December 1, 2014

"You know, Americans have come so far since, let's say, the era of Joe McCarthy. I mean, think about it. We're less racist."

"We're less sexist. We're less homophobic than we used to be. We only have one remaining bigotry. We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

Said Bill Clinton, the former U.S. President, speaking at the 100th anniversary festivities for The New Republic.

94 comments:

JackWayne said...

I have a second bigotry. I don't want to be in the same room as Clinton.

Anonymous said...

We also have weaker families, are much more dependent on government "welfare," and have a hollowed-out education system.

Patrick Henry was right! said...

What does Joe McCarthy have to do with race, sex or homosexuality??? He was an Anti-Communist for crying out loud, removing real Communists from the U.S. government. The racists were the Democrats from, for example, Arkansas, like Senator Fulbright, Clinton's mentor.

Why the left loves the Clintons is beyond belief.

Lyle said...

Bill Clinton has a nose for the future.

Wince said...

How exactly did Clinton in actual substance change course from "trickle-down" economics?

Mostly wasn't it a shift in government spending facilitated by a diversion of resources from the military occasioned by the end of the cold war that was achieved by Reagan-Bush foreign policy?

Anonymous said...

Since when does a Democrat get anywhere by saying things are getting better in civil rights?

Without the war on women and racism, how can they win any elections?

mccullough said...

After the Soviet Union dissolved and they opened up their files, didn't it show that McCarthy was basically right about the number of communists in the State Department? Alger Hiss was guilty and so were the Rosenbergs.

I agree that people should be able to get along with those who disagree with them and that Clinton did a good job with this. So he's basically taking a dig at Obama.

William said...

Some victims are more victims than other victims. If you were victimized by a homophobe, a racist, or an anti Communist then your hurt is greater and more worthy of veneration than if you were harmed by those who were acting to advance a left wing cause.

Nonapod said...

Of course he's right. Personally I don't mind disagreeing with someone as long as they're able to

- behave in a civil manner, don't resort to personal attacks

- form a rational, logical, cogent arguments

- aren't overly dismissive of other points of view and really listen to what other people are saying

- when everything is said and done are willing to agree to disagree without becoming emotional

Rick.T. said...

Lyle said...
Bill Clinton has a nose for the future.


And, well, you know.

n.n said...

There is more selective exclusion than before. Clinton needs to drop the talking points. It makes him sound like a bigot who ignores the moral hazards left for our Posterity to reconcile. As for McCarthy, he was right; but, ultimately, the People will choose their moral consensus (e.g. Christianity, Marxism).

I'm Full of Soup said...

Do librul Dems ever get tired of boring speeches about racism, sexism, etc?

And please can someone here tell me what was Bill Clinton's last really good idea?

m stone said...

Clinton has the facility to go all over the board in his speeches, dropping some wisdom along with non-sequiturs. He gives you just enough to tease and walks away.

Clinton didn't change substantive course from trickle-down EDH, he just "put the pedal to the metal" whatever that means.

The bottom 20 percent of our workforce's income grew as much as the top 5 percent, the only time in more than 40 years. You can bet it wasn't much and he's probably talking percentage growth.

He's also gradually changing the dialogue on immigration with his engineer-producing Mexico comment. Now we can expect all the engineers and technology immigrants to boost our own economy. Makes one view the typical immigrant a little more favorably.

I'm Full of Soup said...

At my Thanksgiving dinner, Dr. Ben Carson's name came up re ped surgery and of course the far left lib at the table had to ask "isn't he that far right wingnut"? Thankfully no one responded to his bait.

Henry said...

Funny to read the push back from conservatives above.

The people who will really piss on Clinton's statement will be identity-politics democrats.

Brando said...

He's right--people are less racist than they were back then, and certainly less tolerant of racism. And of course a lot less tolerant of different opinions--the ability to "choose your own facts" has enabled very well-read people to narrow their reading and stay in the coccoon.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Clinton, at least, appreciated something that is obvious to conservatives and unknown to most liberals. Economic growth is good.

Brando said...

"After the Soviet Union dissolved and they opened up their files, didn't it show that McCarthy was basically right about the number of communists in the State Department? Alger Hiss was guilty and so were the Rosenbergs."

