[rightwing2]

Your conjecturing is specious. No one wanted troops in China right after WWII. Thurmond would have been a disaster in more ways than one. Do you think HE would have integrated the armed forces? Truman was one of the few excellent Dem presidents.

On the contrary, my indictment of Truman is well-supported by historical fact. Kindly read "America's Retreat from Victory" by renowned anti-Communist Joseph McCarthy. Further, there was no need for US troops in China after WWII except as military advisors/liaisons. Of course, I know that Thurmond was unacceptable as the segregationist he was. I'm just saying that he would have pursued a far better foreign policy than the disasterous Democrat President Truman. JFK, for all his faults, was a far better foreign policy President than Truman. He built up our nuclear triad and maintained US nuclear superiority over the Soviets.

[Theodore R.]

"I'm just saying that he (Thurmond) would have pursued a far better foreign policy than the disasterous Democrat President Truman." I have a sneaking suspicion that this is exactly what Trent Lott had in mind at that fateful Dec. 5, 2002, birthday party. But Trent got so sidetracked, with people questioning his commitment to "civil rights," that he never clarified what he meant. Instead, Trent went on a foolish, thoughtless "defense" that destroyed his effectiveness. And 87 percent in MS did vote for Thurmond in 1948. MS did not warm to HST then, but now, people there probably "admire" HST for all the wrong reasons.

Thurmond's birthday party will go down in history as important perhaps as the 1830 Jefferson Day birthday dinner in which President Jackson (the smarter politician) and Vice President Calhoun (the more able thinker) began to part ways, but all within the Democrat party. Calhoun later served as secretary of state in the nominally Whig administration of former Democrat John Tyler.