the day he back-tracked on what had been a strong stance in favor of allowing voters to decide whether the city should change its form of government from council-manager to strong mayor. Up until then, it seemed evident that when Mr. Baddourah and Cameron Runyan joined the council — they both were sworn in last week — the seven-member body would have a majority in favor of putting strong mayor on the ballot.

As a matter of fact, some had questioned whether the council seated in May should even have voted, knowing that it could make a decision very different from what the new council that assembles today would make. It was generally thought that there was a 4-3 split against strong mayor at that time…

When Mr. Baddourah visited with our editorial board prior to the April city elections, he was emphatic in saying that Mayor Steve Benjamin needed more authority. “I think Columbia is ready for that,” he said.

“We need a (full-time) mayor for the city to bring business in,” Mr. Baddourah said. “I’d love for Benjamin to be a full-time mayor. I think he’s a really good face for the city.”

So, imagine my surprise as I watched the public hearing, held during a council meeting, live online only to see Mr. Baddourah do a 180 when he and Mr. Runyan were put on the spot as to how they might vote once they joined the council.

Maybe it was the pressure of the moment. Or maybe he genuinely changed his mind. Whatever the case, it was abrupt and damaging to the effort to allow voters to have a say as to what form of government they choose to live under…

I’m not much of one for campaign promises. I generally think candidates should keep their options open for what they encounter in office. I even think when they do make the mistake of promising something, they should be free to change their minds — as long as they can make a good case for it.

But come on. In this case, Moe had just been elected, and had been elected not only indicating he’d support letting voters decide, but asserting strongly that he favored a certain outcome from that public vote.

And then, without having been through any discussion or other discernment process that was visible to the voters, he announces that he won’t even let the voters themselves decide the issue, and does it before he even takes office? Really?

It’s as shocking and as sudden and as premature a turn-around as I’ve ever seen.

This is indeed a case in which a mind so easily changed should carefully consider changing back. And then he should explain fully to the people who elected him what caused him to make such a strange announcement between the election and taking office.

Yes, “trackers” HAVE gone wild, and then some

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A shot from video footage taken outside the home of a candidate.

Earlier today, Politico posed the question on Twitter, “Democratic trackers gone wild?”

While most serious campaigns on both sides use campaign trackers — staffers whose job is to record on video every public appearance and statement by an opponent — House Democrats are taking it to another level. They’re now recording video of the homes of GOP congressmen and candidates and posting the raw footage on the Internet for all to see.

That ratcheting up of the video surveillance game is unnerving Republicans who insist that even by political standards, it’s a gross invasion of privacy. Worse, they say, it creates a safety risk for members of Congress and their families at a time when they are already on edge after a deranged gunman shot former Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords 18 months ago.

Wisconsin GOP Rep. Reid Ribble, who said he’s also been followed by a cameraman when shopping for groceries, said the home videos cross a line.

“I feel it’s totally inappropriate,” said Ribble, a freshman facing a competitive race for reelection. “It was disturbing to me that they would put that online. I don’t understand any political benefit that can be achieved with that.”…

Yes, indeed, say I. They’ve gone too far. But then, I think the whole phenomenon went overboard, across the spectrum, years ago. I have a low threshold with this kind of stuff.

There’s nothing illegal, certainly, about following one’s opponent around with a video camera. And everyone does it, right? One can even argue that a conscientious candidate should be fully aware of what his opponent has to say.

But in this era of saturation communication, stalking one’s opponent with a camera hoping for a slipup, a gotcha! moment, is not only unnecessary, there’s something low about it. And I confess that when I’m at a political event, and I spot the opposition’s tracker, I can’t help looking upon that person with something akin to disdain.

I don’t expect many people to agree with me on this. Certainly not many journalists today, since so much of their material comes from this sort of thing.

But I was always a different sort of journalist. I always wanted to know what a candidate has to say after he thinks for a minute, not what he says when he misspeaks. Some pop-Freudians believe the slip is the truth. Sometimes it is, sadly. But I’ve always valued more what the candidate says when you give him or her a chance to think a little harder about it. When a candidate says, “That’s not what I meant,” the gotcha folks snicker. Me, I start paying closer attention to find out what he or she did mean. And I flatter myself that I can tell, usually, if the further explanation is just blowing smoke.