McCarthy was never proven right, because he had an ever-changing number of communist spies and never backed up his claims with any actual evidence. His cheap grandstanding (which wasn't uncommon, though he was the most visible practitioner of it) gained him a lot of early political support but discredited the anti-communist movement.

Nixon on the other hand actually found a real spy, exposed him and led to his conviction for perjury. He did all of this legally, and demonstrated that many of our policymakers were sympathetic with if not in actual collusion with our country's enemies, which was a real scandal. The Left, and the establishment that let that sort of betrayal happen, were exposed and ridiculed, which made them hate Nixon for the rest of his career despite his being an early supporter of many goals the Left claims to care about, like Civil Rights and social safety nets.

Bob Boyd said...

He's taking a shot at Obama for not being willing to work with Republicans like he did and, by extension, like Hillary will.

Fernandinande said...

"We're less racist."
"We're less sexist."
"We're less homophobic"

Klintoon wrong on only two out of three, which is much better than his average; racism and sexism are now codified into federal law.

"We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

I feel good that Klintoon doesn't want me around, and vice-versa.

Basil said...
What does Joe McCarthy have to do with race, sex or homosexuality?


Nothing. He's the socialists' (communist lite) cartoon bad-guy; think Emmanuel Goldstein and inner-party Klintoon.

Bob Ellison said...

Crap, could everyone be a little less dense?

"We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

That's the interesting sentence. Who could disagree with it? It's philosophical in a way that Obama never is.

Bobby said...

I think saying that "there was some truth to McCarthy's public claims, especially the initial claims" would be more accurate than just blanket saying "McCarthy was right." The latter would require one to stand by some rather ludicrous (and now clearly known to be false) statements, and I can't imagine anyone here means that. Certainly, the VENONA files have demonstrated that some of McCarthy's earlier accusations were true (although, even many of those were not entirely accurate as they must be taken with the acknowledgement that the government wasn't "doing nothing" about the accused spies- on the contrary, VENONA was all about exploiting them... something which became much more difficult to do once McCarthy started his campaign).

I'm going to assume commenters here meant to state that McCarthy was partially right and not right right.

Bob Ellison said...

McCarthy was correct, in the sense of having facts on his side to a surprising extent. He was not "right" in that the methods he deployed were un-American.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

That one remaining bigotry is called freedom of association.

Matt Sablan said...

I find it very easy to get along with people who disagree with me, so long as I don't argue with them.

n.n said...

I think people misunderstand the meaning of "right", which as "progress" is an unqualified concept. McCarthy was right in the sense that he identified an emergent left-wing ideology that threatened the Constitutional and moral integrity of America.

Bob Ellison said...

Left Bank of the Charles, that's true.

Leftists want the government to make it law. You don't have to share the coffee shop, the legislature, or the school classroom with a rightist. The government should flush out those who disagree!

Global warming, BDS, anti-male culture in colleges, every white person is a racist. It's a tyranny of a minority.

Alex said...

t-man said...
We also have weaker families, are much more dependent on government "welfare," and have a hollowed-out education system.


So bringing back racism and sexism is a cure for stronger families? You right wingers are a bunch of sickos.

Alex said...

I spit on Joe McCarthey.

Lewis Wetzel said...

It's interesting that Clinton dropped the McCarthy name.
If Clinton had been around in McCarthy's day, he could have said that America was less racist in the era of McCarthy than it had been in the era of Woodrow Wilson. Democrat Wilson re-segregated DC.
The name McCarthy is magic to liberals. No one ever said Clinton didn't know how to play to a crowd. I've heard that his greatest gift as a politician is his ability to convince anyone that they are important, that their problems are important, and that he (Clinton) is in complete agreement with them.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

The era of RFK. The era of Strom Thurmond. Eh, whatever.

Bob Boyd said...
He's taking a shot at Obama for not being willing to work with Republicans like he did and, by extension, like Hillary will.


I think that's the smart take on it, assuming Clinton's intentionally working the long game. Who did Pres. Obama just boot out of his administration? Why a Repub, of course; Hagel happened to disagree with Pres Obama and Obama apparently didn't want to be around him...

Still, running Hillary as a "uniter not a divider"--that's gonna be a tough sell.

n.n said...

