Joe The Plumber's Friend

Joe the Plumber was a no-show at a McClain rally in Ohio. When the plumber’s friend called Joe’s name, nobody answered. Joe was out trying to trade his 15 minutes of fame for a recording contract as a country singer. Joe came to public attention when he engaged Barack Obama in a discussion of tax policy in front of network television cameras. “I just happened to be here and Barack Obama happened to show up,” Joe explained. Joe said he wanted to buy the plumbing company he worked for but would be prevented from doing it because of Obama’s tax plan. Ignore the fact that Joe did not have the down payment to buy the company even if he could find a sub-prime, no doc loan somewhere. “I asked the question but I still got a tap dance ...almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.,” Joe said. Joe the Plumber was also mentioned prominently in the last Presidential debate between Obama and McCain. After the debate, Joe called Obama’s plans “one step closer to socialism.” He also supported the view that "a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel." I think maybe it’s time to just move to a different bar stool.

In our democracy, people love to believe one person’s opinion is as good as another’s. However, the U.S. Constitution only guarantees your freedom to express your opinion and protection from government reprisals for that expression. Even if the media catapults you to national fame, because it did not have anything easier to do that day, your opinion may yet fall into that category of anatomical comparison that everybody has one, and they all stink.

Lester Maddox, governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971, was the son of an Atlanta steelworker and followed his father in that job. Maddox eventually opened the Pickrick Cafeteria on Hemphill Ave., near the campus of Georgia Tech and not far from the Atlantic Steel Mill neighborhood where he was raised and next door to the less economically grounded neighborhood in which I grew up. Maddox, working side-by-side with his wife and children, made a success of the restaurant. For years, Maddox advertised his specialties, skillet-fried chicken, ax-handles, and segregationist politics, in double-wide columns entitled Pickrick Says in the Saturday Atlanta newspaper. During those days of the 1960’s Civil Rights Movement, many segregationists found refuge and comfort at the Pickrick Cafeteria and in the words Maddox published in the bought and paid for rants of his weekend newspaper advertisements. The ax-handles Maddox sold at Pickrick were widely known by the nickname “N…. Knockers.”

In September of 1963, four Sundy School children were killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. I worked for The Atlanta Journal at the time as the most junior of young reporters. I helped put together the reaction story about the bombing, a collection of quotes from elected officials, business leaders, clergy, civil rights groups, anybody famous with something to say in response to a big news event. For the first, last, and only time in my life, I spoke to the chicken restauranteur who sold ax handles. What was his reaction? Did he condemn the domestic terrorists from the Klu Klux Klan who had murdered the four little girls? No. He blamed the victims, said they had “brought it on themselves.” With righteous indignation, I reported his remarks in the newspaper. Nonetheless, it still haunts me that uncritical and easy media publication of this sort of ignorance was what made Lester Maddox Governor of Georgia.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

No, Thank You, Please

Historic British bulldog Winston Churchill pulled his countrymen through World War II and is probably the reason why the German language is not more widely spoken in the world today. Immediately after the war, he was voted out of office. Democracy is the worse possible form of government, he noted, except for all the others.

Georgia’s runoff will be Tuesday for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate. Turnout may not reflect the importance or complexity of this election between Jim Martin and Vernon Jones. Remember, the incumbent Republican should never be forgiven for suggesting his opponent, former Sen. Max Cleland, had somehow failed to lose enough limbs in combat for his country to check the Patriot Column, Yes. Jim Martin, a former veteran state legislator and Georgia Department of Human Resources Director under two governors, a Republican and a Democrat, ran for Governor unsuccessfully. In the current primary campaign for the U.S. Senate, Martin has been endorsed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Rev. Joseph Lowery, and the DeKalb County Sheriff. A lawyer friend of mine tells me he has known Martin personally for many years, has the highest respect for him, and praises, among other things, Martin’s known legal representation of people who were never going to be able to pay him. Jim Martin is also a Vietnam veteran.