Maybe I look for the second thought because that’s how I hope (idealist that I am) that they will govern — in a deliberative manner, with their ideas morphing and growing and getting better in a ferment with other ideas. I want to be governed by what people think upon further reflection, not the first thing that pops into their heads.

And even if they never achieve that, I want to give them every opportunity to do so. I want to hear the “yes, but…,” the second and third and fourth thoughts. I want depth of consideration. Deliberation, the thing upon which republican government relies.

But the “tracker” is a manifestation of a political culture that does not value further reflection. And therefore is a sign of a political culture in decline.

No, ma’am: If OBAMA killed him, he’d be dead

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Unfortunate choice of words by Ann Romney this morning:

(CBS News) On a mission to shatter the image of her husband as rigid and unrelatable, Ann Romney told CBS News she worries that President Obama’s entire campaign strategy is “kill Romney.”

“I feel like all he’s doing is saying, ‘Let’s kill this guy,” she said, seated next to her husband, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in an exclusive interview with CBS News chief political correspondent Jan Crawford. “And I feel like that’s not really a very good campaign policy.

I say that because, well, Barack Obama just happens to be the only president in history who we know has an actual “kill list” that he personally maintains. And he doesn’t mean the word “kill” figuratively. You end up on Obama’s list, and you’re dead.

So, since Mitt Romney’s still kicking, that’s a really good argument that he never made the list.

Of course, I then read on to see that Mrs. Romney didn’t come up with the word herself; some idiot in the Democratic Party did:

In August, some Democratic strategists let leak to the press that Obama’s top aides were looking at a massive character takedown of Romney in light of a deterring economy; “kill Romney” was a phrase used by one. “That was their memo that came out from their campaign,” Ann Romney said. “And it’s like, ‘not when I’m next to him you better not.”

Still, I wouldn’t bandy that word about so carelessly. Not with this president.

Panel clears Haley, again, of corruption charges

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This just in:

Gov. Nikki Haley did not use her office for personal gain while serving as a representative from Lexington County, the S.C. House Ethics Committee ruled Friday.

The committee weighed seven allegations against Haley that included illegally lobbying for her employers and using her office to pressure lobbyists and their clients for donations to a foundation where she worked.

All the charges were dismissed….

It’s good to know that Lexington Medical Center paid her $110,000 per annum, and Wilbur Smith paid her $48,000, because of sterling qualities of hers that had nothing, repeat nothing, to do with her influence as a legislator. Perhaps it was because she’s such an awesome accountant, or something like that.

Whew.

Of course, now we’re left with her as governor. We’re left with the woman who defended herself from these charges by getting all emotional and painting her accuser, John Rainey, as “a racist, sexist bigot.” From The State’s report:

Her voice shaking slightly, Gov. Nikki Haley told House members Thursday who are looking into whether she illegally used her office for personal gain that the GOP activist who filed the complaint against her is “a racist, sexist bigot who has tried everything in his power to hurt me and my family.”

Haley’s allegations of bias came after an executive testified that a Columbia engineering firm paid then-state Rep. Haley, a Lexington County Republican, $48,000 over almost two years as a “passive” consultant to scout out new business, but Haley turned up no new work…

Nothing like character assassination and innuendo for persuading people of the quality of your own character, eh?

I’m trying to think of the last time I spent any time with John Rainey. I think it years ago, the time he invited me to sit at his table at the annual NAACP banquet.

And the last time before that, years earlier, I had a lunch with him at the Capital City Club, in which he went on and on about his plans for the African-American Monument on the State House grounds. He left shortly before I did, and when I was heading back to the office, I saw him meandering about on the grounds, scouting out the place where the monument would eventually be placed. He was really passionate about getting that thing built…

But I digress.

Actually, Wawa IS pretty amazing

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Let’s set aside for a moment whether Mitt Romney was having a “Bush at the checkout” moment of cluelessness, or celebrating technology that denies jobs to the working class, or any of that stuff.

The bottom line for me is that Wawas are pretty amazing.

