That's just old BJ testing the waters for his own indescretions.He's hoping that his legacy can be redeemed, instead of being remembered as a disgraced and impeached president.
Posted on 07/02/2010 12:51:36 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Clinton says Byrd joined KKK to help him get elected By Eric Zimmermann - 07/02/10 02:58 PM ET
Former President Bill Clinton explained the late Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-W.V.) membership in the Ku Klux Klan Friday by claiming Byrd was simply trying to get elected.
Speaking at Byrd's funeral in Charleston today, Clinton seemed to criticize newspaper eulogies that dwelled on Byrd's association with the Klan.
"They mention that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, and what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means," Clinton said. "He was a country boy from the hills and hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done, and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There certainly are no perfect politicians."
Byrd joined the KKK in 1942 and was elected leader of his local chapter. Byrd later claimed to have become "disinterested" after about a year.
Byrd vigorously opposed the integration of the military, and wrote in 1946 that the KKK was "needed today as never before."
It seems this rule certainly doesn't for non-Democrats. It must be nice to be royalty.
That's just old BJ testing the waters for his own indescretions.He's hoping that his legacy can be redeemed, instead of being remembered as a disgraced and impeached president.
...so what if Byrd was once in the Klan?...this thing has become a betting chip in the “Gotcha” game...it’s wasted energy dwelling on it....we have a lot more dangerous things to worry about right now...things like Kagan getting confirmed.
Byrd was not a Grand Dragon. He was an Exalted Cyclops.
Sheesh.
You don’t make the rank of Kleegle without being vetted carefully by the other Klan members, Clinton is so full of it his eyes are brown.
“elected leader of his local chapter”
And he joined just to get elected.........yea right!
Trent Lott never was forgiven for buttering up strom on his 100th b’day.
Billy Jeff should stick to fake crying.
Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, Ex-Klansman
by Michelle Malkin (March 8, 2001)
Ex-Klansman Robert Byrd, the senior senator from West Virginia, casually used the phrase "white nigger" twice on national TV this weekend. Enraged civil rights groups organized a protest campaign against Sen. Byrd and demanded that he undergo sensitivity training ... not.
The ex-Klansman, you see, is a Democrat. Democrats can join hate groups and utter the ugliest racial slurs and get away with it because they are Democrats. They belong to the party of racial tolerance and understanding. They're paragons of virtue, and the rest of us are bigoted rubes.
The ex-Klansman showed his true colors when asked by Fox News Sunday morning talk show host Tony Snow about the state of race relations in America. Sen. Byrd warned: "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=383
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In 1942, 24-year-old Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), whose parades in Matoaka, West Virginia, he had witnessed in his childhood. He was unanimously elected Exalted Cyclops, or leader, of his local chapter.[8]
Byrd, in his autobiography, attributed the beginnings of his political career to this incident, although he lamented that they involved the Klan. According to Byrd, a KKK official told him "You have a talent for leadership, Bob... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd recalls that "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."[4] He participated in the KKK during World War II, holding the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops [the top officer in the local Klan unit]. He did not serve in the military during the war, working instead as a welder in a Baltimore, Maryland shipyard, where he helped build warships.[citation needed]
Byrd commented on the 1945 controversy about racially integrating the military. Byrd, when he was 28 years old, wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo, of Mississippi, vowing never to serve in such a military:
"Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.[5]"
He had earlier written "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side".[6][7]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Participation_in_the_Ku_Klux_Klan
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YouTube - Senator Robert Byrd says "white niggers" on TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FIBJt-c2o0
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From the Washington Post:
"Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter -- which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith -- that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I should die a thousand times, and see old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.."..."
"during the general election campaign, Byrd's GOP opponent uncovered a letter Byrd had handwritten to Green, the KKK Imperial Wizard, recommending a friend as a Kleagle and urging promotion of the Klan throughout the country. The letter was dated 1946 -- long after the time Byrd claimed he had lost interest in the Klan. "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia," Byrd wrote, according to newspaper accounts of that period. Byrd makes no mention of the letter in his new book."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/18/AR2005061801105_pf.html
Correct me if I’m wrong...didn’t Byrd organize a new chapter of the KKK—one reason he quickly became a leader? If so, that indicates his area wasn’t exactly a hotbed of Klan activity, so membership wasn’t exactly a prerequisite for elected office.
Also, there’s that little matter about ol’ “Sheets” losing interest in the KKK. I seem to recall that Byrd was sending out recruiting letters for the Klan in 1946, and copies of those documents still exist to this day. Not exactly a disinterested participant. Of course, this is the same “progressive” who was filibustering the Civil Rights Act 20 years later, and made that famous remark about “White N-——s” just nine years ago.
I’m sure getting elected had something to do with it, but you don’t become a leader in the KKK “just to get elected.”
Byrd had a “fleeting association” with the Klan the way Ted Kennedy had a fleeting association with bodies of water.
Malik Zulu Shabazz, chairman of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP):
"We believe in a Black first philosophy and a Black Liberation Theology."
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_1858.shtml
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SEAN HANNITY: But Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not backing down and has not for years and in his strong stance on the teaching of black liberation theology is nothing new. He had the same things to say last spring when he appeared on "Hannity & Colmes:"
WRIGHT: If you're not going to talk about theology in context, if you're not going to talk about liberation theology that came out of the '60s, systematized black liberation theology that started with Jim Cone in 1968 and the writings of Cone and the writings of Dwight Hopkins and the writings of womynist theologians and Asian theologians and Hispanic theologians, then you can't talk about the black value system.
HANNITY: But I'm a — reverend
WRIGHT: Do you know liberation theology, sir?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html
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"Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal".--James (Jim) Cone,
African American Religious Thought: An Anthology (Paperback)
by Cornel West (Editor), Eddie S. Glaude Jr. (Editor)
So it is OK now!?
Oh good. So it wasn’t for his hatred of blacks and Jews. Right.
Lying, cheating, stealing. It’s all justified as long as it’s done to get elected. So says Bill Clinton the psychopath.
Wilson was in office when he offered his praise to the film The Birth of a Nation, is that correct?
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