Category Archives: Civility

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!

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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)

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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.

‘… the centre cannot hold… while the worst are full of passionate intensity.’

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Today I pulled from my bookshelf a volume of William Butler Yeats, which I’ve had since college. Someone had recently mentioned the source of the phrase “no country for old men,” and I wanted to look it up.

Eventually, as I browsed, my eyes fell on this:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W. B. Yeats

Which is a pretty good evocation of what it feels like to be an UnPartisan these days.

And it took me back to what I read in the paper this morning, a story about how SC Republicans (who “are full of passionate intensity”) are reconciling themselves to the man who had turned out to be their best — the one who is widely known  to “lack all conviction.”

I was dismayed throughout the piece. First, there was this quote from Tom Davis — someone I’ve always seen, in person, as a reasonable man, but who continually takes unreasonable positions:

Davis, who backed U.S. Rep. Ron Paul for president in the state’s January GOP primary, now has some good things to say about Romney. But his words sound as much like a warning as an endorsement.

“If he frames the debate between President Obama’s agenda of an ever-growing and more powerful government versus faith in free markets and individual liberty, I think he’s got a good chance of winning,” said Davis, a lawyer in Beaufort. “If he doesn’t draw the line that sharply and tries to tack toward the center, then I think it will be very difficult.”

In other words, my friend Tom is saying that if Romney does anything to make himself more appealing to nonpartisans like me, then people like Tom won’t support him.

This is distressing. It’s distressing that Tom actually seems to believe that the president’s agenda, rather than being the good of the country, is “an ever-growing and more powerful government,” and that he actually doesn’t believe in “individual liberty.” The first is mere hyperbole; the second completely delegitimizes the president, for what American doesn’t believe in liberty?

But this is mild stuff. Tom is the very soul of moderation compared to GOP Chair Chad Connelly:

“He’s a better candidate than he was a year ago. He’s able to articulate all the reasons we need to make sure Obama is just the worst one-term president ever.”…

“When Gov. Romney is the eventual nominee, (those voters) will excited because they’re so disgusted at what Obama has done, trashing the Constitution and pushing Obamacare down our throats,” Connelly predicted.

What?!? “Worst… president ever?” “Disgusted?” “Trashing the Constitution?” “Pushing Obamacare [legislation shaped and legally passed by the Congress) down our throats?”

You would think the leader of our country were Caligula. There has never been a president of the United States who deserved that sort of language, although we’ve had some sorry ones. Yes, I know Chad is the head of a party, but still — I’ve sat and talked pleasantly with him. He’s not a raving lunatic. Yet he speaks as though he’s lost all sense of proportion. This is the way people in the mainstream of the major parties speak these days.

To end on a positive note, I was struck by the language used by Tea Party Freshman Congressman Jeff Duncan:

“Gov. Romney’s policies would be a clear departure from the dubious tactics of the Obama administration,” said Duncan, who hasn’t endorsed Romney or any other Republican candidate.

“I’m confident that Gov. Romney can win over the American people on the promise of limited government, defending individual liberties and a return to common-sense solutions to our country’s biggest problems,” Duncan said.

See, now? That’s the way civilized men speak of others with whom they disagree. “Dubious tactics.” That says one disagrees with the man’s ideas (while at the same time, admitting that the other man could be right, since you are merely calling his approach “dubious”), but one’s sense of proportion is still intact.

Sad, isn’t it, that such rational speech stands out so starkly these days?

At the 100th show of Pub Politics

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In case you can't tell them apart, that's Republican (hence the white collar) Tom Davis on the left, and Democrat (hence the blue collar) Boyd Summers on the right. I hope the left-right part doesn't confuse you.

Just a quick word about this.

Phil and Wesley shot the 100th show of “Pub Politics” last night, and it was a gala affair. Sponsor Franklin Jones bought free beer and boiled peanuts. All sorts showed up. And despite the small-town clannishness of SC politics, not all of them knew each other.

At one point I was chatting with Sen. Tom Davis, and he remarked, “That guy in the blue shirt over there looks just like me.” It was Boyd Summers, lately chairman of the Richland County Democrats. This matchup of political opposites was too much for me to resist, so I called Boyd over and got the above shot of the “twins.”

Rep. James Smith was there with a new band (as you’ll recall, James was once one of the legendary Root Doctors). And… just all sorts of people, Democratic and Republican.

I was not a scheduled guest on the show, but I didn’t let that stop me. I walked over in the middle of the show, leaned in and held up eight fingers and yelled, “Eight times! I’m the one and only eight-timer!” They were fairly nice about it.

Happy to be a resource for a colleague

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I see that one of my episodes of “The Brad Show” (a feature I really must get around to reviving one of these days) provided some grist for Kevin Fisher’s mill, in a piece headlined, “Harpo, Homophobia and Hypocrisy:”

Harpo characterized McConnell as “prancing” in Civil War reenactments rather than “marching” or “participating” or “performing” in those events for a reason, the same reason for similar comments he made in a video interview with local blogger Brad Warthen in April 2011.

In a discussion of McConnell’s high-profile involvement in Civil War history, Warthen noted that the then-senator reportedly owns “17 Confederate costumes,” to which Harpo replied, “And one of them has hoops.” To make his point crystal clear, Harpootlian gestured around his waist to indicate a hoop skirt…

Finally, what about you, Cindi Ross Scoppe and Warren Bolton, editorial writers for The State — does Harpo get a free pass that you wouldn’t give anyone else of his prominence who was making such remarks?