If Vernon Jones, CEO of DeKalb County, runs on the platform of wanting to do for the country what he has succeeded in doing for the county, I would have to say, no, thank you, please. In the past, I have often joked about Vernon Jones that leading his accomplishments for DeKalb County is the regulation that you cannot sell your home now without replacing the toilet with a low-flow model, what I call flush-light. Advocates insist this is a water saver, but how can it save water if you have to flush twice to clear it? Still, my desire to dismiss Vernon Jones as a laughing matter is as dangerous as ignoring a loaded gun in the hands of a child. DeKalb Officers Speak, the website privately put together by a police officers group, lists among its favorite links Vernon Jones Facts, consisting of detailed criticisms of Jones and his record, including spending improprieties, management abuses, and a “long record of mistreating women.” Bumper stickers for Jones show him side-by-side with Barack Obama, but Sen. Obama says, "I do not endorse him. I have not endorsed him. He put my picture on his literature without asking me. I think he may have come to an event of ours a while back. The reason I think I may have met him is I know somebody told me as I was shaking his hand that he had taken pride in voting for George Bush twice." Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, writes that if Jones is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, it will alienate potential Georgia voters for Obama in the Presidential election, because Jones is so divisive politically and racially. Nonetheless, both Jones and Martin declare themselves strong supporters of Obama for President.

Did I mention that Mr. Jones has particular problems with women? These include abusive confrontations and even an allegation of rape, which Jones claims was consensual. In fact Jones explains the sexual encounter as a menage a trios, presumably posing the proposition to ponder, how can you rape two women at the same time? The best thing about Vernon Jones running for the Senate is that he will no longer be in charge of my county government.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

Democrats against Chambliss

Georgia Democrats get to go to the polls on Tuesday and vote for someone to have the honor of ending the political career of Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss. This is a noble venture, since Sen. Chambliss was elected by shameful and not even veiled suggestion that the prior occupant of that office, Max Cleland, was not patriotic enough. How many arms and legs does a Democrat have to leave in Vietnam to make the Republicans ashamed of themselves?

On the Democratic primary ballot for this sweet revenge are Dale Cardwell, former Atlanta TV newsman; Vernon Jones, DeKalb County CEO; Rand Knight, Ecologist & Business Executive; Josh Lanier, a former aide to Sen. Herman Talmadge; and Jim Martin.

Cardwell is a familiar face on Atlanta television, having worked for WSB-TV as an investigative journalist. Perhaps this accounts for polls suggesting he leads all Democrats against Chambliss. Cardwell himself claims he leads his other Democratic primary contenders among voters who say they support Barack Obama. Dale says, “I'm honored and humbled with the continued support of Georgia's likely voters. It shows the special interests and insiders might control the lion's share campaign cash, but they don't control me, and they don't control the people of Georgia

Vernon Jones, the current CEO of DeKalb County, says, “I believe Georgia needs a conservative democrat in the United States Senate.” He reportedly voted for George Bush for President, but “I share your concerns with the direction in which our country is going,” he says. “I believe in a strong defense and unconditional support of our armed forces no matter where they are deployed."

Atlanta native Rand Knight vows to be a true champion for hardworking Georgians. An ecologist, technology consultant and entrepreneur, Knight claims experience in agriculture, the environment, alternative energy, and economic development. A self-styled mainstream progressive, he says he “is committed to keeping the special interests and the divisive partisanship out of the legislative process.”

The website for Josh Lanier of Statesboro calls itself “The Un-Campaign.” He served in the Army in Vietnam and visited Vietnam again as a congressional staffer for Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge. As a businessman, Lanier has been a consultant on water treatment, reuse, and safety standards. He is also a writer.

Jim Martin served many years in the Georgia legislature and as head of the Georgia Department of Human Resources under two Governors, one a Democrat, the other a Republican. He was later a candidate for Governor. He is also a veteran of the war in Vietnam. Critical of the Presidency of George W. Bush, Martin has been endorsed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The safe bet is that this election will likely result in a runoff because of the crowded field of candidates. My bet is Martin and Jones will go head to head. Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution believes the presence of Jones on the ballot in the general election could negatively impact Barack Obama’s prospects in Georgia.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

40 Days and 40 Nights

Georgia’s constitution protects citizens against the General Assembly being in session more than 40 days and 40 nights, the Biblical duration of calamity and pestilence. Now the 2008 Georgia Legislature has ended sine die, which is what the good old boys like to say to show they went to law school in the state university system. Others just say, “The last dog died.” It is ok to come out of the root cellar and inventory the damage.