The state still subsidizes and commits premeditated abortion of around 2 million Americans... I mean clumps of cells annually. Pro-choice or unprincipled exclusion is progressive.

Think of the money, sex, ego, convenience and stem cells harvested from planned parenthood rituals. Clinton needs to put down the cigar. His evasive routines far outstrip his comedy.

SteveR said...

Does that make any sense? Its still Bill talking the Bill way but that's senile

David said...

And blow jobs from youthful interns in the oval office are not the career threat they might have been in the bigoted past. Progress is wonderful.

carrie said...

Hagel disagreed with Obama but also think of all of the officers who have been forced out of the military because they disagreed with Obama.

Insufficiently Sensitive said...

We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

And in our oh-so-intellectual Universities, it's worse than that. Speakers of Wrong Opinions, invited or not, can be banished from the podium by insignificant numbers of bigots complaining that their exquisite sensibilities would be damage by a single word spoken by an heretic of the verbal sort.

madAsHell said...

And please can someone here tell me what was Bill Clinton's last really good idea?

Monica Lewinsky?

I'm Full of Soup said...

MadasHell:

Good one!

gerry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Alex,

I did not say what you accuse me of saying.

traditionalguy said...

Clinton is signalling that Hillary and Bill are traditional tolerant Americans which makes them safe.

Obama has tainted the idea the Federal Government is our friendly and fair guardian. Distancing ones self from the Obama insanity is every Dem politicians first need.

Jupiter said...

Brando said...
"McCarthy was never proven right, because he had an ever-changing number of communist spies and never backed up his claims with any actual evidence. His cheap grandstanding (which wasn't uncommon, though he was the most visible practitioner of it) gained him a lot of early political support but discredited the anti-communist movement."

And then;
Brando said...
"... the ability to "choose your own facts" has enabled very well-read people to narrow their reading and stay in the coccoon."

So, whose lies are you regurgitating? The Left deployed immense resources to smear McCarthy, precisely because he was right -- and yes, Bobby, that would be right-right. At least we know which Leftie you are channeling.

If either of you would actually like to know the truth about Joe McCarthy, as opposed to the vast literature of lies which has become the accepted legend, I suggest M. Stanton Evans' excellent and well-researched book, Blacklisted By History. Or you can just continue believing the falsehoods planted by Soviet agents and their fellow travelers.

Anonymous said...

Good thing for Clinton the country still doesn't challenge Democrats who have credible charges of rape leveled against them.

Jupiter said...

"We're less racist. We're less sexist. We're less homophobic than we used to be. We only have one remaining bigotry. We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

Ha ha. What he means is that, having split whites into two groups, Conservatives and Progressives, we are now mobilizing the Progressives to silence the Conservatives.

Gahrie said...

So bringing back racism and sexism is a cure for stronger families?

They never went away, they just changed targets.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dreams said...

History is written by liberal historians and the liberal media so way too much of it isn't true. A lot of the McCarthy history is a liberal lie. Lying liberals, yeah, kind of redundant.

Joe Schmoe said...

Yes, Clinton's statement seems to glide above partisanship, but by using Fox News as a reference he subtly indicts the right for our current predicament, as if life was one big happy meadow before Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes came along.

He does know how to play to a crowd; something his wife does not without coming off like a clod. "I ain't no ways tahrd!" "Don't let anyone tell you businesses create jobs!"

Brando said...

"Or you can just continue believing the falsehoods planted by Soviet agents and their fellow travelers."

I don't normally put a lot of stock in the "progressive" narratives on the issue of anti-communism, such as the idea that the fear of communism was overblown, or that we didn't have actual traitors and spies affecting U.S. policy and providing intelligence to Moscow during that period. But for McCarthy himself, what evidence did he actually uncover? Nixon had Hiss, and the Rosenbergs were real. But McCarthy's constantly changing "lists"--which he never disclosed--and his unfounded accusations proved so embarrassing that he was disowned by his own party in the end.

Now, it is possible (as you suggest) that many Republicans and other anti-communists just didn't want to be associated with him because he was so successfully smeared. But had he actually had some evidence and led to the prosecution of some actual spies or traitors, that would have been impossible to disown.