Speaking of which, Harpootlian also told Warthen that “the girly boy thing didn’t work” for Democrats. For Harpo, it’s all macho, no homo, no doubt.

If you’d like to go back and view the full episode, here it is.

Oh, and as for Kevin’s challenge to my former teammates…  well, I suggest he’d be hard-pressed to find when Cindi or Warren ever took anyone to task for their perceived “homophobia.” So, no, they’re not giving him a “pass” that they wouldn’t give anyone else. I think Kevin is falling into a trap here, one I see folks fall into a lot: Cindi and Warren work for the MSM. That means they must be doctrinaire liberals. Therefore they’re probably always going on about “homophobia.” So they must be hyprocrites for not castigating their fellow “liberal.”

Fine theory for the ideologically inclined, except that it can’t be supported.

As for my own part — I showed you what Dick had to say. You decide what you think about it. I’m just glad I was able to provide Kevin with some original material. Makes me feel authoritative…

Newt must be suffering from lack of attention, getting all huffy over De Niro’s joke

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For perhaps the first time ever, Bill Maher has said a thing or two I sorta kinda agree with, in his “Please Stop Apologizing” piece in The New York Times. (OK, actually, he’s probably said lots of stuff I agree with — were it written out, or said by someone else. But the way he says it almost always repels me. The guy has been really off-putting to me ever since I first saw “Politically Incorrect.” It’s something about his habitual facial expression, which screams “Obnoxious!”)

We are achieving this rare alignment because I, too, believe it absurd that anyone was offended by what Robert De Niro said about first ladies. Specifically:

Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?

Apparently, when he delivered this line in the presence of Michelle Obama, everybody laughed. I probably would have laughed too. And yet we have the absurdity of Mrs. Obama’s press secretary calling the joke “inappropriate.”

There was nothing inappropriate about it. It was a perfectly conventional joke, taking an easily understood cliche — in this case, a line you might have heard four years ago, asking whether the country was ready for a black first lady — and doing an unexpected twist on it. It wasn’t the world’s funniest joke, but it was not offensive.

But absurdly, Newt Gingrich declared the joke “inexcusable,” and demanded that… get this… President Obama apologize for it. That reminds me of a pretty funny joke some conservatives made during the last administration. Mocking BDS sufferers, they would say “I blame Bush” about things that plainly had nothing to do with the president, such as the weather.

I hadn’t realized that Newt — from whom we haven’t heard for some time — was that desperate to attract attention. Well, no one — including the too-ready-to-apologize press secretary — should have given him any.

For his part, Mr. Maher argues that we should assert our freedom to offend each other without anyone going ballistic over it: “I don’t want to live in a country where no one ever says anything that offends anyone,” he writes. “That’s why we have Canada.”

Funny. And if that bothers the Canadians, tough.

However… I won’t go quite as far as he does. I’m not defending any right to be offensive here. As you know, I believe we could use a lot more civility in public life, which is why I so often disagree with Mr. Maher.

All I’m doing is pointing out what should be obvious: That what De Niro said was NOT offensive.

A very UnParty press release from Rep. Taylor

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Still catching up on releases sent to me via email, I ran across this rather remarkable one from Rep. Bill Taylor, a Republican from Aiken:

Unanimous Agreement !

Passage of a

Bi-Partisan State Budget

Dear Friends:

In Washington D.C. partisan bickering seems to rule. In South Carolina elected officials know how to work together for better and more efficient government. Democrat and Republican legislators joined

Unanimous

together in the House of Representatives to unanimously pass a state budget this week.

Be assured there were disagreements and much debate on how to wisely spend your tax money, but both sides came together to pass a balanced budget that falls well within the proposed cap on spending. It focuses on the core functions of government – education, infrastructure and law enforcement – all of which are vital to our state’s growing economy.

The spending plan also provides tax relief, pays off debt and replenishes the state’s ‘rainy day’ reserve accounts.

Headlines from the $6 billion General Fund appropriations:

  • $152 million in additional funds for K-12 used in the classroom and not for educational bureaucracy.
  • $180 million set aside to pay for SC’s share of the deepening of the Charleston Port, the major economic driver for SC.
  • $77 million in tax relief to employers of all sizes to assist them with some relief from the high unemployment insurance costs caused by the recession.
  • $549 million in tax relief; 88% of which is property tax relief that must be granted annually if the relief is to remain.
  • Nearly $400 million to the Constitutional and Statutory Reserves – those funds go into our savings account for the next economic downturn – “The Rainy Day Fund’.

While the General Fund budget grows by 4.56%, this plan calls for far less spending as compared to the beginning of the recession. The increase is aimed at patching the severe cuts that have occurred in recent years in law enforcement and education. It is a fiscally conservative spending plan designed to make SC more competitive.

The Governor’s Criticism: In Governor Haley’s fly-around-the-state tour this week she promoted her idea for a one-year only tax cut benefiting major corporations. The House budget plan cuts taxes for every single SC employer, hopefully, that will stimulate hiring.

The Governor also took aim on House Republican’s 7 point comprehensive tax reform plan introduced this week. She called it “disingenuous” even though she and her staff worked with our tax reform committee over the past eight months and the legislation included everything she asked for and much more. (Read the Aiken Standard’s story on this topic.)

