ABSTRACT:
The star of the show was Strom Thurmond.
“Either take your seats or go the the cloakroom!” drawled the 96-year-old senator from South Carolina as his fellow legislators meandered to their seats in the Senate chamber a few minutes after 10 yesterday morning.
Old Strom loomed large and in charge during the brief televised morning session, sitting front and center in the chair that represents absolute authority in the Senate.
As CBS anchor Dan Rather pointed out, Thurmond has been around so long that the seantor’s own father was six years-old the last time a U.S. president was tried in the Senate – Andrew Johnson in 1868.