Former Sanford press man Will Folks put out an interesting post on his blog, FITS News, a few days back on Buddy Witherspoon, who is seeking to unseat U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham. In the post, Folks reports that Witherspoon has ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization viewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and others as a hate group.
Back in 1999, Witherspoon was criticized for his affiliation with the CofCC and for refusing a request from then-Republican National Chairman Jim Nicholson to quit the group. Nicholson’s request came amid intense media scrutiny following the revelation that powerful Southern politicians like Trent Lott, among others, were linked to the group, which was said to have been “built by supporters of the segregationist White Citizens Councils, the John Birch Society and activists in the presidential campaigns of then-Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace.”
Witherspoon eventually severed his ties with the CofCC, but that hasn’t stopped Graham supporters from spreading the word about his prior affiliation. Some of them have even suggested that Witherspoon maintains ties not only to the CofCC, but also to the more overtly-racist Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and that his public renouncement of these organizations is merely an attempt to come across as more acceptable to moderate GOP voters.
A Witherspoon supporter who spoke with FITSNews on the condition of anonymity vowed that Graham “would rue the day his people picked this fight.”
“Lindsey and his people are just smearing Buddy’s name, trying to make him a fringe candidate before he even gets into the race,” he said. “That’s a big mistake. Buddy fights fire with fire.”
When asked by Spartanburg’s Herald-Journal about these alleged ties to the CofCC:
“Those claims are totally absurd,” Witherspoon said. “It’s unfortunate that just because you disagree with an individual and stand up to the plate that this sort of thing happens. I’ve been to one meeting years ago where I introduced a U.S. congressman, and that was it.”
Meanwhile, the South Carolina CofCC blog posted an announcement alerting its readers of Witherspoon’s campaign schedule. Of course, that doesn’t prove anything other than they like Witherspoon. It doesn’t mean the love goes both ways, you know.
4 Comments
In case y’all missed it… check this out: http://www.palmettoscoop.com/2007/11/27/gop-could-be-in-bigotry-trouble-with-witherspoon-candidacy/
Tim
From: Marcus Epstein [mailto:marcusepstein@gmail.com]
Sent: Tue 11/27/2007 7:10 PM
To: Tim Manning
Subject: What I plan on responding.
What do you think?
_____________
I will let the various inaccuracies and distortions get handled by others, but I would like to correct some inaccuracies about myself.
First of all I never hosted a fundraiser for Buddy Witherspoon, so this whole attempt to use me in your web of “guilt by associations” is completely pointless
Second of all, I have never written for American Renaissance.
As for the Robert Taft Club, which I run, it is a perfectly mainstream group. Anyone who has attended our meetings will see that it is mainly people from mainstream conservative organizations socializing and listening to prominent thinkers that have included heads of think tanks, professors, Congressmen etc. I encourage any of your readers to go to roberttaft.org and judge for themselves.
VDARE is a website that deals frankly with immigration, and a. I have never heard of anyone even accusing it of having “National Socialist Ties.”– and as my name suggests I’m Jewish, and they publish me and a number of other jews. The site is the product of Peter Brimelow who used to be a senior editor at National Review and Forbes. Again, I urge your readers to go to vdare.com and judge for themselves
Finally the claim is that I have been a guest on the Political Cesspool which has also had some disreputable guests such as David Duke. Generally if someone wants to interview me on their show, I will agree to do so. I do not check to see who else has been a guest. David Duke has been a guest on NBC, does that mean I can’t be interviewed by them for being accused of racist. I am responsible for what I say, not for what other guests on the show may have said. If I recall correctly, when I was a guest I spoke about how open borders would ruin the GOP, which seems to evident in this post.
Instead of actually attacking anything that I have written or said as being “racist” all you are doing is attacking me for associations (some of which don’t exist) of supposed racists. The same is being done with Buddy. You are trying to tar him not based on the issues, but because you say he attended a fundraiser (which he didn’t) by me and I’m supposedly tied to a bunch of racists, which I’m not.
Finally, while we are attacking people for connections–I’d obviously point to Graham’s association with the racist anti-white hate group La Raza (the Race) where he accepted an award and attacked opponents of amnesty as “bigots” (hmm.) who he said he’d “shut up.”
Furthermore, I suggest that every reader look at the sources the Palmetto Scoop uses.
The main “exhaustive” article was merely reprinted by blogcritics. It was originally at “The Pink Flamingo” http://thepinkflamingo.blogharbor.com/blog If you can read through all the garbage, you will see that it is a leftist Republican blog trying to make the GOP support the gay, pro-abortion, and open borders agenda, which is why it naturally likes Graham.
Next the ADL, who launched an exhaustive attack on the Religious Right who spends the majority of its time attacking the Christian Right as bigots. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=643063&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&startIndex=3&firstTime=N
Then the Southern Poverty Law Center an openly left wing mouthpiece which is coming close to calling the Sons of Confederate Veterans a hate group, and attacks virtually every single Republican and conservative they can.
That Lindsay Graham needs to use such left wing shills to do his dirty work, shows who is the real bigot.
–
Marcus Epstein
(757) 375-0179
Actually, Blogcritics.org *is* the source of the article; Pink Flamingo is the writer’s personal blog, but it was written for and published on Blogcritics.org.
There’s followup on Pink Flamingo regarding Epstein specifically though.
If it looks like a queer, talks like a queer, and walks like a queer, then it must be a queer.
Larry Craig denied it. Trent Lott will deny it. But Lindsey says, “prove it.” And it will be proven as there are compromising pictures that once and for all will prove the obvious.
Let’s remember, when the politically correct use the term “racist” they simply mean “white Gentiles.”
When white gentiles work collectively, they are called comic book names by people who hold Europeans in contempt.
Contrast this to Jews and nonwhites in America, who are encouraged to work collectively, to organize along racial lines, to follow racially defined leaders and to discriminate when in their ethnic interests.
This is called pretend egalitarianism, (there are no real egalitarians). A pretend egalitarian promotes equality out of one side of their mouth, while out of the other side they promote discrimination when in their individual interests or their ethnic interests.