If you're comparing me to Strom Thurmond, thank you. And I mean that sincerely.

I take that as a high compliment. I feel like I imagine you'd feel if someone compared you to Kim Philby.

But obviously you missed one part of my post. I'm not a bigot. Now, if you want to believe I am you have my permission.

And Mikey, there's absolutely nothing about me that's suppressed. In fact, I am uncommonly UNsuppressed.

Second, bigotry of "fairy lifestyles" (Randy's obsessive description) is as intimately related to Strom as a black maid.

Prejudice against a class of people is very southern, I admit.

But, Randy, I thought you could be better than your common southern peers and overcome such bigotry.

Liberate yourself from your suppressed gay lifestyle.

Be yourself.

Bigotry? Shoot, I'm not bigoted. As for Mike Fair, sometimes he's right about things. Other times he can be loopy.

You should try to be more tolerant Mikey of the freedom of expression that others choose to employ. Don't be so defensive. You make it seem that you're ashamed of your lifestyle or something. That's just so awfully closeted.

Now, that I've answered your little post.....tell me Mikey, what has any of this to do with Saddam or Strom? Or have you completely forgotten your point?

Your repetition of "fairy lifestyles" is an obsession you share with state senator Mike Fair.

Not that there is anything wrong with it, but such an obsession tends to reveal a suppressed homosexuality.

You and Mike Fair may want to come out of the closet for the new year holding hands.

I consider it an honor to be lectured about wisdom by you. Since you've displayed your vast stores of wisdom to everyone here for the past several days I've decided to allow you to keep your Yankee reject fairy lifestyle a secret. I think that fits with your obssession.

As for the wise men, I don't know that they were black but they certainly were not white. Of course, no one in the story was Caucasian. Some scholars contend they were most likely Indian, others say Oriental.

Whatever they were ethnically we know that they were wise. I encourage you to keep studying the wise men. The reason? Well, maybe it'll help.

If you don't even introduce your black family to your white family, you may not be a redneck but you are a racist.

BTW, Randy, the wise men were black.

Not sure if southerners like you have yet to come to that conclusion.

You do not know what you are talking about on two points.

Point one: Strom did not need to pay hush money to keep Carrie Butler quiet. In 1925 in South Carolina all he had to do was ignore her. No one would have paid her any attention. His political career would not have been threatened because Ms Butler would have done what the others in her situation did......nothing.

Point two: Strom was not the only politician with a mixed race child. It happened. One very prominent, politically active, extremely liberal attorney in Greenville County has a black daughter in Laurens County. She knows who he is but she's never met him. She called him once and he hung up on her. Maybe knowing her story is why I think this story shows a good, not a bad, side of Strom Thurmond. He did lots more than he had to do.

As for his not introducing his illegitimate daughter to the rest of his family.....that's fairly common when race is not an issue. I certainly wouldn't hang my hat on that proving racism to the very end.

The bottom line is......I don't know if Strom was a racist or not. But if he was, he wasn't a very good one for the last 35 years.

Strom Thurmond was a good man. But what would you know about men.......I mean, well you may know about men but I wasn't talking about THAT.

Those others didn't need to pay hush money since their political lives did not depend upon their black children keeping quiet.

Strom had to pay the money.

Strom was a racist for almost all of his life - not just one point in his life.

In fact, since he did not introduce his black daughter to the rest of his immediate family for his whole life, it is reasonable to suspect that he continued to be a racist in private.

He couldn't be one in public since he had to preserve his political power.

Now, Randy, be a man and acknowledge that Strom was a living breathing racist almost all the way to the grave.

You can do it even if you are bred southern.

Second of all, I know some black folk with prominent white men as fathers. You're right that it happened a lot. And I know of none of those folk who received the kind of support from their white daddy that Strom provided for his daughter.

Was it enough? Probably not. Did he do right by her? I would rather he had acknowledge her himself in public before he died. But he did more than most in the same situation. You see, most of these men just pretended that the child wasn't his and never provided one dime of support.

Strom wasn't Jesus. You're right that he at one point in his life was a racist. But people change Mikey. Someday you may even be a man. Probably not but there's always hope.

And even a bad man still beats a Yankee reject fairy who is scared to go topple a statue he wants removed.

Here I thought family values were a traditional core value.

Another white southerner's excuse for a southern racist.

Wonder why he never got the whole family (black and white) together for Thanksgiving dinner.

Guess it wasn't part of Strom's constituent service.

And the fact that Strom fathered an illegitimate child is certainly not the totality of his life. He did other things. And that's why there's a monument to Strom on the State House grounds and there's not one to a Yankee reject fairy.

Don't be upset Mikey. I think you're a bit over wrought.

How do I know?

Strom didn't come clean himself.

This is proof that, at the core, he was ashamed of his own family.

That is why southerners need to lynch the strom statue.

It will show that they do not honor a hypocritical racist who died hiding his black relatives.

As I've said, if you want the statue removed......you do it. I like that statue right where it is and where it belongs. I'm right happy with it there for two reasons.

1. Strom Thurmond, when the totality of his life is considered, deserves to be honored. And I think his oldest daughter would agree with me.

2. It seems to tick Yankee reject fairies off.

I suggest that white southern males like Randy should actually lynch the strom statue which would be poetic justice in a racist historical sense.

Go get your rope, Randy!

You know you want to. Why dontcha? What's that you say?

Skeered?

You?

A yankee toppling strom is exactly what you self-deluded southerners would like to see.

It's like a black guy setting fire to the confederate flag.

Why play into white southerners' fantasies?

The racism and hypocrisy of having a strom statue at the statehouse speaks volumes about southerners like you.

Why would I want to stop that?

Let honorable southerners topple Strom.

Obviously, you are not one of them, Randy.

Show us what a brave Yankee reject fairy you are. Don't just say "we" need to topple this stature or that monument. I don't know who the "we" you speak of might be.

Nah, instead of being so vague why don't you just take the initiative and do what you sit back and ask others to do. Why don't you go topple Strom's statue?

Just two reasons why you won't.

1. Fear.

2. Common damn sense.

Wealthy people who are also smart people rarely die with a large estate for someone to pay taxes on. I'm quite sure that Senator Thurmond very carefully set up various trust accounts to provide for those he wished to share in what he had earned. Mrs. Williams stated such in her interview with Dan Rather.

No, I do not believe that she came forward because the checks stopped. I reiterate that I don't think that's fair. I may be wrong but the lady impressed me as having immensely more class than that.

That's why she waited until that final check cleared before coming forward with her "very human need to say who she is and where she came from" (and especially after finding out that Thurmond's entire estate was only worth $250,000). Hmmm, maybe that's the real reason Senator Thurmond stayed on the payroll almost up until his last breath.

Strom really took to heart that Winnibago bumper sticker: "I'm spending my children's inheritance!"

You conservatives do have a custom of exploiting poor folks and then blaming them for their plight.

First they whine because we pull down the statue of Saddam and now they whine because we're NOT pulling down the statue of Strom!

Frankly, the only reason Essie Mae "came out of the closet" was because the checks stopped coming in from the "political" side of the family.

There are just too many of these right wingers be they dead, imprisoned, or addicted on the radio!