In Nixon's case, for example, his enemies on the Left had to accept that Hiss was a perjurer and at least a communist in sympathies, and so they stuck to complaining that his tactics were "nasty". And of course decades later it was proven that Hiss was actually a spy, and not just a Com Symp. People do try and choose their own facts nowadays--I'm sure if the Hiss case happened now you'd see even far more denial than you did then.

damikesc said...

McCarthy was correct, in the sense of having facts on his side to a surprising extent. He was not "right" in that the methods he deployed were un-American.

He was a Progressive, as history has tried really hard to ignore.

He also tried to name names in closed sessions of Congress only since some of the names might not be guilty.

Democrats wanted it to be in open session only.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Full Moon:

Good for you to steer high voltage topics away. I ma learning to do that too.

Sam L. said...

Lyle at 10:11, it could be because he's sleazy and gets away with it. Or maybe, it's just the getting away with it.

Lydia said...

My favorite part in all he said at that gathering is this:

There's all this sort of dark labeling business going on. And I think the differences are healthy, but not if they're meaningless designed to shut people's brains down instead of fire them up

From the man who shook his finger at us and said "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." No siree, no dark labeling for him. Guess he just didn't know the "that woman" epithet is as old as the hills. Why anyone gives this guy the time of day is beyond me.

bgates said...

"We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us."

That's the interesting sentence. Who could disagree with it?


Nobody here, I hope.

furious_a said...

At least Joe McCarthy was never Senate Majority Leader!

furious_a said...

Joe McCarthy was godfather to Robert F. Kennedy's first child, Kathleen.

garage mahal said...

Wisconsin has produced some noteworthy people. Joe McCarthy. Scott Walker. Ed Gein.

Michael McNeil said...

Think of the money, sex, ego, convenience and stem cells harvested from planned parenthood rituals.

I've pointed out earlier, at greater length, that this is false — stem cells are not “harvested” from abortions. Now I'll simply say: you lie.

JAORE said...

He's distancing himself, and by extension, Hillary from:
- Not reaching across the aisle-triangulation, etc.,
- The perception that Obama has made racial matters worse and/or turned loose racists like the AG,
- Thinks gay marriage is OK, but the Feds won't make major pushes as gay rights equating with civil rights as some would like.

It's an I'm with the left, and with the common folk on the right speech. Typical President Clinton. Whether it translates to Hillary is questionable.

Peter said...

Clinton doesn't mention Pres. Obama by name, but he does reference him indirectly:

"My opponent voted with the president 93 percent of the time." Well, what did they vote on? Would that include all the budgets? What is it? There's all this sort of dark labeling business going on.

Of course, that's not "dark labelling," it's just good politics to associate your opponent with a president as unpopular as Obama. It's not as if Clinton doesn't know this, or even as though he doesn't know that most of the votes in that 93 percent were, in fact, meaningful.

The real message here is that former Pres. Clinton is likeable enough that he can get away with saying just about any sort of b.s.

But his wife is not, and can't and, is she smart enough to know that?

n.n said...

Michael McNeil:

Perhaps the misunderstanding stems from the definition of "abortion".

Where do the embryos come from to create stem cell lines?

There is a popular misconception that human lives are the product of spontaneous conception. That said, this does not change the conversation that civilized society needs to undertake in order to conserve human rights. While the current moral consensus, both overt and covert, does not a pose an imminent threat, it does harbor latent moral hazards.

amielalune said...

Holy crap, Full Moon, you must be a saint.

If I were in your shoes, I think my Thanksgivings would be spent alone on a beach somewhere.

Phil 314 said...

McCarthy, like Clinton, was basically a publicity-monger

n.n said...

McCarthy started his political career as a Democrat and progressed to become Republican. I didn't realize that Democrats had veered left so early in their history to prompt so many defections. Perhaps it was generational liberalism/progressivism that engendered irreconcilable differences.

pm317 said...

Bill Clinton is not the issue here.

Drudge's headline says Obama is having civil rights leaders of Sharpton's stature at the WH to discuss Ferguson.

What the hell is going on in this WH?

Does Obama think appeasing blacks by helping them riot in Ferguson and elsewhere is going to obscure the fact that he has not done much else to improve their welfare?

n.n said...

