Bill Bennett: “I rise to join the tribute to the memory of Strom Thurmond that is, very appropriately, the day after his death. Most of…”

“I rise to join the tribute to the memory of Strom Thurmond that is, very appropriately, the day after his death. Most of the time when someone dies, we gather in great sorrow and we mourn his passing and we think about what might have been. In Strom's case, there is no reason to think about what might have been. He did it all. There was nothing left undone. There was nothing left to accomplish. This should not be a time of mourning or sorrow but a time of celebration. So I rise to celebrate the life of Strom Thurmond. The best way to do that, I think, is to tell Strom Thurmond stories. All of us are full of Strom Thurmond stories. I remember D-Day, when the big celebration occurred on the anniversary of D-Day and Strom Thurmond was not there. Arlen Specter, who was there, greeted him in the Senate and said: Strom, it was a marvelous, marvelous celebration, and you should have been there. And his response was: I was there when it counted. It put us in our place.”