What’s Next for the Budget? The proposed budget heads to the Senate. If past years are any indication, senators will bloat the budget with additional spending. Please let your senator know that’s not acceptable.

Wow. First we have all the Senate Democrats voting for John Courson. Now we have a Republican — a House Republican (the most partisan kind), no less — bragging to his constituents that the budget just passed was bipartisan. Instead of the usual business of giving all the credit to the GOP and mentioning Democrats only as obstacles, if at all.

Oh never fear — the zampolits are probably rushing to censure these folks for such UnParty sentiments, denouncing them as double-plus ungood. But for now, I’m enjoying this little Prague Spring.

Senate couldn’t have made a better choice for president pro tempore than John Courson

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Here you have a very fine Southern gentleman. And Courson's OK, too. Photo by Kelly Payne

Good job, gentlemen — picking John Courson to replace Glenn McConnell as president pro tempore of the Senate.

I can think of no one I’d prefer for that honor — certainly among those who would have had a realistic chance of being elected. If you’ll recall, Sen. Courson made my official, off-the-top-of-my-head list of top ten senators. And if I had made it a Top Five list, in true Nick Hornby fashion, he’d have made that, too. Some others among my faves — such as Joel Lourie and Vincent Sheheen — wouldn’t ever have been seriously considered, being both Democrats and too junior.

Why do I like Sen. Courson so much? First, he’s a Southern gentleman — the real article. There are all sorts of people who dress themselves up and strut about impersonating gentlemen, but he’s genuine. His courtliness is unfeigned, and incorporates all the best attributes of the type (as opposed to all the negatives with which cynical postmodernists would burden it). Combine that with his distinctive booming, heavily accented voice, and he’s an original character in a time when his party tends to run more to clones. (If I want to do a Courson impression, the first thing I do is think of him saying “militerih BANnuh” the way he did so many times during the debates over the Confederate flag.)

His credentials as a conservative Republican, from back before it was cool in SC, are impeccable. He speaks of Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond (and the Marine Corps — he flies that particular military banner in front of his house) as though reciting the pantheon of his gods. And yet he has been repeatedly returned to office by his Shandon constituency, largely the same one that keeps re-electing James Smith. He accomplishes this by faithfully serving all of his constituents, and by dealing with everyone in the State House, regardless of party, with the same scrupulous fairness and courtesy.

It’s no accident, then, that the Democrats in the Senate voted for him 18-0 yesterday, while a large majority of Republican votes went to Harvey Peeler. Nothing against Harvey — he’s an awesome Tweeter — but as the head of the GOP caucus, he has come to represent the partisanship that has infected the Senate since it first started taking note of party lines about a decade ago. As evidenced by this.

Here’s what John had to say after his election:

“I feel very honored,” said Courson, who has been a member of the Senate since 1985 and is an insurance executive at Keenan Suggs Insurance in Columbia. “This position is elected by senators themselves so it is a real honor to have my fellow senators support me. But I’m also pleased that I received bipartisan support.”

When’s the last time you heard a Republican in SC say that? Or even have occasion to?

You might say that John Courson is about as close as you can get to an actual UnParty elected official. Of course, that invites attacks on him from the RINO hunters, but such people are beneath contempt. As if they would have the right to judge Courson’s suitability as a Republican. And that’s the contradictory thing about John — he’s very UnParty, and yet it’s hard to think of anybody who’s been a more loyal Republican as he has, or for as long as he has.

Finally, if McConnell does run for his old seat and vacate the job of lieutenant governor — well, I would feel better about that particular office than I have in a long time, with John Courson in it. Although he would be missed in the Senate.

Full disclosure — about three years ago, right after I got laid off at the paper, a bulky envelope arrived in the mail at my home. It was from John Courson, and it contained a new Legislative Manual. I don’t know why he sent it to me — maybe he supposed that being unemployed, I couldn’t afford my own. But I appreciated it. It was like John was going out of his way to keep me in the loop, letting me know I was someone still worth doing this for. (I am not in his district, by the way, or even close.) Each year since then, he has sent me the new manual. The ironic thing about this is that I used to assign Cindi Scoppe to supply me with up-to-date manuals, and she hated running that errand, and used to put it off, sometimes neglecting it for a full year. So I’m better-supplied with manuals than I was at the paper.

Here’s what you say when you don’t like hearing good news

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Just now got to this Joe Wilson release from yesterday. The headline, “Wilson Reacts to February Jobs Report,” made me curious to see how Joe would try to make good employment news sound bad, and of course make it the fault of those awful liberal Democrats. Here’s how:

West Columbia, SC – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) released the following statement regarding the latest unemployment report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning:

“For the past three years, our nation’s unemployment has remained above eight percent.  Almost one million Americans have lost their jobs since the President was sworn into office.   According to recent Congressional Budget Office study, when considering every American who is currently without a job, our actual unemployment rate is 15.2 percent.  The President promised that with the passage of his failed stimulus package in February 2009, the unemployment rate would not exceed eight percent. It is clear that the President’s failed policies and broken promises are not helping Americans find employment, but simply growing our national debt.