A proposal to abolish property taxes and substitute an expanded, broad based consumption tax will not happen this time around. Despite promotion by the Speaker of the Georgia House, or maybe because of Mr. Speaker, the plan succeeded mainly in unifying the opposition. “Democrats have no better friend than Glenn Richardson,” Amy Morton, Democratic activist, blogs mockingly.

But why focus on failure? Look at what they accomplished. Citizens can now take wine home from restaurants. No doggie bags. It must be resealed and locked in the trunk or glove compartment of your car. Or you can just buy a stiff drink from your limo driver. Once you get home, you can order your wine over the internet or telephone directly from your favorite winery. All in the name of civic dedication and public service by our elected state representatives.

Legislative action increased prison sentences and fines for dog-fighting and criminalized betting on this illegal activity. Meanwhile, professional wrestlers will not be subjected to random drug testing and physical examinations. A requirement that animal shelters use lethal injection, rather than gas chambers, to euthanize animals was rejected by this session of the legislature.

However, tax credits for making movies in Georgia were enacted, while tax credits for homeowners and businesses to install water-saving equipment were not. Not to worry. A Georgia-Tennessee border survey from 1818 was declared invalid, so that Georgia can tap the the waters of the Tennessee River.

Last, but not least, persons with concealed-weapons permits may now legally enter restaurants, state parks, public transportation, and workplace parking lots, armed and fully loaded, thanks to the 2008 Georgia Legislature.

No wonder the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found 10 Atlanta area legislators who just plain went AWOL, although some had good excuses, such as being unable to find last-minute child-care or pressing business at their day-jobs.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

Shipp Launches New Blog

Distinguished print journalist Bill Shipp, dean of Georgia political reporting, has launched a new blog. The website will contain the same news and commentary for which he is already well known and long respected. I just wanted to welcome him to the blog world. Bill Shipp does not need my endorsement or approval. Nonetheless, the blogosphere is elevated by his experience, wisdom and indeed his very presence. Bill Shipp's Georgia, a weekly newsletter, became the country's first serious political journal on the internet in the 1990’s, making this “old-school newspaperman a pioneer blogger,” he says. Shipp's columns appear in more than sixty newspapers, and he is a familiar member of The Georgia Gang weekly Atlanta television discussion of current events.

I worked with Bill Shipp many, many years ago at the old Forsyth Street Journal-Constitution, my first regular full-time job, journalistic or otherwise. In those days The Atlanta Journal, where I worked, was published six afternoons each week, and The Atlanta Constitution, where Shipp worked, the same number of mornings, with a combined Sunday edition. Each daily had its own separate newsroom and staff. Bill Shipp was already an ace political reporter. I was not even a face card.

Reporting on Georgia politics for more than fifty years, much of what he has covered has now officially entered the status of history, those events ignorance of which condemns us to pointlessly repeat, making the same old mistakes and reinventing wheels. Shipp says, “Thousands of Georgians regularly read my column twice weekly in their local paper and online, but I've set up this site to offer a more in-depth and faster-responding venue for the quick-paced action that is Georgia politics. Bill Shipp Online will be a forum for my thoughts and those of some of the finest writers on Georgia politics. My columns will be available soon after they are published in the newspapers around the state, but my notes on politics as well as breaking news flashes will be available exclusively here.”

A Marietta native, Shipp attended Emory University and the University of Georgia., where he became the managing editor of the student newspaper, the Red and Black. During this time, a young man named Horace T. Ward attempted to end racial segregation at the University of Georgia. Then-Governor Herman Talmadge and the Board of Regents prevented Mr. Ward from enrolling. Shipp’s editorials and columns in the student newspaper protested the actions of the governor and board of regents. This was the era of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that held separate was inherently unequal. Horrace T. Ward never attended the University of Georgia but years later was appointed to a federal judgeship by Georgia native-son President Jimmy Carter.

For over 30 years, Shipp was a writer and editor for The Atlanta Constitution, covering the civil rights movement, the early days of the space program, and numerous political campaigns, and breaking stories. Shipp has collected his columns, personal essays, and political profiles in the book The Ape-Slayer and Other Snapshots, the title entry describing a gung-ho police officer and a rampaging chimpanzee in midtown Atlanta. Shipp has also published Murder at Broad River Bridge, an account of Lemuel Penn, an African-American Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army reserves, on his way home to Washington, D.C., shot to death by members of the Ku Klux Klan in 1964 near the Oglethorpe-Madison county line.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

Watch Your Wallet and Jekyll Island

My beer buddy Luther keeps alive the warning "Watch out for your wallets, your wives and daughters, and Jekyll Island. The Georgia Legislature is in session." Luther is old-school. He remembers state legislators lining up for Jekyll junkets, discharging their grave responsibility to oversee real estate owned by Georgia taxpayers, while throwing historic beach parties for good old boys, with barbeque, booze and sort-of gorgeous girls in the spirit of what happens on Jekyll stays on Jekyll.