Have you ever been to one? I have, in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It is unlike any other Interstate exit/convenience store/gas station/fast food experience I’ve ever had. I wish I could have taken my late father-in-law to one. Since he was in the convenience-store business in Memphis, he would have fully appreciated it.

It’s a sort of Alice’s Restaurant “you can get anything you want” experience, laid out in an attractive and accessible manner.

The last time I stopped at one, the manager told me that Wawa was about to open some stores in South Carolina. Has anyone seen one down here yet? (If so, they’re not included on this store locator, which indicates they are only to be found in DE. MD, NJ, PA and VA.)

‘Waterloo’ DeMint: President Obama deserves ‘slap in the face’

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In his never-ending quest to chase civility right out of our politics, Jim ‘Waterloo’ DeMint has now contributed the following:

“If the court throws it out, I think it’s a well-deserved slap in the face to the president and the Congress to make us think that what we’re here for is to honor our oath of office, which is the pledge to defend the Constitution, which limits what we can do,” DeMint said.

I realize that you can’t tell from that what the issue is. You might reasonably infer that Mr. Obama is trying to declare himself king or something, with that hyperbolic nonsense about honoring the oath of office and defending the Constitution. But these people talk like this; it doesn’t have to make sense.

No, the administration’s great sin here, the imagined flouting of the Constitution, is trying to address the inexcusable farce of the way we pay for health care in this country.

You know what? I think I’m going to become a straight-ticket voter. I’m going to vote against anyone who advocates Conan the Barbarian politics. You know what I mean: The sort of politics that holds that the greatest things in life are:

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

Jeb lightly tips hat to Obama, seeks return favor

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Not to be outdone by Bill Clinton in the civility department, Jeb Bush has offered some light praise for President Obama:

The brother of the Mr. Obama’s predecessor noted that Mr. Obama had chosen the head of the Chicago public school system, Arne Duncan, as his education secretary and they had worked to focus more on school children and less on the adults running the schools.

“Any time an elected official in the world we’re in today that appears so dysfunctional challenges a core constituency not of their opponent but of their own political base, I think we should pause and give them credit,” Bush said.

The comments came after Rose pointed to comments Bush had made in April praising Duncan and saying the Obama administration had done “a pretty good job” on education policy…

The former politician, who flatly ruled out a run as Mitt Romney’s running mate in the interview, noted that he now has the luxury of being able to say what he thinks and is not constrained by political ambitions.

“I don’t have to play the game of being 100,000 percent against President Obama. I got a long list of things that I think he’s done wrong. And I, with civility and respect, I will point those out if I’m asked. But on the things that I think he’s done a good job on, I– I’m not gonna just say, ‘no, no,’ ” Bush said…

In his case, though, he’d like to see the compliment returned:

“I think it would help him politically. For example, when he was gracious at the unveiling of the portrait, you know, there’s no way not to be gracious I guess in that kind of setting,” Bush said, referring to a recent ceremony at the White House to unveil the official portrait of former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush.

“But it helps,” he said, calling it “just a small acknowledgement that the guy that, you know, that you replaced isn’t the source of every problem that– and– and the excuse of why you’re not being successful I think would help him politically.”…

Actually, I think it would, too — among people like me. But he has to worry about his base.

Unfortunately, to those who are not retired from politics, the other side is the devil these days, and one is never allowed to give the devil his due.

Inglis on why the tribe turned against him

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Kathryn brings my attention to this interview piece with Bob Inglis on Salon.

Bob Inglis is a guy for whom I’ve always had a lot of respect — ever since he got elected to Congress in the early 90s as a fiscal (and cultural) conservative, and then voted against highway money for his own district. This was back when nobody did this. “Conservatives” like Strom Thurmond had always talked a good game, but brought home the bacon. Inglis was a trailblazer.

To listen to Bob Inglis talk is to respect him, just as he respects others — something that sets him apart.

Inglis has always been deeply conservative, and deeply committed to his principles. But the know-nothings of his party unceremoniously dumped him in the last election, basically — as near as I can tell — for not being as angry as they were.

