Strom Thurmond in the woodpile

The gentleman from South Carolina's illegitimate African-American daughter's book is launched today.

It sounds like it's just the saddest thing in the whole damn word.

I was kind of hoping that this book would be an exposé of Republican hypocrisy, but it's not. It's a book by a daughter who knew but never really connected with a father that by all accounts she desperately wished to have in her life.

Here's an excerpt from a newswire discussion of the book:

In the memoir, Washington-Williams describes how she was desperate for her father's affection and hurt by his segregating her from his public life. It recounts how she wanted to be invited to his two weddings, meet her four white half-siblings - all more than a generation younger than she - and put her arms around him when one of his daughters, Nancy Moore, was killed by a drunken driver.

Part memoir of sparse cherished encounters with her absentee and denying father, part apologia for a man who may have raped (and almost certainly did take advantage of) her late mother -- I see Washington-Williams' book as part of the lasting legacy of racism and race-baiting politics in the South.

How many more people like her are out there? I don't mean illegitimate daughters of senators (necessarily) -- I mean, how many people are keeping quiet about the hypocrisy of powerful members of the GOP, even when they've been victimized by it?

What would happen if they all spoke up?

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Strom Thurmond in the woodpile

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