The Georgia Legislature created the Jekyll Island Authority to preserve and take care of this unique natural resource. Now the Jekyll Island Authority, political appointees of the Governor, aided an abetted by the legislature, is moving inexorably towards commercial development of the pristine state park that would feature a 64-acre town center, 277 condos, 160 time-share units, and three hotels with 725 rooms I could not afford, 102,000 square feet of retail space, and a new convention center. This will occupy the main part of Jekyll's beautiful natural oceanfront, eliminating four oceanfront public parking lots in favor of private development. Critics charge the development will decrease the percentage of affordable hotel rooms, making high-end rooms the norm within the park. The sale price of the new condos is expected to average over a half a million dollars each. Public debt to provide the infrastructure for the development begins at $84.5 million. This is what Republicans do: outsource government services, like hiring Hessian security forces in Iraq, and sell off public property to developers. Can anybody say, goodbye to the sea turtles and other precious and sensitive wildlife habitats?

Jekyll Island was named not for the bipolar physician and recreational chemical experimenter of the Robert Louis Stevenson story but rather for another Englishman, Sir Joseph Jekyll, a pal of Georgia colonizer James Oglethorpe. Nonetheless, the island was long mis-spelled Jekyl Island, until the modern Georgia Legislature, always sticklers for improvement of statewide literacy, corrected this error. For most of its early history, Jekyll Island was a family-owned and prosperous cotton plantation. Fifty years after importing slaves to the United States was outlawed, the last slave ship to Georgia soil arrived at Jekyll Island from Africa with 465 involuntary illegal immigrants. When plantation life ended, owners of Jekyll Island came up with the idea of selling the island to Yankees as a winter resort. The resulting Jekyll Island Club was eventually joined by the rich and famous including Marshall Field, J. P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, and William H. Vanderbilt. The first transcontinental telephone call was made from Jekyll Island by the president of AT&T, to Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas A. Watson and President Woodrow Wilson, and Jekyll Island hosted the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Along with the rest of the country, Jekyll Island fell on hard times during the 1930’s. However, in 1946 M E Thompson, (of Georgia's Trio of Governors fame) wanted to purchase one of Georgia's Sea Islands and open it to the public as a state park, and Jekyll was purchased by the state in 1947.

The wonderful photos included herein are by Kristina Simms, longtime friend of my wife’s and mine. After a career teaching in the central Georgia public schools, she has earned her retirement as grass roots Democratic activist, an advocate for mental health, and photographer of the beauty of Georgia.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

House of Talmadge

In my earliest memories, probably as a preschooler, I played on the lawn of the Georgia Capitol, which was across the street from where I lived at an Atlanta address that has since vanished to make way for interstate highways and put up a parking lot. In addition to bronzed cannons, this playground included an oversized statue of Eugene Talmadge pointing his huge finger down Memorial Drive. At the end of that unscenic highway, find Stone Mountain, in Talmadge’s day and even into the 1960’s, site of Saturday night KKK cross burnings and more permanently the memorial in carved relief sculpture of the three horsemen of the Confederacy: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. As Georgia Governor, Eugene Talmadge fired educators from the state university system for advocating “communism or racial equality.” He referred to the Rosenwald Fund, founded by the president of Sears, Roebuck & Co. to support social issues, as “Jew money for niggers.” Earlier this year, it came to light that the FBI had a file on Eugene Talmadge in connection with racial incidents, including a lynching, in the town of Monroe. Eugene Talmadge was elected Governor of Georgia four times in the 1930’s and 1940’s, the same era that four times elected Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States. Despite Roosevelt’s many regular visits to Warm Springs, Ga., Eugene Talmadge was not a frequent dinner guest at the Little White House.