Anyway, this is an interesting passage:

Inglis remembers campaigning door-to-door and encountering hostility for the first time.

“I’m wondering, ‘Why is this happening?’” he said. “And what I came around to is that what happens is the tribe selects you to go to Washington. You believe with the tribe, you agree with them, and you go to Washington as their representative.

“Then you get there and you mingle with these other tribes, and you come to understand their point of view – not agree with it, but understand it. So when that view is presented, you don’t have the same sort of shocked reaction that some of the tribe members at home have to hearing that view.”

He recalled getting to know John Lewis, the civil rights icon and Democratic congressman from Georgia.

“He is an incredible American,” Inglis said. “I just disagree with him on this budget thing. But back at the tribe, at the tribal meeting, it’s like, ‘He’s some kind of Communist, that John Lewis. He’s not an American.’ No! He’s an incredible American. He’s one of our heroes.

“But the tribe doesn’t see that. The tribe sees you as sort of getting too cozy with John. And then they start to doubt you, because of this betrayal response. We are hard-wired to respond very violently – as I understand it, the brain really responds to betrayal. It’s one of the strongest human emotions.”…

Inglis, a conservative Republican to his core, speaks here to a very UnParty sensibility. You have your principles and you stand up for them. But that doesn’t mean you delegitimize those with whom you disagree. If you do that, the deliberative process upon which our system of government is built collapses.

Bob understands that. Too few who still hold office do.

Hoping Obama won’t really run this way

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Maybe y’all have time to read this piece by John Heilemann in New York Magazine. I don’t, not today. If you do, please get back and tell me that things don’t really look as dark as they do at the beginning:

The contours of that contest are now plain to see—indeed, they have been for some time. Back in November, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin, two fellows at the Center for American Progress, identified the prevailing dynamics: The presidential race would boil down to “demographics versus economics.” That the latter favor Mitt Romney is incontestable. From high unemployment and stagnant incomes to tepid GDP growth and a still-pervasive sense of anxiety bordering on pessimism in the body politic, every salient variable undermines the prospects of the incumbent. The subject line of an e-mail from the Romney press shop that hit my in-box last week summed up the challenger’s framing of the election concisely and precisely: “What’s This Campaign Going to Be About? The Obama Economy.”

The president begs to differ. In 2008, the junior senator from Illinois won in a landslide by fashioning a potent “coalition of the ascendant,” as Teixeira and Halpin call it, in which the components were minorities (especially Latinos), socially liberal college-educated whites (especially women), and young voters. This time around, Obama will seek to do the same thing again, only more so. The growth of those segments of the electorate and the president’s strength with them have his team brimming with confidence that demographics will trump economics in November—and in the process create a template for Democratic dominance at the presidential level for years to come…

Y’all know how I feel about Identity Politics. I want leaders who want to lead all of us, not this or that arbitrarily selected subset. Obama, to me, is the guy who inspired a victorious crowd in Columbia to chant, on the night of the 2008 South Carolina primary, “Race doesn’t matter!” Amen, said I. The atmosphere that night — when voters rejected the continued partisan strife that the Clinton campaign seemed to offer — was one in which we put our divisions behind us, and work toward building a better country together, as one people.

And if there’s anything more distressing in my book than Identity Politics, it’s Kulturkampf. Those couple of paragraphs are enough to push me toward political despair on that count. The next two grafs are worse:

But if the Obama 2012 strategy in this regard is all about the amplification of 2008, in terms of message it will represent a striking deviation. Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago—running more negative ads than any campaign in history—what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.”

The Obama effort at disqualifying Romney will go beyond painting him as excessively conservative, however. It will aim to cast him as an avatar of revanchism. “He’s the fifties, he is retro, he is backward, and we are forward—that’s the basic construct,” says a top Obama strategist. “If you’re a woman, you’re Hispanic, you’re young, or you’ve gotten left out, you look at Romney and say, ‘This [f*@#ing] guy is gonna take us back to the way it always was, and guess what? I’ve never been part of that.’ ”

Yeah, that’s all we need. A campaign that sees itself as an army of indignant minorities, feminists, gays and young people up against a coalition of self-interested white males, Ayn Randers, birthers and nativists, with both sides convinced that it is at war with the other. And each subset being motivated not by what’s good for the country, but by what it sees as advantageous to itself as a group.

