There's no question Strom Thurmond had a racist past, some of which he later disavowed but when Chris Matthews claimed the late South Carolina governor and senator "hanged a few people," on the 7pm edition of Monday's, "Hardball" just what was the MSNBC host implying? Matthews seemed to be claiming that the former Democrat turned Republican senator was personally involved in lynchings.
Video (25 seconds): Windows Media (817 kB) or MP3 audio (199 kB).
The following exchange occurred during a discussion on the December 10, "Hardball" with Newsweek’s Howard Fineman about Oprah Winfrey stumping for Barack Obama in South Carolina:
HOWARD FINEMAN: I was in South Carolina, I saw that rally down there in the football stadium and it was electric. It was-
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Did you have a helicopter at your disposal this weekend? You were everywhere.
FINEMAN: No, no I was just there. That's the only place I was.
MATTHEWS: Alright.
FINEMAN: And I though it was historic. This is the city, this was the city in which Strom Thurmond rose as a Dixiecrat-
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
FINEMAN: -in the old days. The center of segregation.
MATTHEWS: He hanged a few people down there too, didn't he?
FINEMAN: Okay, the center of segregation.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
FINEMAN: Here you had 25, 30,000 people in football stadium. I'd say about 80 percent of them African-Americans wanting to know is he the real deal. You know, should we commit to him.
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Was he with Grand Klegal
December 12, 2007 - 13:55 ET by Chris NormanWas he with Grand Klegal Klugal Kook Robert Byrd?
And by now Chris Matthews
December 12, 2007 - 14:14 ET by wiwfAnd by now Chris Matthews has remembered to take his crazy pills.
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
Just confused
December 12, 2007 - 14:24 ET by CaringwhiteguyChris-Maybe Chrissy Boy just got his Southern Gentlemen crossed. After all, in his mind every white guy from the South is interchangeable.
Yeah, funny how he got
December 12, 2007 - 15:09 ET by Chris NormanYeah, funny how he got Byrd's name crossed up with a Republican's name...
Yea if anyone was involved
December 12, 2007 - 18:33 ET by mlongYea if anyone was involved with hanging it was more likely KKK Bryd..who if he didn't do it himself atleast helped recruit people who did..as for Chrissy...well he's just an a**Hole..but everyone knows that already.
"I was in favor of Illegal licenses before I was
against them but before I was for them but after I was against them but
before I was for them......" Hillary Clinton
Hell we all hung a few people
December 12, 2007 - 14:42 ET by Lame CherryChris Matthews and all of these liberals like walking around like a Pope with morals, but I can recite facts in all of our pasts where Gramps in generations past all hung a few people.
My Uncle was telling me a story he heard while out west from an old timer who said there was this school marm (translation teacher) who was a white gal and she took up with a black man (I have no idea what a black guy was doing up in cold cowboy country) and she got pregnant.
Well those things were just not done even by white people, so the community simply got together and said the black man raped the marm and hung him.
The old fella just shook his head and said, "He no more raped that marm than I did".
That kind of thing made allot of people behave, but it happened in every state in America and probably still does with more sophisticated means now. The point is Matthews can libel Strom Thurman who is the father of a black and white child whom he took financial responsibility for, but for ever Thurman there is a Matthews weasel who was beating the hell out some Jewish kid, running some Italians out of the neighborhood and throwing rocks at the Prostestant kids.
Matthews knows it and just as sure as Jimmy Webb was n*gger knockin' (liberal racist sport of a few decades back where Democrats would cruise streets and find a black guy, jump out and beat the stuffing out of him for sport..........can't help the title as that is what the liberals termed it and not me.) Chris Matthews clan was beating the hell out people not like them.
Want to know how I know that? Because Matthews is doing the same thing today in a high tech lynching of people not like him for profit.
Clarence Thomas is a genius for understanding what liberals do and putting it in perfect terms. I love that man and hope we get 4 more like him on the court.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
Chris "Goebbels" Matthews redux
December 12, 2007 - 14:49 ET by j17ghsRepublicans are the party of Lincoln, and Democrats are the party of lynchings. Imagine the outrage if someone dared to say this about Robert "Sheets" Byrd? This is the same media that pilloried Trent Lott and George Allen but ignore the racist past of Allen's opponent, Jim Webb, and ignores the racism of Al Gore's family, Byrd and LBJ.
The Republicans in Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that forced LBJ to sign it, but our nation's Marxist-driven academia now teaches our children that LBJ was a champion of civil rights (what a lie!) and that Nixon's southern strategy was the result.
The South voted Republican because, as with most major cities even today, Democratic control gave them so little opportunity and so much grief, that once freed from the bondage of Democrats, the people voted Republican. Anyone in the South who still favored segregation wouldn't vote for a GOP Congress that forced the Civil Rights Act, which Republicans had championed for 100 years against the wishes of racist Democrats.
Today, Democratic leaders have just taken off their robes and hoods and put on business suits, and pants suits, in the case of another closet bigot whose husband was trained by one of the biggest bigots of all time, Arkansas's U.S. Sen. William Fulbright.
LBJ
December 12, 2007 - 18:16 ET by easygoerI agree with the thrust of your post, but I must respectfully disagree with you about LBJ. I know LBJ voted against anti-lynching laws as a senator, but there was simply no way you could be elected in the Jim Crow south otherwise. JFK was the coward on this issue, running around Harlem, Chicago and Oakland preaching civil rights. LBJ addressed the south directly and knowing he had the nation behind him, in addition to his own formidable poltical skill, he got the job done. No Republican forced him. He led the way. Unlike the Kennedys, LBJ saw racism and poverty first hand as an elementary school teacher in south Texas. He was heroic on civil rights, incredibly misguided on how to eliminate poverty. LBJ was many things, but he was never a Byrd, Thurmond or Gore Sr. He was no racist. Only Lincoln did more for civil rights.
