My absolutely favorite Stephen King line has to be quoted here:
It’s always great when someone is found with his pants down and his dick up and it isn’t you.
True Moto, the twenties were a tough time to make such admissions. The only problem is, there just happened to be eight decades that followed the twenties. He couldn’t fess up in 1948, since he broke with his party since they weren’t into segregation. He couldn’t fess up in the sixties, when he was fighting against civil rights. So that leaves 3 decades. Still not a peep in three decades.
The Byrd shot was a nice red herring though.
Thurmon was a putz. Even a bigger one, in my mind, since he fought for so long against the best interests of his own flesh and blood. It ain’t about Democrats or Republicans, it’s about hypocrites and jerks. Tis a pity that the truth didn’t come out while he was alive so he could enjoy a much deserved squirm.
Is that somehow a slam at liberal Dopers? I think we’re all aware that the Democrats jumped on the equal-rights bandwagon in the sixties because “hey, what do you know, black people are going to be voting en masse all of a sudden…”
Not to mention it would have been honest and straightforward.
This has got to be a new record for “faint praise.”
IMO, the best thing that could come out of this would be exactly what you said above: Strom becomes a laughingstock and virtually unemployable.
What do Strom & Saddam have in common?
They were both found in a black hole!
[sub]ducks and runs[/sub]
gooti, that was way, way bad! Runs away, snorting.
The pic in this Wash Post article really points up the similarity in looks. There’s no question it’s his kid.
Sigh… PIMF
Well, like I said, I don’t want to be seen as a big Strom Thurmond defender. And I do think he should have come forward sooner, though it seems as though he’s hinted around this issue with associates for years.
A secret, once kept, can have its own momentum, especially when a powerful man can be embarassed by the telling.
I merely wanted to provide, in my post, a little insight into the times in question, and the society that existed in the Carolinas then. These issues were very real.
If you lived in the Carolinas then, and your son knocked up the maid, what, exactly, would you do? It’s not a real simple thing to answer.
Many of us want to look at political and moral issues in black and white terms, when the truth is often somewhere between, much like Essie Mae Washington-Williams herself. Maybe we should take a cue from her, since she seems to be telling the truth fully and bearing little ill will.
You’re absolutely right, and I fear my post came off snarkier than intended.
Personally, as a progressive-minded Southerner, my major beef with Thurmond is not so much about his actions 50 years ago, but rather about his continued presence in the Senate, and the national spotlight, long past his expiration date. He did so much, and for so long, to perpetuate inaccurate, divisive, and destructive stereotypes about Southerners. For that I have no forgiveness.
As for his race-baiting speeches recorded on scratchy old wax cylinders, well, they’re hateful, but no more so than the rhetoric that was commonly tossed around back in those days, and in fact continues to be used, for example in debates on gay marriage. I find them extremely offensive, but they belong to a period in the past when certain delusions were widespread enough to be considered societal norms. (Not that that’s not the case today, but that’s a whole 'nother can of worms, of course.)