So much for the United States.

All that’s left to me at this point is to hope the campaign plays out differently from the way this writer envisions it.

Sympathy for the Devil: Clinton defends Romney

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I liked learning about this today:

Bill Clinton predicted Thursday that President Obama will win reelection this fall “by five or six points,” but the former president’s half-full look at the general election contest was overshadowed by his somewhat unexpected praise of Mitt Romney’s “sterling business career” as chief executive of Bain Capital.

“I don’t think that we ought to get into the position where we say ‘This is bad work. This is good work,'” Clinton said of the private equity industry during an interview on CNN, later adding that Romney’s time in both the private and public sector leaves no doubt he’d be capable of performing the “essential functions of the office.”…

Good for Bill. It’s nice to see someone depart from the SOP tactic of demonizing everything about the opposition.

You don’t have to think private equity managers — or, say, community organizers — are inherently a bad thing to prefer the other candidate.

As Republicans do to the president, too many Democrats want to portray their opponent as the devil. I appreciate Bill Clinton taking the time to run against that grain.

‘Hindsight’ has nothing to do with it

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Kathryn calls my attention to a piece at Salon written by a former Edwards campaign worker, which says in part:

It’s become customary in politically obsessed circles for observers to preen about how they knew that Edwards was bad news all along. His lawyerly ways! His sentimental stories about growing up working class! His hair! How could his silly supporters not see him for the philandering phony he so clearly was?

Of course, a quick perusal of the John Edwards of 2007 demonstrates that this sort of hindsight owes more to revisionist wishful thinking than a correct assessment of the evidence at the time….

Sorry, Amanda. You’ve got that wrong. There were no halcyon days when Edwards was great. Certain not in 2007. Here’s what I wrote about him then.

But you’ve pegged what I’ve thought going back to the 2004 campaign: “How could his silly supporters not see him for the philandering phony he so clearly was?” How, indeed? I used to wonder at it, and worry over it a good bit.

And I may agree with her that his trial was a waste of time and money. Justice was done with regard to John Edwards some time back. All the nation needs to know is that he’ll never hold high public office again, and that’s assured.

The piece ends:

Even those who’ll never be able to forgive Edwards for nearly destroying his legacy should be grateful for the good sense shown by the jury today. Let’s hope the Justice Department takes their lead and lets this one go.

What legacy?

Organized labor hits back — again and again…

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Still have a lack of details regarding this video clip (which won’t let me embed it, so you have to follow the link). I don’t consider the text explanations one gets from YouTube as the most helpful or authoritative, but so far that’s all I have to go on here:

Gov. Nikki Haley has been vicious to organized labor, saying in her State of the State address that “unions are not needed, wanted or welcome in South Carolina.” After years of being treated like a union thug, Donna Dewitt gets sweet revenge at a retirement reception in her honor.

I just want to go on the record as saying, right here and now, that I do not believe that Nikki Haley should be bludgeoned with a baseball bat. Even symbolically.

Did anyone at this event go, “Umm… wait a minute…” and think it was excessive? Was anyone creeped out? One hopes so. But one doesn’t know…

The key quote: “Wait ’till her face comes around, and WHACK her… Give her another whack! Hit her again!”

Yep. We’ve sunk pretty low, folks.

This was brought to my attention by Bryan Caskey, who got it from CNN’s Peter Hamby:

South Carolina labor official beats a Nikki Haley pinata with a baseball bat —http://bit.ly/KQ70py

Cindi cites Her Alleged Majesty for contempt

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As was anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of the rule of law, Cindi Scoppe was aghast at our governor’s behavior last week, both when she goaded the state GOP to defy the law in order to help rid her of a troublesome senator, and when her office responded childishly to the State Election Commission’s refusal to play along.

But Cindi wasn’t struck speechless. From her column Sunday:

If the governor had been the one speaking, she might have added, L’etat, c’est moi.

At least when Louis XIV said it, he had a legal basis to do so. He was, after all, an absolute monarch.