As for the concern for homosexual behavior, it only poses a threat to society or humanity when it is a progressive condition, or is normalized (i.e. promoted) for popular acceptance. Still, even then, the choice to engage in dysfunctional, unproductive, and fetish behaviors remains with the individual. The progress of morally-ambiguous womb banks (i.e. surrogate) and sperm depositors is a separable issue, and while it may have been initiated or promoted by closeted homosexuals, it was heterosexuals who publicly adopted and normalized those methods for reproduction.

n.n said...

pm317:

Not only has Obama not improved black Americans' welfare, but his discretionary support for civil rights, and sometimes outright activism, has promoted development of prejudice, which is not good for any American's welfare.

Brando said...

It is interesting how the Left today often glides over the very close relationship between the Kennedy brothers and McCarthy, as well as the fact that Nixon himself (on behalf of the Eisenhower administration) denounced McCarthy. It doesn't fit a good narrative about their heroes and villains.

Matt Sablan said...

"The Left deployed immense resources to smear McCarthy, precisely because he was right -- and yes, Bobby, that would be right-right."

-- McCarthy was right in very narrow cases, and was correct in such a broad brush way that it wasn't particularly helpful.

In the cases he was right, I'm not sure if he was just accidentally right that someone was a spy or not.

tim in vermont said...

It infuriates me the way Clinton gets away with rape because he is of the right party, but there is not a whole lot in there that I disagree with. He was a Democrat of the old type. One who didn't view half of America as the enemy.

garage mahal said...

It infuriates me the way Clinton gets away with rape because he is of the right party, but there is not a whole lot in there that I disagree with

What about Reagan?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Wisconsin has produced some noteworthy people. Joe McCarthy. Scott Walker. Ed Gein. Garage mahal.

Damn, this is so easy it's almost like it's utterly meaningless or something.

Matt said...

Actually, in the real world most of us don't mind being around people who disagree with us. We do this all the time. It's only really an issue ONLINE where this happens. When I talk to people I disagree with politically there is no shouting or insults. But online there is mostly shouting and insults. So online communication = political intolerance.

garage mahal said...

Damn, this is so easy it's almost like it's utterly meaningless or something.

It was meaningless.

Bad Lieutenant said...

So garage just to be clear you're saying rape is ok. Just checking. Thanks buddy!

Bobby said...

n.n said...
I think people misunderstand the meaning of "right", which as "progress" is an unqualified concept. McCarthy was right in the sense that he identified an emergent left-wing ideology that threatened the Constitutional and moral integrity of America.


See, this is where it gets complicated. Certainly, identifying Communist infiltration and subversion in the government and society- and countering Communist espionage- played a role in the ultimately successful US Containment policy against the Soviets.

But McCarthy's activities represented only one part of domestic anti-Communist efforts. By the time McCarthy first waves the papers in the Wheeling Speech (February 9, 1950), numerous other US government officials had already identified and started to work against Communist subversion efforts. Truman had signed Executive Order 9835 (Federal Employees Loyalty Program) in March 1947. Whittaker Chambers had already outed Alger Hiss before Nixon and the House Un-American Activities Committee on August 3, 1948. Even before that, HUAC had already cites about a dozen Hollywood writers and directors for refusing to testify in November 1947. The Mundt–Ferguson Communist Registration Bill had passed in 1948. The McCarran Internal Security Act (same McCarran for whom Las Vegas airport is named after, I believe) had been introduced several times before McCarthy enters the fray (albeit not passing until that fall). And so on, and so on. It seems to me to be a reach to credit McCarthy for "identif(ying) an emergent left-wing ideology that threatened the Constitutional and moral integrity of America" when so many others had already identified it and were working (some more diligently than others, some more publicly than others) to combat it. McCarthy gets to the party rather late, and such as he made a contribution, one can argue how much it even really was.

If you're asking, I would agree that some Left historians (Chafe comes to mind) might have conspired to tar all domestic anti-Communist efforts with the ugly brush of McCarthyism in order denigrate what very well might have been necessary and legitimate efforts that saved democracy (we'll never know really know since it's counter-factual, of course). But it seems to me that the appropriate response is not to fall for that strawman and say McCarthy was RIGHT; it seems to me the appropriate response is to separate out the ugly part of what McCarthy did from the legitimate activities.

But that's just me. Duty. Honor. Country.

damikesc said...

