How's his gob though? I sincerely hope it remains unsmacked. A man can only take so many of those in one day.

Not to salt the wound, but Allah beat you to it, too. Mighty curious that his past didn't seem to matter when he was invited to speak at the 1992 DNC.

I guess it was sort of an obvious point. And here I was, all proud.

I never got around to reading other blogs today, until I started doing the rounds an hour ago.

There's so much news (most of which I haven't gotten to yet) that I'm just pulling off of Lucianne.com that I just never got around to checking out my usual starting rotation.

...and at first glance, my thought was: "Dude! David Coverdale died?!??!?!!????"

I'm such an 80s rock wastoid.

Zell actually addresses the "Dixiecrat" thing in his National Party No More book. That part from Sullivan was vile enough that it deserves a good rebuttal (been attacking him about as harshly as you have for about 6 months).

In the front part of Ch. 16, "Give To Bigotry No Sanction", he basically explains that although he was very early as a kid arguing for civil rights ('48 while in high school), he wimped out in '64 and ran against it to try to win for Congress. Money quote follows:

"To make it even worse, after President Johnson came with his juggernaut, I responded, "Johnson is a Southerner who has sold his birthright for a mess of dark porridge." The minute it was out of my mouth I regretted it, and I've regretted this whole sordid episode ever since. It has been a source of shame I have never been able to escape. I only hope that the totality of my forty-year record since then is proof that they were the words of someone who at that time was a political weakling, but not a racist." (p. 143, hardback)

Take that for what you will.

He was appointed in July, 2000, and won the special election later that year.

Bigotry is a hard rap to beat. Unfortunately, there are many catch phrases that people use to 'prove' bigotry.

"Some of my best friends are..."

My dad is an ordinary european immigrant/american citizen born in 1949. He had the millstone of bigotry across his neck for many, many years. In the present day, he actually does have good friends who are..."

But he's one of these (not so old) Old-timers who mentions people by race; "I was talking to so-and-so, and this black guy we know walks up and says-"

I know my father's heart. He's not even close to being an Archie Bunker (though Archie had a lovely side).

Can we ever drop this shit?

I'm with lauraw. But before we do...

"The senior Democratic Senator was a KKK Kleagle but, jeepers, they just never have the time to mention that bit of his resume. No, it's always about what a 'master of Senate procedure' or 'student of Senate history' he is."

When they're not actually fawning on him outright as "the Conscience of the Senate," that is.