The one and only time I met Senator Thurmond was in 1997, when he wandered into the front office of the Senator for whom I was working at the time. His genuine friendliness struck me most of all: he spoke to just about everyone in the front office while he was waiting, shook hands (with a very firm grip), and started talking to one of the front desk staff about how annoying the deluge of mail about the tobacco bill was.

(Before you get the idea that Senators don't like having their mail answered, the tobacco companies were handing out a free 'mail your congressman' form with every pack of cigarettes, and some folks were filling out every one the got. It was an enormous task just to avoid multiple mailings.)

I've been reading a lot about how the Senator was senile and feeble, but he certainly didn't show it that day. Nor did he show it when my fellow staffer encountered him working quite avidly at a treadmill in the Senate gym. Perhaps the truth is something more than the evidence of my eyes, but I don't buy it.

Sure, Thurmond isn't going to win any civil rights awards posthumously, but I think most of the folks railing about how racist he was miss the point. He was a relic of a bygone age, someone who term limitation should have taken care of before I was born. Some of his views were vile--although there is evidence that some of them changed over time--but he was a man shaped in an older time. Given how much the political landscape has changed since he was my age, I can't help but think it's a marvel he was flexible enough to survive.

Frankly, whatever you think of your political opponent, if they're democratically elected I think it's churlish to pester their memory after they're dead. Whatever his sins, the man is no more, and it is at the very least indecorous to thrash at dead horses. I never understood the people who could be reduced to apoplexy by Bill Clinton; the Thurmond-haters aren't much better.