“Over the past year, House Republicans have passed dozens of job creating bills, most with bipartisan support.  A majority of these pieces of legislation remain stalled in the Senate.  Just yesterday, the House passed the JOBS Act, a collection of legislation that will help small business startups grow and expand, which will lead to job creation.  It is my hope that the liberal-controlled Senate will take immediate action on the pending legislation in efforts to spur economic growth.  It is past the time for Congress to work together to offset the failed policies the President has implemented and help put Americans back to work.”

There’s an art to this. A crude, lumpish sort of art, but an art nevertheless, with conventions to be followed. For instance, do you notice how he pointedly avoids the fact that President Obama supports the JOBS Act that he praises? That’s standard procedure in this genre. The president can only be mentioned in terms of “failed policies.” One must never, ever acknowledge that he supports the same policy that you do, because then you can’t paint politics in terms of a black-and-white battle between pure good and pure evil, and you don’t get to whip up your contributors as to how horrible the opposition is, so that they keep writing checks.

One grows so tired of this sort of thing.

My theory about the end of the draft and its relationship to political polarization

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On a previous post, we got into a discussion of the importance of character in political candidates. (I have come over time to believe that it is paramount, to the point of paying far less attention to policy proposals by comparison. And of course, as you know, I am positively inimical to ideologies.)

We had a good discussion, and achieved some degree of synthesis. Along the way to that, Phillip happened to mention the fact that many in politics use military service or the lack thereof as a shorthand marker for character. This is certainly true. But as we discussed the relationship of such service to character, I went on a tangent… and decided it would be worth a separate post, as follows…

I believe that our politics started becoming dysfunctional, in the ways that I decry (hyperpartisanship, adamant refusal to listen to, much less work with, the “other side”), when we ended the draft.

Before that, you didn’t find many men (most officeholders today are men, and it was more true then) who had not spent at least a portion of their youth in the military. That certainly exposed them to having to work with all sorts of people from different backgrounds (as Phillip noted here), but it did something else: it forged them into something larger than those differences.

The WWII generation in particular may have had its political differences, but those guys understood that as a country, we all share interests. They may have been (in fact, were) liberals or conservatives or Northerners or Southerners or what have you, but they understood that they were Americans first. For those who served after the war, when the military was on the cutting edge of integration, it helped give black and white a sense of shared identity as well. (Indeed the shared experience of the war, even though it was in segregated units, helped lay the groundwork for the next generation’s gains toward social justice.)

As the first wave of young men who had NOT served (starting with those who were of an age to have served, but had not, such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich) arrived in the top echelons of political power in the country, they brought with them a phenomenon that we hadn’t seen among their elders… a tendency to see fellow Americans who disagreed with them politically as the OTHER, even as “the enemy,” and a practically dehumanized enemy — one that must be opposed at all costs.

That said, Bill Clinton does deserve credit for rising above that new partisanship in many cases (welfare reform, deficit reduction) in order to accomplish things. And Newt Gingrich often worked with him to accomplish such goals.

But below them, among the young guys coming up in politics — the ones hustling around statehouses and working in campaigns — there was a generation rising that really could not think of the OTHER SIDE as someone to be communicated with, much less worked with.

I really believe that if those young guys had had the experience of being thrown together, outside of their communities, their cliques and their comfort zones, their heads shaved and put into uniforms, and required to work together in a disciplined manner toward common goals — THEY would be different, and consequently our politics would be different.

Mind you, I’m not saying we should reinstitute the draft in order to make our politics more civil (although there may be other reasons to have one). But I am saying that I believe today’s extreme polarization is in part an unintended function of that development in our history.

Maybe you consider the end of the draft to have been a good thing. What I’m asking you to do is consider that even good things can have unintended ill effects. The opposite is true as well. Y’all know how deeply opposed I am to abortion on demand. But it seems reasonable that it would have the effect claimed in Freakonomics of reducing crime over time (by instituting a sort of pre-emptive capital punishment of unwanted children, who are more likely than the wanted to become criminals). Just as it has had the undesirable effect in parts of Asia of drastically reducing the number of females in society.

Good actions have good and bad consequences; so do bad ones. It’s a complicated world.

Mercifully, I had forgotten this incident

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Talking to Kara Gormley Meador yesterday, I momentarily drew a blank when she mentioned her run-in with John Graham Altman some years ago. She reminded me of the details, which made me go, “Oh, yeah.” Here’s a summary of the incident:

Excerpts from the exchange between WIS-TV reporter Kara Gormley and Rep. John Graham Altman, R-Charleston, over a S.C. House committee’s vote to make cockfighting a felony while tabling a bill that would toughen criminal domestic violence laws

Gormley: “Does that show that we are valuing a gamecock’s life over a woman’s life?”

Altman: “You’re really not very bright, and I realize you are not accustomed to this, but I’m accustomed to reporters having a better sense of depth of things, and your asking this question to me would indicate you can’t understand the answer. To ask the question is to demonstrate an enormous amount of ignorance. I’m not trying to be rude or hostile, I’m telling you.”

Gormley: “It’s rude when you tell someone they are not very bright.”

Altman: “You’re not very bright, and you’ll just have to live with that.”

So basically, when she talks about the lack of civility in politics, she’s speaking from personal experience.

Kara should go ahead and run for SOMETHING

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She said that most of her original desire to run arose from a wish to raise the overall tone of politics. Only THIS much had to do with her personal encounters as a TV reporter with Jake Knotts.

