Whoops-a-Jewsie!

James Ulmer is chairman of the Orangeburg County, South Carolina Republicans, and this is a picture of him in a bow tie. [pause for laughter] On Sunday, an op-ed he co-authored ran in the local newspaper, and to everyone's surprise, it wasn't arguing for an embrace of lavender sports jackets. Instead, the piece was meant to praise South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint's hardline stance about congressional earmarks. The money quote: "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. By not using earmarks to fund projects for South Carolina and instead using actual bills, DeMint is watching our nation's pennies and trying to preserve our country's wealth and our economy's viability to give all an opportunity to succeed." Hey, I can get behind that. I mean, no one likes the idea of wasting federal money on pet pro--WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT THE JEWS?? To be fair, Ulmer didn't actually say Jews are penny pinchers. He just related an old saying, presumably one heard around the burning cross when he was a youngster. But because everyone's all PC these days, he had to go and apologize for perpetuating a hurtful and conspiratorial stereotype. "I meant absolutely nothing derogatory by the reference to a great and honorable people," he said. Which is fair enough, I suppose. The idea of Jews as greedy little bastards is harmless enough as far as bigoted stereotypes go. And really, they're all probably too busy running Hollywood to notice. More details here.