When our founding fathers created this nation, they didn’t just reject the British monarch. They rejected the idea of a monarchy. They rejected imperial rule. And nowhere in the fledgling nation was that concept more thoroughly rejected than here in South Carolina.

The governor of South Carolina isn’t even a real governor. Yet this one fancies herself royalty. An autocrat. With the divine right of queens. L’etat, c’est moi.

She had already demonstrated that she was hypocritical. And careless with the truth. And imperious. Now add lawless. And contemptuous.

Actually, it’s the court that needs to add that last one.

Although the Election Commission blocked the party’s effort to defy a court order, that doesn’t change the fact that the party, at the urging of our governor, acted in a way that was “calculated to obstruct, degrade, and undermine the administration of justice.” That’s the definition of contempt of court, which our Supreme Court has said judges should punish in order to “preserve the authority and dignity of their courts.”

The court cannot ignore such blatant disregard for its orders. It needs to find the governor in contempt. And while it’s at it, it should do the same to the state Republican Party, and the Florence County Republican Party. This is about far more than the candidates who have been mistreated by our state. It’s about the authority of the court itself.

But Nikki Haley wouldn’t know anything about that.

Brooks sees Obama the way I do, as a mensch

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David Brooks didn’t quite go all the way to calling President Obama a Michael Corleone (as opposed to a Sonny, which is more like what George W. Bush was), but he did everything else but say the name:

The key is his post-boomer leadership style. Critics are always saying that Obama is too cool and detached, arrogant and aloof. But the secret to his popularity through hard times is that he is not melodramatic, sensitive, vulnerable and changeable. Instead, he is self-disciplined, traditional and a bit formal. He is willing, with drones and other mechanisms, to use lethal force.

Normally, presidents look weak during periods of economic stagnation, overwhelmed by events. But Obama has displayed a kind of ESPN masculinity: postfeminist in his values, but also thoroughly traditional in style — hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent. Administrations are undone by scandal and moments when they look pathetic, but this administration, guarded in all things, has rarely had those moments….

Brooks said that in the process of marveling at the fact that Obama even has a chance at re-election, since so many of the fundamentals are against him. He concludes that “In survey after survey, Obama is far more popular than his policies” because of what Americans think of him as a man. Not just as a person, but as a man.

Oh, and for those who are tired of me talking about “guy stuff” this week, don’t blame me on this one; Brooks brought it up.

I don’t think either of us has precisely hit the nail on the head. I keep saying “Michael Corleone” to describe his quiet, non-blustering toughness. But of course, the president is a better man than Michael Corleone. “Mensch” doesn’t quite say it either, but it points in that direction. As for Brooks’ reference to “ESPN masculinity” (a term so important to his piece that it’s his headline) — well, I don’t even know what he means by that. Maybe I don’t watch enough sports. (I’ll confess that I also get confused with what people mean when they say “postfeminist.” Some seem to use it to refer to feminism being over and done with, and therefore “NONfeminist.” Others seem to refer to a state in which feminism is taken for granted and no longer a movement, just part of life. So the word is unhelpful to me.)

Another way to say what Brooks is trying to say — “thoroughly traditional in style — hypercompetitive, restrained, not given to self-doubt, rarely self-indulgent” — is “Gary Cooper.”

But we all want to be Gary Cooper (in “High Noon,” specifically — “I’ve got to, that’s the whole thing.”). What Brooks is saying, in a way, is that Obama pulls it off.

An apology from Jake Knotts (apparently)

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Overnight, I got this email that says it’s from Jake Knotts (I didn’t know the email address):

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JAKE KNOTTS WITH REFERENCE TO: Release of leaked video tape

When this story first appeared two years ago, I was embarrassed. I’m embarrassed again now.

It was a very poor attempt at satire in an interview given inside a pub. But it wasn’t funny. It was offensive. And I very much regret my remarks.

Once again I offer my sincere apology to the Governor and her family.

I only hope people will realize this two year-old interview is being leaked by campaign operatives who hope to hurt me politically. But that’s no excuse for my behavior. Heated political rhetoric is not the answer. I can only say again that I’m sorry.

