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1. OK, I know we're in a 30-minute news cycle, but I want to hold on for a moment to my rage about GA Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and her insane "Attila the Hun" TV ad that gives a wink and a nod to the idea it's a good thing to "eliminate liberal scribes." I want to tell a story...
2. ...because Loeffler's intemperate and potentially violent dog whistle reminded me of one of the greatest "scribes" to hang his hat in the senator's adopted state of Georgia -- Ralph McGill, who was the editor of the Atlanta Constitution from 1945 until the late 1960s
3. McGill was a visionary -- for his era. His views might seem tame to a liberal today. But McGill opposed segregation - which many of his white readers saw as their "way of life" - and was a moderate on civil rights. He vehemently fought the political hate rhetoric of his day.
4. As a result, many white Georgians wanted to "eliminate," to borrow Sen. Loeffler's phrasing, McGill. In addition to frequent death threats, white supremacists burned crosses on the editor's lawn and fired shots into his home
5. In 1958, as both hate speech and violence increased across the Deep South, Atlanta's largest synagogue was bombed. McGill went into the newsroom and wrote an editorial that night. Its words resonate more deeply than ever, some 62 years after they were written. McGill typed...
6. "This is a harvest. It is the crop of things sown. It is not possible to preach lawlessness and restrict it….But let it be understood that when leadership in high places in any degree fails to support constituted authority, it...
7. "...opens the gates to all those who wish to take law into their hands…." Although his words were an attack on the demagogues of the George Wallace era, it's tragic that a Loeffler would carry on these traditions of violent rhetoric, generations later https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2017/how-courageous-journalists-of-the-last-century-stood-up-to-the-kkk-update/
8. For that editorial, McGill won a Pulitzer Prize in 1959. LBJ later gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. McGill's writings helped give his flawed hometown a moderate reputation as it became a large and prosperous metropolis, where an reckless, ignorant ingrate..
9. ...like Loeffler could become a multi-millionaire and buy a U.S. Senate seat, and then use rank demagoguery to try to keep it. She is an utter disgrace. Instead of urging her violent yahoo fans to "eliminate liberal scribes," she should take a moment to read...
10. ..one -- the late great Ralph McGill, who devoted his life trying to save the soul of Atlanta from people like Kelly Loeffler https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2018/in-1958-a-synagogue-was-bombed-an-editors-response-won-a-pulitzer-%C2%97-and-his-words-ring-eerily-true-today/
11. By the way, this thread is adapted from the latest edition of The Will Bunch Newsletter, which drops every Tuesday. I'd be flattered if anyone considered subscribing -- it's easy and it's free. Thanks -- 30 -- https://www.inquirer.com/newsletters/will-bunch/sign-up/?utm_source=print&utm_campaign=mktg_editorial_bunch_leadgen&utm_medium=print&utm_content=&utm_term=&int_promo=
