Saskatchewan Has Paid a Republican Lobbyist Millions of Dollars, Yet Here We Are
It's so nice of Scott Moe to have provided years of generous and stable monthly funding to the same GOP politicians he's on his knees in front of right now because they're trying to end us.
Meet longtime South Carolina state lawmaker, George W. Bush-bestie, former US ambassador to Canada and John Grisham villain, David Wilkins.
A loyal Republican soldier, Wilkins was first elected as state representative in the South Carolina Legislature in 1980.
As Y2K loomed, Wilkins was serving as South Carolina’s Republican Party chair for the Bush-Cheney campaign when he found himself under attack by his own party (sound familiar?).
At issue was whether the Confederate flag should still be flown over the South Carolina Statehouse (aka Legislature).
On January 1, 2000 pressure from a NAACP boycott to remove the flag had kicked in, bearing down on South Carolina lawmakers. The issue had bled onto the presidential campaign trail. Eventually the flag would be lowered from the Statehouse dome and relocated behind its Confederate Memorial statue.
Wilkins was credited with leading the relocation negotiations within South Carolina’s Republican caucus.
Despite the fact Wilkins publicly repeated his support for the Confederate flag as his state’s symbol, as well as the fact he very likely did it at the request of George Bush’s campaign, Wilkins willingness to bend was considered traitorous.
Just a bit of foreshadowing, perhaps.
In 2015, after a racist shot up a Black church in Charleston, the Confederate flag was removed from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds altogether.
God knows it’s probably back up now.
George Bush made David Wilkins the US ambassador to Canada in 2005.
“Who wouldn’t want to be an American ambassador?
…a luxury residence, six-figure salary, and private school tuition for your children — a comfortable diplomatic lifestyle bankrolled by taxpayers. For decades, presidents from both parties have quietly distributed a portion of these cushy posts…to some of their most generous campaign donors. Although the practice is technically prohibited by law, Congress has long acquiesced.” - Got $1 Million to Spare? You Can Buy an Ambassadorship, NY Times, December 15, 2020
For the sake of multi-partisanship and continentalism, please also see: the Sweet Life of Ralph Goodale as the Canadian amba- er, High Commissioner to the United Kingdom).
Fancy.
In 2005, David Wilkins responded like a 2025 Republican would today when accepting a blatantly bought-and-paid for diplomatic role:
Nothing like being hand-selected by God to work for Bush Jr to boost an old man’s confidence, amiright?
Wilkins was, um, himself at his swearing-in ceremony.
Fast forward to spring 2008.
Three years into his term as ambassador and less than a year before it was slated to end, Wilkins was on a cross-Canada tour.
Wilkins would make at least three more official visits to Saskatchewan over the course of 2008.
You’ll note in the story above that Wilkins was “non-committal” in April 2008 as to whether anything could actually be done to relieve Saskatchewan’s concerns with the US.
Funny how that indecision evaporated less than a year later - once the province’s taxpayers started paying Wilkins more every month than many Saskatchewan families earn in a year.
But we’ll get to that.
First, I have a story.
Because of course I do.
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