I am still impressed that McCarthy gets such heat and Palmer doesn't. His "red scare" was markedly worse.

Michael K said...

"How exactly did Clinton in actual substance change course from "trickle-down" economics?

Mostly wasn't it a shift in government spending facilitated by a diversion of resources from the military occasioned by the end of the cold war that was achieved by Reagan-Bush foreign policy?"

Look at a graphic of the stock market. It went almost straight up after 1994. What happened that year ? Notice anything. ?

Clinton was lucky enough to be president in a period like Coolidge had. Innovation and a hot stock market. The bubble burst in his last year, like it will do with Obama but for different reasons.

Michael K said...

"You right wingers are a bunch of sickos."

Says the nut.

richard mcenroe said...

"We're less homophobic than we used to be..." and if we don't bake them a cake or take their pictures we can be fined and placed under court supervision...

Michael K said...

"Does Obama think appeasing blacks by helping them riot in Ferguson and elsewhere is going to obscure the fact that he has not done much else to improve their welfare?"

He is certainly hoping that works as they have nothing else to offer.

William said...

McCarthy wasn't the proper champion to further the cause of anti-communism. Sharpton is not the proper champion to further the cause of civil rights. How many movies and novels were written by and about the survivors of the McCarthy scare? How many movies and plays will be made about the fire at Freddy's Fashion Mart? How about all those pilots shot down by the proximity fuses that the Rosenbergs supplied to the Soviets. Probably some moving dramas there ........The left has their official set of victims, and your martyrdom will only be celebrated if you're among that set. Otherwise, stop your whining,

Guildofcannonballs said...

"We don't want to be around anybody who disagrees with us." - Trash

If this be true, it certainly isn't bigotry.

It is up to the rapist to define what his idiotic terms are supposed to mean. Bigger the assertion the more, better evidence needed.

Oh, and like the great Breitbart loudly exlcaimed, "STOP RAPING PEOPLE."

garage mahal said...

"Obama is helping blacks riot"

Straight up Alex Jones trutherism right there. Good God that is just embarrassing.

chickelit said...

traditionalguy said...
Clinton is signalling that Hillary and Bill are traditional tolerant Americans which makes them safe.

The problem is that Bill doesn't rub off on Hillary.
He saves it up for interns.

chickelit said...

garage mahal said...

Straight up Alex Jones trutherism right there. Good God that is just embarrassing.

Let's just say that his powers of dissuasion are lacking. That much is true.

garage mahal said...

Obama has turned the conservative mind, such as it is, into conspiratorial mush.

chickelit said...

garage mahal said...
Obama has turned the conservative mind, such as it is, into conspiratorial mush.

That is a sign of a poor law professor.

tim in vermont said...

To get the really top shelf conspiracy theories though, the real absinthe fueled fever dreams, you have to look left.

jr565 said...

Mccullough,
Here's what you're looking for:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project

Steven Wilson said...

McCarthy was right about communist infiltration but I'm not sure he was right about specific communists in all cases.

It's possible to be right for the wrong reasons, just as the election of Obama proved it was possible to be wrong for the right reasons.

A lot of people voted for Obama because it was going to end racism, yada, yada, yada. And yeah, I know a lot of people voted against Obama for the wrong reasons, but it turned out they were right to vote that way.

Everything that the thoughtful people on the right prophesied about an Obama presidency have come about.

I'm so glad I saved this link from 2009.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/8157367/Barack_Obama_inauguration_this_Emperor_has_no_clothes_it_will_all_end_in_tears/

Anonymous said...

I've tithed my first-born daughter, upon her coming of age, to Billy Jeff, c/o the Clinton Foundation.

It's a new way of giving, tax deductible AND it doesn't end at the end of the night like those foundation dinners.

With just one donation, I've increased the storehouse of global equality, women's rights, and carbon-neutral air according to the embossed brochure.

Fred Drinkwater said...

I agree with what Clinton said, except I would have said "the era of Robert Byrd". Or maybe Strom Thurmond; I don't want to seem partisan.

n.n said...

Bobby:

There will always be a figure that is representative. For example, in the case of civil rights, there is Martin Luther King, Jr., who despite his personal failures, and the millions who went before him, was representative of that effort. Think of them as a "tag" in history.