As previously mentioned, I met Kara Gormley Meador over at Starbucks for coffee today, to talk about whether she is going to run for the state senate.

As you’ll recall, Ms. Meador had intended to oppose Jake Knotts in the GOP primary in District 23, but learned that she had been misinformed by officials who told her that she lived in that district, under the new lines. She thought she had done due diligence — she had even requested a new voter registration card, so she could have it in writing — but what she was told was wrong. Under the reapportionment, she will be in District 18, currently occupied by Ronnie Cromer.

So will she run against Sen. Cromer? She hasn’t decided. She said she even thought that maybe she would make up her mind while talking to me. I don’t know whether the talk with me helped, but in the end, for what it’s worth, I told her she should run — for something.

I say that not to endorse her over Mr. Cromer or anyone else. I just think she is a positive, energetic, knowledgeable young person who would be a positive force in our General Assembly.

Does that mean that I agree with her on everything? Hardly. As she wrote on this blog recently:

I’d like to try and propagate real individual income tax relief.

I’d like to dismantle or revamp the House and Senate ethics committee. As they stand, neither body has any teeth to penalize legislators when they act in an unethical or illegal manner.

I am for complete transparency.

I don’t believe our legislators should offer certain companies back room deals that include huge incentives and tax breaks to try and lure them to our state, while folks who have been doing business here for years get nothing.

I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to education. We need to analyze administrative costs and see where we can scale back or consolidate and make sure we pay our teachers a fair wage.

I believe in school choice to include the creation of more charter schools; and to allow children in rural public schools to have the same choices offered to students in other districts in their counties. For example: students in Batesburg-Leesville have only one elementary school in the district, but students in Lexington One have the chance to attend any of the districts elementary school if there is availability. I think a student should be able to cross district lines– especially if they are located in the same county.
(there’s a lot more to this– if you are interested I’d be happy to tell you more)

We need to cap government growth.

I feel that across the board cuts are a cop out. As a legislator in times like these, you need to make some tough cuts in order to pay the bills. I don’t use credit cards to pay for things I can’t afford. I don’t believe our legislators should spend money that way.
One way we could save money is by shortening the legislative session.

I also believe legislators should have term limits.

Those of you who know me can see some significant disconnects with my own positions on issues. For instance, as an ardent believer in representative democracy, I would neither unduly limit the voters’ ability to elect whom they like (term limits) nor use a mathematical formula to supersede the representative’s powers to write a budget (“cap government growth”).

Further, I see inconsistencies in her vision. Today, she indicated that she believed enough waste could be found in state spending to both fully fund the essential functions of state government (which she correctly describes as currently underfunded) and return enough money to taxpayers to stimulate our economy.

In a state as tax-averse as this one, there’s just not enough money there to have your cake and eat it, too, barring a loaves-and-fishes miracle. (OK, enough with the clashing metaphors.)

But she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she seems to have no axes to grind. I think she’d quickly see that you can’t do it all, and make realistic assessments of what can and should be done. Her disgust with the pointless conflicts of modern politics, and the way they militate against a better future for South Carolina’s people.

She worries about spending time away from her kids, but she wants a better South Carolina for them. And she made a point that I particularly appreciated. She said that when she wants a better future for her kids, she actually means that she wants a better one for all of the state’s kids — unlike so many other who say that. I nodded at that, because it took me way too long to realize years ago that when Mark Sanford wanted a South Carolina in which his sons could stay and have a bright future, he wasn’t referring to the boys as a microcosm — he literally meant that he wanted a better future for his sons, period. That’s the libertarian way.

Kara says she knows she sounds like a Ms. Smith Goes to Columbia, and she does. But I like that.

While she feels the pull of her children, “God has given me one life,” and “I’m extremely driven, and I love people.” She was bowled over by the enthusiastic response she got on Facebook that one day that people thought she was opposing Knotts. She told me that some of the folks she heard from were people she had reported on over the years, some of them crime victims (a particular interest for her) who appreciated having their stories told.

She likes the idea of being a voice for those who think they have no voices. “Maybe I should get in to prove to somebody that they could get in, too.”

There’s one thing that she and I agree on, based on our years of observing politics. In the end, character is everything — far more important than ideology or specific policy proposals. My impression is that Kara has the character to be a positive force in politics, whatever her current notions of specific policy proposals.

So I’d like to see her run — for something.

Throughout the interview, I could see the light of enthusiasm in her eyes as she spoke of the possibility of making a difference.

SC went for Tillman rather than Hampton

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Here’s an observation that occurred to me the weekend of the South Carolina presidential preference primary, but which, being busy, I never got around to writing. It occurred to me again this morning, so here it is…

Before the primary, I wrote that the usual pattern for SC Republicans would be to pick the candidate who seemed most like the boss, or the massa, if you will. That would be Romney. I said it within the context of the possibility of Gingrich overtaking him, but at the same time I thought, wrongly, that most white folk in our state would follow the most patrician candidate just as they followed such men into battle in 1860. That’s what had happened in the last few cycles. OK, there were other factors, such as going with the guy whose turn it was, but that also worked for Romney.

Nice theory. It got shot all to hell.

What South Carolinians did, explaining it in terms of our history, was what they did in the 1890s — they turned away from Wade Hampton, and went for Ben Tillman.