Posted it in the wrong
December 12, 2007 - 15:06 ET by Chris NormanPosted it in the wrong place...
Im not a fan of Strom
December 12, 2007 - 15:08 ET by BlackwaterIm not a fan of Strom Thurmond and wish he stayed a Democrat but to make a base less acusation such as that, regardless of party affiliation is deplorable. The man died in 2003 so why bother saying that now.
" I'd say about 80 percent
December 12, 2007 - 15:14 ET by Mike S" I'd say about 80 percent of them African-Americans wanting to know is he the real deal."
This actually has to be a disappointment to the Obama campaign. By definition, you can't win an election by appealing only to a minority group. He has to get more than the black vote to even win the nomination, let alone the general election.
This is just one more
December 12, 2007 - 15:56 ET by motherbeltThis is just one more example of someone throwing out an accusation disguised as a question. It's just another variatiom on the old "some say."
A Joke?
December 12, 2007 - 15:53 ET by islero47One can't often decipher intonation from a transcript, but maybe this was his pathetic attempt at a joke...
Watching Video
December 12, 2007 - 16:01 ET by well99It didnt sound like a joke.Pretty lame.
So what else is new?
December 12, 2007 - 15:56 ET by Prester JohnYou have Matthews saying this about Thurmond, you have Mark Shields claiming it was the Democrats who were the abolitionists before the Civil War, and you have a host of a History Channel special on the Revolution claiming the Declaration says our unalienable rights are "Liberty, Choice, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
Sadly, most people, young or old don't have the knowledge to call this crap what it is.
Whazzat about
December 12, 2007 - 16:02 ET by dervishthe History Channel? I'll grant I've heard dumber things on cable -- almost -- but I hadn't heard that one. Googling the phrase didn't turn it up either. Have you a link?
No link
December 12, 2007 - 16:11 ET by Prester JohnI actually saw it several years ago. The host was the same guy that hosts/hosted the HC's history quiz show on Saturday mornings.
He was at the Victory Arch at Valley Forge and was finishing up the show. Needless to say I fell out of my chair when I heard "Liberty, Choice, and the Pursuit of Happiness".
I seem to remember life
December 12, 2007 - 16:30 ET by Dan The Man 2I seem to remember life liberty and the persuit of happiness.
Nuke em til they glow then shoot em in the dark.
I once heard Bill Clinton
December 12, 2007 - 16:49 ET by motherbeltI once heard Bill Clinton say the Constitution's preamble said "to form a more appropriate union...." Can't find that by googling it either...but I know I heard it. Maybe Nexis/Lexis if anyone has that capability would have your History Channel thing.
I read somewhere that the Declaration in its first draft said Life, Liberty and Property, but I don't know if that's true or not. Anyone else ever hear that?
PS The guy must have been a feminist....gotta get that "choice" in there, you know.....
I dunno about first draft,
December 12, 2007 - 17:26 ET by dervishbut the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of property" came from John Locke, and Jefferson - um - borrowed it.
It's possible
December 12, 2007 - 18:22 ET by celator"I read somewhere that the Declaration in its first draft said Life,
Liberty and Property, but I don't know if that's true or not. Anyone
else ever hear that?"
It's possible, Motherbelt. The phrase comes from Enlightenment philosopher/political theorist John Locke (1682-1704). There was a debate among the Founders as to whether to use that phrase, or the phrase they did, in fact, eventually select (pursuit of happiness, etc). Locke wrote extensively about Natural Law, and used the "Property" term as evidence of a "natural" freedom or right--Natural Law mandated that citizens had a right to own property.
Locke's ideas were very well known by the Founders and, at the time, the principles of Natural Law (not taught much these days) were well understood and honored.
Prester John...
December 12, 2007 - 17:16 ET by JerIs it possible you may have misunderstood his words, Prester John? The host of a History Channel special about the American Revolution wouldn't be ad libbing, and it's difficult to believe the writers, editors and producers of the documentary would all fail to notice such a silly error.
Any progress on the Shields link?
Jer
...and a link to the
December 12, 2007 - 16:12 ET by Jer...and a link to the Shields quote?
Jer
Prester, "Sadly, most
December 13, 2007 - 08:20 ET by msh1973Prester,
"Sadly, most people, young or old don't have the knowledge to call this crap what it is. "
Your statement is so true...even my kids get it wrong because of what they keep hearing in school. This week my 7th grader came home talking about global warming (again), how it is our fault. I remindered her (again) not to fall for the lies and respectfully disagree with her teacher.
"The old fella just shook
December 12, 2007 - 16:15 ET by Mitchumstein"The old fella just shook his head and said, 'He no more raped that marm than I did'".
She was bangin' your uncle too?
Matthews is just a
December 12, 2007 - 16:24 ET by bigtimerMatthews is just a twit...not worth the trouble, the ink or time.
Period.
That's what I was going to
December 12, 2007 - 17:01 ET by mattmThat's what I was going to say...
Neither Chris Matthews nor Keith Olberman
December 12, 2007 - 18:00 ET by c5thenHave any sense of decency or professionalism at all. They are nothing but common rabid partisans posing as "journalists".
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic. Let's get it back! Alan Keyes '08.
FINEMAN: And I though it
December 12, 2007 - 18:55 ET by drillanwrFINEMAN: And I though it was historic. This is the city, this was the city in which Strom Thurmond rose as a Dixiecrat-
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
FINEMAN: -in the old days. The center of segregation.
MATTHEWS: He hanged a few people down there too, didn't he?
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You know, there are weaker court cases than Thurmond's family trying to take Matthews and MSNBC to court for slander ... or is it libel? I get the two mixed up.