THE ISSUE: Comment by GOP chairmen

OUR OPINION: It was a mistake to publish unchallenged

Two local Republican officials are under fire nationally for what is an anti-Semitic reference in a Times and Democrat editorial page column published Oct. 18.

The column by Jim S. Ulmer Jr., Orangeburg County chairman, and Edwin O. Merwin Jr., Bamberg County chairman, praised South Carolina U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint’s stand against congressional earmarks. In lauding DeMint’s frugality, the two men wrote:

“There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.” The T&D believes this statement wrongly perpetuates stereotypes about Jewish people and we regret that it went unchallenged on our editorial page Sunday.

Ulmer and Merwin have rightly apologized for the comment and said they wished they had not made it. There are those who argue the newspaper should not have allowed such a comment in print.

E-mailed comments to the newspaper include criticism such as: “That a newspaper would print such trash goes to the heart of my pain,” and, “Did no one at The Times and Democrat bother to take the racist references out of the praise DeMint article?”

Even one of South Carolina’s two Jewish members of the General Assembly, Sen. Joel Lourie of Columbia, said: “I am also disappointed that The Times and Democrat would print such an inflammatory piece. I believe that newspapers still have a responsibility to edit their content and reject editorials that promote such blatant intolerance.”

Should we have published Ulmer and Merwin’s column with the anti-Semitic analogy?

Not as we did.

While there is value in publishing the full comments of public officials, they should not be allowed to run unchallenged when they reinforce bigotry. Neither should we edit to sanitize their comments, protecting them from public scrutiny.

In retrospect we had three better options we could have pursued, given that the column was from public officials:

• Don’t publish it, in accordance with the paper’s policy of running only civil letters that do not promote bigotry.

• Publish it as is, but write a T&D response criticizing the anti-Semitic language and publish Ulmer and Merwin’s response.

• Write a story about the letter instead and its use of the anti-Semitic language, interviewing Ulmer and Merwin as well as others.

We think that the second two options, publishing the offensive comment and challenging it either in a story or commentary, would usually be the better options.

Even though opinion pieces can get harsh, particularly those pertaining to politics, that is no justification to have allowed a stereotypical reference to be published unchallenged because these types of references hurt all of us.

Those who have read this newspaper’s editorial page over time know of lively debates over very serious issues. We endeavor to allow just that. But we also want to keep the discourse respectful and civil.

How would you have handled the letter?

We can publish your ideas in future editions.

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