Gingrich, with his fulminations against the uber-rich Yankee Romney and the dirty, no-good press, stirred something deep in the race memory of these voters. He was the closest they could find in these tepid times to fellow populist “Pitchfork” Ben, who urged them to rise up against the hoity-toity ruling class. Of course, Newt is rather tepid by comparison. Newt made the crowd roar by scornfully dismissing that Negro who dared to challenge him on his “food-stamp president” line. But that’s thin stuff compared to when ol’ Ben said he would “willingly lead a mob in lynching a Negro who had committed an assault upon a white woman.” Black men, said Tillman, “must remain subordinate or be exterminated.”

And Newt’s put-down of the media in the next debate was downright wimpy compared to Ben’s nephew gunning down my predecessor, N. G. Gonzales, at noon on Main Street for having dared write critical editorials about him. (He was acquitted by the ancestors of some of those Gingrich voters, who decided, after the editorials were entered into evidence, that the editor had it coming.)

No, Gingrich is no Tillman. But I suppose angry white folks have to settle for what they can get these days.

You must, of course, consider me a biased source. The State newspaper, as you may know, was founded for the purpose of fighting Tillmanism. The newspaper was from the start opposed to lynching (those wild-eyed liberals!), and has since that one incident frowned on shooting editors as well. And some of my own ancestors were anti-Tillman. My great-grandparents were appalled when they found themselves living next to Sen. Tillman in Washington. (My great-grandfather Bradley was a lawyer for the Treasury Department, and later helped found the GAO.)

In conclusion, let me say this this analogy, too, is imperfect. It doesn’t explain why, for instance, all those rather patrician, or at least Establishment, Republicans went for Gingrich at the last minute. That’s rather more complicated, and in some cases had to do with rivalries and resentments that wouldn’t make much sense to folks who are not SC Republican insiders. Some of it, for instance, was about stopping Nikki Haley from seeming to have a win. There were other old scores being settled, some going back a number of years. Once I can get some of these folks to talk about it on the record, I’ll write more about that.

But I think my analogy has at least a ring of truth in it when applied to the great mass of voters out there who never ran a campaign or even met many of these movers and shakers. Or am I attaching to much importance to those visceral roars when Gingrich baited black, liberals and the media in those debates?

Discuss…

Newt admits he was wrong… OK, who are you, and what have you done with our Newt Gingrich?

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All right, technically it wasn’t Newt himself who made the admission, but his “camp.” But until he leaps forward to call his campaign people liars, I’m taking it as an admission from Newt.

Here’s what CNN is reporting:

(CNN) – Newt Gingrich’s campaign admitted Wednesday night the former House speaker was inaccurate when he claimed his team offered several witnesses to ABC News to refute statements made by Gingrich’s second wife in a controversial interview aired last week.

CNN Chief National Correspondent John King reported the campaign said it only recommended Gingrich’s two daughters from his first marriage, who wrote a letter discouraging ABC to release the interview…

R.C. Hammond, the campaign’s press secretary, told CNN the only people the campaign offered to ABC were the speaker’s two daughters, Jackie Cushman and Kathy Gingrich Lubbers, who make regular appearances for their father on the campaign trail…

How satisfying it must have been for John King to report that story, eh?

By the way, in case you have trouble keeping the relationships straight, these are his daughters by his first marriage. The one making the allegations was his second wife.

Oh, and ABC reported what they had to say the same day as running the ex-wife interview, which was also the same day that Newt unfairly and untruthfully lambasted ABC.

Mitt defends media from Newt. So I guess it’s true: Romney IS a RINO

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What other explanation could there be for siding with the godless news media against a fellow Republican. Oh, Mitt… I’m glad Spiro Agnew isn’t alive to see this…

Now you see, that was mockery — what I just did, in my headline and lede. The Politico item I’m about to quote is headlined, “Mitt Romney mocks Newt Gingrich’s attacks on media.” But what follows doesn’t support that. It’s more like “criticizes” or “corrects” or, perhaps most accurately, “takes exception to.” At least going by the words. Maybe he said them in a snarky way. Maybe I need to see the video…

In any case, here’s what he said:

“It’s very easy to talk down a moderator. The moderator asks a question and has to sit by and take whatever you send to them,” Romney said on Fox News. “And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the moderators and attacking the media. That’s always a very favorite response for the home crowd.”…

But the former Massachusetts suggested that being on the offense against the media doesn’t equate to the more important skill of being able to take on other rivals in the presidential field.

“It’s very different to have candidates go against candidates, and that’s something I’ll be doing against President [Barack] Obama if I get the chance to be our nominee, that this guy has been a failure for the American people, he has not gotten people back to work, internationally he shrunk the power of our military. He has to be a guy who we replace from the White House,” he said.

You know you’re really over the top when Rush Limbaugh advises you to chill

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The Slatest brings my attention to two fascinating items bearing on the GOP field’s new front-runner:

First item:

Newt, a.k.a. Maximus the Entertainer, said he won’t participate in any more debates if the crowd isn’t allowed to roar. “The media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate… The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

Here’s a tip, Mr. Big Brain Who’s Written a Bunch of Books: “Media” is a plural noun. So you should say, “The media are terrified” and “The media don’t control free speech.” Just for future reference, professor.

