Übergeek 바둑이: I wonder what the senate pro tempore had to say about all of that? Sen Robert Byrd from W Virginia

I/d bet he wished he "only" belonged to Sons of Confederate Veterans

GTCharlie:

The point I tried to make in my post about Joe Wilson is that people have labeled him a racist based on circumstantial evidence, not solid evidence.  Guilt by association is not proof.  Like I pointed at the end, he has received money from the health sector, and so have many other politicians.  I think Joe Wilson's outburst comes from a belief that the health sector as it is today is fine and it does not need change.  Receiving money from the health sector is not corruption but rather a reflection of his beliefs.

Joe Wilson's true mistake was refusing to apologize on the floor of the House.  His outburst was uncalled for, specially in front of the whole country and the whole world.  It showed disrespect for the Presidency and for the House of Representatives.  What would have happened if somebody had yelled "You lie!" when George W. Bush was giving one of his big speeches about the war in Iraq?  As a politician Joe Wilson should have acted less with his heart and more with his mind.  I think Barack Obama understands this and it is why he refused to press the issue.  It was other people who turned the issue into accusations of racism.

Übergeek 바둑이: I agree,, That outburst was uncalled for, no one in the federal or state or local government should try to insult,diminish or humiliate the President in a public forum like Joe Wilson did. Tip O'Neil would never have done that

GTCharlie:

Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK and he opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Of course, in this day and age he has tried (or pretended) to moderate his views.  He became a senator in 1959.  He was born in 1917.  That makes him 92 years old.  Something is very wrong when a man can remain in office for 50 years and into his ripe old age.

Well, senate reform is another topic, and a difficult one because it would involve a major rewriting of the constitution.  Here in Canada it is not much better.  Senators stay there until there are cobwebs on their dried up old bones!

Übergeek 바둑이:> Something is very wrong when a man can remain in office for 50 years and into his ripe old age.... Actually something is very wrong when one is a KLEAGLE ( is there such a thing as former or past?)and get into office, let alone have the audacity to run for it

Übergeek 바둑이:   There's some more on my "South Carolina brother" Joe Wilson.  When Strom's black maid went public about the child, he called her a "liar" also despite the fact that the Thurmond family acknowledged it.  He then went off on a diatribe about how unpatriotic she was.

Ferris Bueller:

This episode in Senator Thurmond's life is interesting to me.  I can imagine that he was conflicted about it through most of his life.

From what I read (the Internet is not always reliable) Storm Thurmond had an illegitimate daughter with Carrie Butler in 1925.  At the time Carrie Butler (an African-American woman) was working as a maid in the Thurmond family home.  Storm Thurmond was 22 and Carrie Butler was 16.  Their daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, was supported by Thurmond through much of her life.  Thurmond paid for her college education and in 1946 she graduated in business from South Carolina State University.  Later she went on to get a master's degree in education and became a teacher in Califormia in the 1960's.

Thurmond fiercely campaigned for seggragation and against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.  When his daughter approached him about it, he apparently brushed off her complaints.  I think he must have been conflicted about it for much of his life.  If one believes Senator Thurmond's family claims, he loved his daughter and cared for and supported her.  She was born when he was very young, before he became a politician.

I would not be surprised if his support of seggregation came as a result of his own sense of shame over having had a relationship with an African American woman, and wanting to maintain some sense of the master-slave mentality.  Before slavery was abolished it was not uncommon for owners of slaves to father children with their African female slaves.  In the culture of slavery such relationships were considered unacceptable, but they happened nevertheless.

Thurmond did moderate his views later in life.  I think that once the Civil Rights Act was passed, he did not need to maintain the same dogged fight for seggregation, or some pretense of it.

After Senator Thurmond died in 2003 his daughter publicly revealed her parentage.  His daughter claimed that she did not reveal it during his lifetime because it was not of any advantage to her or to her father and that she had kept silent out of love and respect for her father.  At first those who supported Thurmond spoke out against her.  Joe Wilson was one of them.  He said that he doubted that she was telling the truth and that she was trying to diminish Senator Thrumond's legacy.  After Thrumond's family acknowledged the truth, Wilson was forced to publicly apologize.

To me, if there is a reason why racism and seggregation are bad, it is a story like this.  The fact that a father and a daughter had to spend their entire lives away from each other, merely exchanging money.  All because of skin color.  It is one of the destructive things that racism does.  It divides human beings and turns them into something they should never be.

I don't know if Joe Wilson is a racist, but when it comes to other people family life, it is better to be silent.  If wilson made a mistake here, it was to pass judgement blindly.  I wonder if his objection would have been the same if Thurmond's daughter had been Caucasian.

Ferris Bueller:

I was trying to get Sen. Thurmond's psychology.  On the one hand he was openly against the Civil Rights Act, and on the other he had a daughter with an African American woman.  It is a deep contradiction in the man because he cared for his daughter (if we believe what his family has said).  Thurmond had the distinction of being the only senator to serve in the Senate at the age of 100.  He saw the entire 20th century unfold.

I see him (and the likes of Sen. Robert Byrd) as a transition in American politics from the racist politics of seggregation to our modern era.  Those men spanned two eras in politics from before to after the civil rights movements.  After this "old guard" in the senate leaves office then we will see some changes in the way laws and government are conducted.  These "old warriors" have a lot of political clout and are very influential.  Something interesting will be who replaces them and what changes in government take place.