This experience has made me a better public servant. I’m not going to let attacks and leaks by opponents distract me. My focus is on creating jobs and helping the people I represent build a brighter future for their families.

This is in reference to a clip showing his “ragheads” remark from Pub Politics, which has surfaced as an “exclusive” (which means no embed code, which is just plain stingy) on BuzzFeed.

Tell you one thing — whenever Jake’s up for re-election, things are never boring.

The duel that wasn’t (so far as we know)

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It looked like the sort of facetious thing that people say on Twitter and which are quickly forgotten. Yet Katrina Shealy seems to be pinning her hopes for unseating Jake Knotts on the substance of Tweet sent in 2010.

The Tweet in question is reproduced above.

Perhaps there’s more to it, but one couldn’t find it in either the story in The State this morning, or the post by Will Folks that apparently prompted it. (The story in The State seemed to be of that new variety we’re becoming accustomed to — one that the MSM would never have reported in the past without having nailed down all the facts first, but publishes now so as not to appear out of the loop. Neither Jake nor Ms. Shealy was reached before publishing the story, which speaks of a sense of hurry.)

Here are some of the questions that the story raises in my mind:

Did Knotts ever say anything to Haddon?
Did he actually challenge him to a duel? (Duels, of course, properly constituted, require that both parties be gentlemen. I don’t know Haddon, but Jake has never seemed the dueling sort to me. He’s more of the pick-you-up-and-throw-you-across-the-room kind of guy. Ask Dick Harpootlian.)
Is that Tweet Mr. Haddon’s response to the challenge? If so, it is both unclear, and doesn’t seem to follow the accepted forms. It takes more the form of barroom bluster than a formal reply. Perhaps if he would identify his seconds, we could ask them.
Has either Mr. Knotts or Mr. Haddon been “out” before (which in the age of dueling meant something different from what it means today)? Who would have the upper hand?
If there’s any substance to this, will Jake be barred in the future from conducting classes for those who wish to carry concealed weapons? He has taught such classes in the past. One hopes those classes have not involved standing back-to-back, or pacing off distances.
Does Ms. Shealy in any way have standing to be taking legal action in this matter? She thinks she does, because her aim is to bar Sen. Knotts from office. But how does that give her any more standing than any other constituent? It seems that only parties to the alleged duel would have standing. And of course, the Code would (I assume) bar a challenged gentleman from resorting to the courts in order to avoid the Field of Honor.

I, along with you, await answers to all of the above.

Obama sucks! So send me more money!

6 Replies

Catching up with my email, I’m marveling over this one from Joe Wilson, which takes irrelevant misdirection to a new level. Yes, we know that Nikki Haley got elected governor running against President Obama rather than her actual opponent, but I don’t think anyone has to date produced such a whiplash-inducing change of subject from “Obama sucks!” to “Send me money!” as this one:

Dear Friends,

41% of West Virginia’s Democrats believe that a federal prisoner would make a better president than Barack Obama.

Keith Judd received 69,766 votes Tuesday night in West Virginia’s primary while still serving a 17-year sentence for extortion. Shouldn’t this send a clear message to President Obama that he’s failing the American people?

The President promised to help our economy, but he will not listen to any of the pro-business, pro-competition, pro-free market principles that conservatives have offered.

The President promised to bring change to our country, but his version of change has resulted in restrictions on our American liberties and further partisan divide.

The President promised a lot of things, but he’s been unable to provide the leadership needed.

Americans are tired of the president’s policies. So much that voters say even a jailbird knows more about freedom than Barack Obama.

The choice is clear. In order to get our economy back on track and maintain liberty, we must elect a new president in November.

We must also elect conservative leaders who are willing to stand up for the truth to President Obama or anyone else in office. I will always work to bring economic policies that produce jobs and protect liberties for the people of South Carolina’s Second District. Will you join with me and donate to the campaign today?

Sincerely,

Joe

P.S. If you agree that we need to elect a new president this November, please visit Facebook and Twitter to let me know.