Eugene Talmadge won election to his fourth term as governor in 1946 but died before he could take office. The then-new Georgia Constitution provided for a Lieutenant Governor for the first time, and M. E. Thompson had been elected. Upon the death of Gov.-Elect Talmadge, his vassals in the Georgia legislature, operating on the doctrine of divine right of kings and kingmakers, voted to make Eugene Talmadge’s son Herman the new governor. Herman had, after all, received some write-in votes in Telfair County, the Talmadge home, previously uncounted votes, discovered like found money. Come January 1947, both Herman Talmadge and M. E. Thompson claimed the office of Governor of Georgia, and outgoing Governor Ellis Arnall refused to vacate the office to Talmadge. Thus Georgia’s governorship had three pretenders to the throne simultaneously. The Georgia Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of Lt. Gov.-Elect Thompson. In the 1948 special election, Herman Talmadge defeated M. E. Thompson and served as Governor of Georgia until 1954, then was elected in 1956 to the U.S. Senate, where he served until 1980. He became chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee and looked out for the interests of farmers and agricultural businesses. His long career in the U.S. Senate ended with censure for padding his expense reports, and even his popular ex-wife Betty testified against him before the Senate Ethics Committee.

However, Sen. Talmadge’s finest moments came as a member of the Watergate Committee, chaired by North Carolina Sen. Sam Ervin. During these investigations of the involvement of President Richard Nixon in the break-in of Democratic Party Headquarters and other 1972 campaign crimes and misdemeanors, a leading tough inquisitor was Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. One of Nixon’s vassals, under his breath, referred to Sen. Inouye as “that Little Jap.” An open microphone picked up the comment for public consumption. The next day, Sen. Talmadge had the priviledge of reciting in his beautiful Georgia twang for the committee and the national television audience the details of how Sen. Inouye lost his right arm in WWII combat service in the U.S. Army in Italy and won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter

Taxation With Representation

Everybody hates taxes--theirs, not yours. Yours are just fine.

From time to time, some political would-be-savior will remember that tax-payers hate taxes, and try to get them riled up by offering some bright idea about shifting the tax burden around like a pea under a shell. Steve Forbes, an enormously wealthy man, drew attention to himself a few years ago and ran for President, partly on the platform that the current tax system was unfair. You can pretty safely assume he meant it was unfair to him. He wanted to abolish the federal progressive income tax system and replace it with a uniform national sales tax.

Recently the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives served up the same fix at a country club breakfast meeting. I will take the name in vain of neither the speaker nor the country club. Repeal property taxes and exemptions from sales taxes for groceries and other goods and services, including medical care, he chirped and got a big round of applause. This always strikes folks as fair who only spend a relatively small portion of their income on groceries and the other things it takes just to get by. Those of us who spend large chunks of our paychecks on basic necessities would be howling a different tune if such a plan ever came to pass.

I don’t know why some politicians love these sales tax ideas, but it’s nothing new. Bad as things are, they can only be made worse by the state legislature’s shifting the tax burden to those things people cannot avoid, like food and basic services.

The issue is not net dollars, $5,000 in taxes here vs. $2,000 there. Even if the simple math tells us that $2,000 is less than $5,000, tax fairness is a matter of tax distribution and has to be measured by what percentage of someone’s bank account has disappeared, the same size bite out of a smaller wallet. When consumption-based taxes are increased, the biggest burden goes against the less well off. In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that, as an owner of rental property, I pay more property taxes than income taxes.

Georgia already has a booming lottery business, a powerful magnet to draw in the discretionary spending, if hopefully not the grocery and rent money, of folks unable to calculate the odds against them or to resist believing in dumb luck. Legislators have no shame.

All those un-American countries in Europe have high taxes on consumer goods and services. These range from 15 to 20 percent in France, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries, as any red-blooded American who has ever bought a beer or cup of coffee over there will tell you. European countries don’t call it sales tax. They call it Value Added Tax, VAT. Maybe they’re trying to convince people something is more valuable because the tax has been added. American politicians who would not get caught dead endorsing the kind of health systems that prevail in these Socialist democracies nonetheless think it is a great idea to up the taxes on a cup of coffee, a cart full of groceries, or braces for your kids.

My beer buddy Luther has a low opinion of politicians. Let them chase hookers and signal for new acquaintances in the public bathrooms, Luther says. It keeps them out of serious trouble and prevents them from making life miserable for the rest of us.

(Originally posted 9-6-07)

Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter