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The "Unbiased" Media on Strom Thurmond
06/27/2003
Strom Thurmond, Foe of Integration, Dies at 100
ABCNews on the radio this morning presented its quick mention of the Senator's death in much the same spirit — one of the enemies has died. John Miller offers a bit of a correction to that in the Corner (info that the Times sort of touches on way down):
Here’s what [Walter Russell] Mead wrote [in the Wall Street Journal a few years ago]: "For all his staunch conservatism and angry rhetoric, Mr. Helms is one of a handful of Southern statesmen who ensured the triumph of the civil-rights revolution." Mead continued: "Once the civil-rights legislation of the 1960s was enacted, Mr. Helms--along with some of his erstwhile segregationist colleagues like South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond--did something very revolutionary for Southern white populists. He accepted the laws and obeyed them." Helms and Thurmond "shunned violence," "hired African-American staffers and gave African-Americans the same level of constituency service they gave whites," and based their opposition to racial preferences on principle rather than racism.
Look, I don't know much about Strom Thurmond, and I'm certainly not a "follower" of his, but shouldn't supposedly objective media accounts be more, well, objective? And to the extent that they offer any twist at all, shouldn't it be respect for the dead and thanks for his service to the country? Even overtly conservative media didn't run headlines like, "Paul Wellstone, Foe of Limited Government, Dies."
Posted by Justin Katz @ 08:03 AM EST