Second item:

Rush Limbaugh wants Newt Gingrich to ease up on his recent offensive against the media, warning that such theatrics may play well with some conservative voters but will only get him so far in his quest to be the next president.

Yes, that Rush Limbaugh. According to the Daily Caller, the conservative radio host took some time on his show Monday to warn Newt on his favorite debate subject. “The days of being able to keep this momentum going by ripping on the media are over. The standing ovations for taking on the media are over, or they have very short lifespan,” Limbaugh said, adding, “You can only go to the well so many times on this stuff.”

Wow. When Rush tells you to chill, maybe you’d better. Not like he’s a model of self-restraint or anything…

The ELITES are the ones who should be sorry! (And the crowd roars…)

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E. J. Dionne sent me a note this morning (yep, I’m name-dropping; I value his friendship) in which he shared a link to his post-SC column, which you can read here. I was particularly struck by this passage:

Then came the rebuke to CNN’s John King, who asked about the claim from Gingrich’s second wife that her former husband had requested an “open marriage.” By exploding at King and the contemporary journalism, Gingrich turned a dangerous allegation into a rallying point. Past sexual conduct mattered far less to conservatives than a chance to admonish the supposedly liberal media. Gingrich won evangelicals by 2-1, suggesting, perhaps, a rather elastic definition of “family values” — or a touching faith in Gingrich’s repentance.

E.J. was very generous to admit even the possibility that the evangelicals’ choice reflected their simple belief that Newt is repentant.

I saw how the forgiven man behaved when reminded of his sin. And if there is anything we all know about Newt Gingrich, it is that he does not walk, talk or comport himself like a penitent. Sure, he’s new to being Catholic, but he forcefully projects the image of a man who is “hardly sorry” rather than “heartily.”

And that is what seems to appeal to his supporters. That he’s not sorry. For anything. That rather than donning sackcloth and ashes, he stands up, throws out his chest and demands that those people out there, those elites, and those worthless shufflers who want to live off his tax money, be sorry instead.

And the crowd roars, more like 1st century pagans in the Colosseum than like Christians.

No, I’m in no position to judge. I am certainly not Newt’s confessor, and I have no idea what’s in his heart. Nor do I know what’s in those hearts in the crowd. But I know how he chooses to act outwardly. And I know how the crowd reacts — outwardly.

And that’s probably all I can know. So I share it.

Basically, I think the evangelicals who voted for him didn’t have their evangelical hats on at the moment. People are complex, and have layers. And just because an individual answers to one sort of identification doesn’t mean he is expressing that in everything he does.

So E.J. made me think today. And he made me nod in the paragraph before that one:

There was also the matter of race. Gingrich is no racist, but neither is he naive about the meaning of words. When Fox News’ Juan Williams, an African-American journalist, directly challenged Gingrich about the racial overtones of Gingrich’s staple reference to Obama as “the food-stamp president,” the former House speaker verbally pummeled him, to raucous cheers. As if to remind everyone of the power of coded language, a supporter later praised Gingrich for putting Williams “in his place.”

Yep, that’s what was happening.

South Carolina: If you care about the country, it’s important that you vote for Mitt Romney today

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And so in the end, it comes down to this: The only chance to prevent Newt Gingrich from going forward strengthened, with a chance of winning the GOP nomination, is to vote for the guy no one seems to actively like: Mitt Romney.

Staying home does no good. Voting for Ron Paul or Rick Santorum does no good, however much you may like them. They can’t deny this victory to Newt Gingrich, so a vote for them is a waste. (So is a vote for any of those who have dropped out, but are still on the ballot. I like Huntsman, too — but a vote for him doesn’t stop Newt Gingrich.)

Only Romney still has some slim chance of defeating Newt Gingrich today, so I’m urging everyone to get out and vote for him.

And don’t fool yourself into thinking it makes no difference. It makes a HUGE difference. Don’t fall for any of these rationalizations:

“It doesn’t matter; even if Newt wins South Carolina, Romney will win the nomination.” Don’t assume that. In fact, Gallup reported yesterday that what has happened in South Carolina over the past week-and-a-half has been happening, somewhat less dramatically, elsewhere in the country: Gingrich is catching Romney in national polls. The word Gallup used to describe what’s happening to Romney is “collapsing.”

“It doesn’t matter; Gingrich would never beat Obama, so the nation would be in no danger.” Don’t ever assume that — an infinite variety of things could happen to throw an election from the incumbent to the challenger. And by not voting to stop Gingrich today, you will have helped put him in the White House.

“OK, so maybe the Republican would win the election. In that case it still doesn’t matter, because I don’t like either Mitt or Newt.” This is the one on which you are most wrong.

Newt Gingrich would be a disaster for the United States of America. He would tear the country apart like nothing any of us have seen in our lifetimes. To say nothing of our relations with other countries.

Remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? (How could you forget? Republicans are suffering from a related disease today.) That was nothing. George W. Bush was just this guy, you know? Pretty average. A conservative guy, somewhat given to Texan swagger. That was about it. But Democrats hated him, practically spitting at the mention of his name.

But Gingrich would be all of the things that Democrats imagine Bush was, and on steroids.

None of us, in our lifetimes, have seen a president of the United States who would do what Newt Gingrich would do every single day in office: Try to infuriate and insult half the country, and most of the world. He delights in insulting, demeaning and belittling anyone who disagrees with him. And you know that right from the start, half the country would fit into that category. And that category would grow, as everything he says is magnified by the curvature of the presidential bubble.