When Romney was a bully (or so they say)

33 Replies

A couple of readers have brought this up, from different ends of the political spectrum. And I suppose I’ll go ahead and post it for y’all to discuss, even though I hardly know what to say about it myself:

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another. Four of them — Friedemann, now a dentist; Phillip Maxwell, a lawyer; Thomas Buford, a retired prosecutor; and David Seed, a retired principal — spoke on the record. Another former student who witnessed the incident asked not to be named. The men have differing political affiliations, although they mostly lean Democratic. Buford volunteered for Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008. Seed, a registered independent, has served as a Republican county chairman in Michigan. All of them said that politics in no way colored their recollections.

“It happened very quickly, and to this day it troubles me,” said Buford, the school’s wrestling champion, who said he joined Romney in restraining Lauber. Buford subsequently apologized to Lauber, who was “terrified,” he said. “What a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”…

For my part, I don’t look at the Mitt Romney of today and see a guy who would do something like this. And one hates to hold youthful errors against anyone forever. If Romney was ever like this, then I’m pretty sure he’s not that way now.

But… while I, too, have matured (a bit) over the years, and I might have done some crazy things in my youth… I can’t imagine a time, ever, that I would have done something like this. It just never was in me to do something like this to another person. Of course, maybe if I’d been sent off to boarding school and had to define my place in a Lord-of-the-Flies kind of pecking order, maybe I’d have been a different sort of person.

But this gives me pause, if this is true. Because however much a person matures, he’s still the individual who did this.

I don’t know. I doubt I’d make my decision whether to vote for someone based on this.

But what do y’all think? That’s my purpose in raising this.

How are Newt Gingrich and John Edwards alike?

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When The Washington Post posed this question this morning on Twitter:

What do John Edwards and Newt Gingrich have in common?

I thought the answer was obvious, and shared it:

Ummm… Both won SC, but not much else?

Of course, that’s not exactly what the Post had in mind. This is what they were thinking:

Don’t be surprised if you hear the names of John Edwards and Newt Gingrich mentioned on the Senate floor this week.

Senate Democrats plan to consider a measure Tuesday that would extend lower interest rates for some federally subsidized college loans and pay for the extension by ending tax breaks for firms with three or fewer shareholders — commonly referred to as “S-corporations.”

Democrats call these types of tax breaks the “Newt Gingrich/John Edwards loophole,” because both former politicians took advantage of a federal tax law that allows those with high incomes to avoid paying Medicare payroll taxes on earnings by establishing S-corporations and treating only a portion of their total earnings as taxable wages…

Later, Cindi Scoppe (my mind is blown by the fact that Cindi is now on Twitter) weighed in with another answer, from the NYT’s Frank Bruni:

Gingrich and Edwards belong to different parties but are beholden to similar demons, and they have a whole lot more in common than a bounty of hair — white in the Republican’s case, brown in the Democrat’s. They’re the salt and pepper of outsize egos in presidential politics.

And to look at the two of them together, which their recent convergence in the news and on the map encouraged, is to confront some unsettling truths about a kind of person too frequently drawn to high-level office and about traits that often abet his rise and then seal his fall.

Beware the extreme narcissist. Although he may radiate a seductive confidence, he can justify and forgive himself for just about anything, given his belief in his own exalted purpose. He’ll lose sense of the line between boldness and recklessness. And he’ll quit the stage reluctantly, because he can’t bear not to occupy the very center of it…

So I guess the bottom line is that they have a lot in common.

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Character

Warren’s absolutely right, Moe

Yes, “trackers” HAVE gone wild, and then some

No, ma’am: If OBAMA killed him, he’d be dead

Panel clears Haley, again, of corruption charges

Actually, Wawa IS pretty amazing

‘Waterloo’ DeMint: President Obama deserves ‘slap in the face’

Jeb lightly tips hat to Obama, seeks return favor

Inglis on why the tribe turned against him

Hoping Obama won’t really run this way

Sympathy for the Devil: Clinton defends Romney

‘Hindsight’ has nothing to do with it

Organized labor hits back — again and again…

Cindi cites Her Alleged Majesty for contempt

Brooks sees Obama the way I do, as a mensch

An apology from Jake Knotts (apparently)

Obama sucks! So send me more money!

When Romney was a bully (or so they say)