During a Birthday celebration, the Senate Majority leader praises a man on his 100th birthday. This man is a sitting (retiring) Senator who has been in office for 50 years. What the Majority leader says is that the country would have been better off if you had achieved the highest office you sought. Why wasn't there any controversy about Thurman during the past 50 years? The people of South Carolina kept on re-electing him. There was no effort to centure Thurman in the past, why are they attacking him now?
If at a birthday party, Tom Dashle had praised Ted Kennedy, saying that the country would have been better off if Ted was elected president in 1980. Would this be an endorsement of Murderers?
Where did Trent Lott endorce Segregation in his comments about Thurman? This is just a desperate attempt by the Democrats to find an issue.
By the way, how do the Democrats figure this strategy will win back the White vote in the South?
That would be tame under any other circumstance. But when that campaign was based upon the continuation of forced segration, it becomes a loaded statement.