Wed, 19 May 2004 16:56:35 GMT

WHY IS ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS' LITTLE BROTHER A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE IN SOUTH CAROLINA?

Everybody knows, or knows about the execrable Armstrong Williams, former protege of Strom Thurmond, former "confidential assistant" to Clarence Thomas at the Reagan-era EEOC, now a syndicated right wing black talking head in print and on TV. Along with Steadman Graham, longtime associate of Oprah Winfrey, Williams is one of the principals in the Graham Williams Group, a PR firm whose major clients include Republican politicians and a few entertainment figures not fussy about the company they keep. Williams is even rumored to have done PR for the apartheid government of South African. He likes to brag that his South Carolina family are "third generation Republicans", and to take his own tainted word for it, is a player in the highest circles of that party.

So it's no surprise that when Armstrong Williams's younger brother Kent Williams decided to run for state senate back home in Marion SC, Armstrong would fly back to the family farm in South Carolina and bring Steadman Graham with him to support and raise money for lil bruh Kent's campaign.

Here is what the hometown newspaper, the Mullins Star-Enterprise had to say about the event in early April;

   Kent Williams Holds Campaign Kickoff

   by Cindy Lesieur and Kevin Tindall, staff writers clesieur@florencenews.com and ktindall@florencenews.com

   "Senate dist 30 candidate Kent Williams hosted a barbeque celebration at his farm near Centenary. More than 500 people, local people as well as Armstrong Williams, nationally syndicated columnist and Kent's older brother and Steadman Graham, a close friend of Oprah Winfrey and owner of a large public relations firm endorsed Williams during the event.

   "'He has the support of our entire circle and the connections for business and industry' said Armstrong williams. 'He has traveled all over the world and met with famous leaders including a recent visit with Vice President Dick Cheney.' Armstrong Williams said his brother does not care if someone is a Democrat or a Republican becaue he works for everybody.

   "...He said he will work to fight to protect the pockekbooks of hardworking taxpaying families. 'Too many families have to make a choice between paying taxes and the necessities of life such as food, clothing and electricity,' Williams said "Working families cannot afford the ever-increasing tax burden."

Sorry, the article is not available on the web.

The only strangeness amid all this barbeque and backslapping is the fact that Steadman's buddy and Armstrong's brother Kent Williams is running for state senator in the June 8 Democratic primary election. The question is why a Democrat?

Kent Williams seems to be just as much a Republican as the previous two generations of his family and big brother Armstrong. But unlike big brother who shouts it from the housetops, Kent is keeping a low profile in this majority black district, where most of his white neighbors vote Republican anyway.

Noting that there was no biographical information on the man, zumbi called him up and after the obligatory moment of southern politeness, asked him to fax over a bio, which he did. Not much to work with --- he volunteered for the March of Dimes and has held three jobs, by the look of it. Wondering what else baby bruh had been up to, zumbi took a look around and turned up the web site of SCEIN, the South Carolina Education Information Network, which lists Kent Williams as a "consultant/researcher" and board member from 1977 till at least 1999 or 2000, after which no traces of SCEIN turn up on the web. SCEIN is described as "...a conservative group of business leaders espousing Republican-type reforms."

In line with the Republican right's longstanding goal of discrediting, defunding and eventually dismantling public education, SCEIN endorsed one of Kent's fellow board members, Jim White, as a candidate for state superintendent of schools, based because he was "...A small businessman who recognizes the economic and social impact of a failed public school system."

Another one of Kent Williams's colleagues on the board of SCEIN is a well known flaming right-wing anti-education activist. He's SCEIN co-founder Rev. E. Ray Moore Jr. Moore's web site at http://www.exodusmandate.com/ tells us that since 1997, while serving on the SCEIN board with Kent Williams he has been advancing "...the proposition that private, Christian and home-school education can successfully replace public education". The reverend warns us all that public schools are "the agents of moral decay" in our society. Rev. Moore is so far out there on the rightist fringe that you can google up a lot of looniness with his name on it. Don't take zumbi's word for it.

With friends and associates like these it's no wonder Kent Williams keeps a low profile among Democratic primary voters in his home town. Does the South Carolina Education Association even know about this nutcase? Williams might be counting on a Denise Majette vs Cynthia McKinney style wholesale crossover of white Republican voters to the Democratic primary. Or maybe big brother Armstrong and Steadman came to SC as enablers in the ego-stroking festival that doomed campaigns oft turn into. Big Republican crossovers do seem unlikely, in SC this year, given the jostling among Republicans to fill the US Senate seat vacated by Fritz Hollings.

The state senate incumbent in Marion SC is Maggie Glover, the first black woman to serve in South Carolina's state senate, and an all-around progressive by all accounts. Besides Kent Williams,another Republican has entered the race, a self-financing millionaire who has blown a quarter million already, a formidable sum for a rural senate seat in the Palmetto state. It may be enough to get him into a runnoff with the incumbent, and a one on one contest with a millionaire, even a white one in a black district, is not where you really want to be.

Folks close to the ground say that Williams isn't fooling anybody who knows him, and that the district is small enough, if not for everybody to know everybody else, for a lot of folks to know the man and his history. Still, facing a millionaire on one side and a friend of Dick Cheney, Steadman and all of Armstrong Williams's "circle", State Senator Maggie Glover could use your $5, $10, $20 or $50 donation. Maybe it will keep her out of runoff with the millionaire. Go on over there and show her some love.

Mon, 10 May 2004 21:49:13 GMT

Seymour Hersh is the reporter who gets credit for releasing a portion of the classified Taguba report --the one that Rummy and Gen. Myers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they hadn't found time to read in the several months it's been on their desks -- outlining a few of the instances of torture conducted by US military personell and mercenary "contractors" in Iraq.
Sunday Hersh posted a new article on the subject with additional detail in the New Yorker.

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