All politicians occasionally say things that alienate a lot of people. But with rare exceptions, they don’t do it on purpose. The utter contempt and hostility with which Newt Gingrich regards most of the human race is a palpable thing, and it is intentional. When other politicians say something that alienates or demoralizes the country or inflames other nations, the try to do damage control. Newt Gingrich would instead strut about the stage, immensely pleased with himself.

He would be a complete disaster for this country. You may think that could be said with justice of other politicians you don’t like, but they are nothing to Newt.

Now, as for Mitt Romney — well, I can’t give you a ringing endorsement. About the only thing I can say I like about him is that he is not an ideologue. That’s what the most partisan Republicans — the one’s flocking to Gingrich — don’t like about him. They call him a flip-flopper. That’s because he is a manager, a turn-around artist. His goal would be to run the country well and efficiently, not to enact grand ideological schemes. That’s not enough to make anyone’s heart go pitter-pat, but it’s something. And it beats tearing the country apart.

Read The State‘s endorsement. It gives good reasons why Romney is the best — or at least the least bad — option, now that Huntsman is out of it. Read Cindi Scoppe’s accompanying column, as well. The headline on the endorsement is, “Romney has capacity to build bridges.” I think he does.

But at this point, Mitt Romney is more than the “least-bad” option. He’s the one guy who can stop Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich not only has the power to blow bridges up; he can’t wait to plant the charges.

And that’s why any South Carolinian who cares about the country needs to vote for Mitt Romney today.

Bob McAlister on why he’s for Gingrich now

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Now  it can be told: The source I spoke with a week ago tonight from Key West, who called Mitt Romney a “plastic banana rock ‘n’ roller,” was Bob McAlister — communications consultant, former chief of staff to Gov. Carroll Campbell, occasional op-ed writer par excellence, and former blogger.

I called him this evening because he appears to be part of an interesting trend. Rick Perry threw his support to Gingrich. Huntsman did not, yet several of his key supporters seem to be breaking for Gingrich, too. Bob is one of them.

One element in Bob’s decision is what he sees as Romney’s phoniness. “That Ken and Barbie exterior.” Which means roughly the same thing as the plastic banana description (which, although I thought he’d made it up himself, Bob acknowledges having lifted from Rush Limbaugh).

So, I asked, what decided him in favor of Gingrich?

“The debates made up my mind for me.”

“I have never seen a candidate for public office own a debate the way he did the last few.”

Bob views this with an expert eye, having “prepped a lot of candidates” for debates himself over the years. But no one he ever coached performed like this.

He repeated to me the observation he shared when I called him last week, before he had made up his mind — that the relationship between Gingrich and the other candidates on the stage is like that between a professor and his students. He says the former speaker displays “an uncanny knowledge of every issue thrown at him.”

There’s something else operating here, however, beyond professional appreciation. There’s a relish for Newt’s combativeness. Bob liked that “he didn’t take any crap from the liberal media. He threw it right back at them.” He would like to have a president who doesn’t take… grief… from either such domestic adversaries or “our international enemies.”

Realizing how he had juxtaposed the the media and, say, terrorist states, Bob laughed and said, “I’m not necessarily equating the two, by the way.”

But he remains enthusiastic about Gingrich: “He’s tough; he’s resolute; he is absolutely brilliant.”

Now, before my more liberal correspondents here decide that Bob is the sort they would never wish to meet, let me run counter to your expectations and assert that you are wrong. I think if you spent enough time talking with him to gain each others’ trust, you would get along fine. When I first worked with Bob when he was Campbell’s communications director, there was a distinct wariness on his part. But somehow I earned his trust, and I found him to be a guy who was straight with me, and we got on fine. We’ve had occasion to work together on community projects since those days — such as the local board of Habitat for Humanity — and have become friends.

Those who appreciate this blog have reason to thank him. When I was laid off from the paper, Bob took me to lunch. When I told him I’d bought this domain from GoDaddy, he volunteered to host me for a year. I’m quite grateful for that.

And while I was appalled at some of the very elements in last night’s debate that pleased Bob, I can see his way of looking at it. Leading off the debate — a debate, after all, for president of the United States, an office that actually deals with some pretty significant public policy issues — with that question was obnoxious, and unnecessary. Bob thought of the questioner, and the school of thought he represents, as deserving a comeuppance. Newt delivered. I don’t disagree. The difference is that in my view, Gingrich’s rebuke was entirely over the top, and revelatory of a temperament that is entirely inappropriate in one who would hold that office. And I found the self-serving nature of his whipping up the crowd’s resentment toward news media as, quite frankly, contemptible.

So we’re not going to agree there. But we can agree on something else, something that seems just as important to Bob as Gingrich’s poise, breadth of knowledge and combativeness: the fact that he doesn’t come across as a phony.

I see that as an element in why different people like Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. All have a naturalness, a humanity (often with all the weakness that humanity implies) that Romney fails to project.

Bob’s gotten to know Gingrich recently, and “from everything I can see, he’s the real deal.” And I think he’s right. I don’t think Newt Gingrich would exert an iota of energy in trying to pretend to be something he is not. Newt is too pleased with who he is to make the effort. But that’s the way I see him, which is not quite the same as my friend Bob McAlister does.