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Clinton says Byrd joined KKK to help him get elected
The Hill ^

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: West Virginia
KEYWORDS: byrd; clinton; clintonistas; clintoon; congress; cultureofracism; democrats; kkk; klukker; liberalfascism; obama; palin; racists; revwright; sheets; slickwillie; socialistracism; teaparty
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To: Sub-Driver

So Clinton is saying 2 things here. The old whore, Byrd, was a whore when he was young and it’s a career enhancement for a Democrat to be a member of the KKK. Thanks Bill, glad we cleared that up.


41 posted on 07/02/2010 1:25:04 PM PDT by saganite (What happens to taglines? Is there a termination date?)
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To: Sub-Driver

What a relief. I was just thinking of joining a terrorist organization and am so glad to find out that if I run for city council first it will make things all hunky dory. Guess I’ll have to run as a Democrat, though. Damn!


42 posted on 07/02/2010 1:25:49 PM PDT by katana (For what is an Irishman ? But a .......)
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To: GOP_Raider
Wilson was in office when he offered his praise to the film The Birth of a Nation, is that correct?

I believe he personally screened and endorsed the film. He only distanced himself from the Klan when one of the leaders raped and murdered some girl.
43 posted on 07/02/2010 1:27:01 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek
Byrd was not a Grand Dragon. He was an Exalted Cyclops. Racists all look alike to me.

Shux..and I thought he was a Grand Kleagle

44 posted on 07/02/2010 1:29:01 PM PDT by evad (SHUT IT DOWN!!!)
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To: cripplecreek

No, Obama is not an Exalted Cyclops. He’s a Skittle Farting Fairy.


45 posted on 07/02/2010 1:32:45 PM PDT by Mere Survival (Mere Survival: The new American Dream)
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To: Sub-Driver

I think that every Democrat is born with an excuse in his hand for every occasion. The Spin Meister at work. Ha!


46 posted on 07/02/2010 1:32:48 PM PDT by BlueAngel
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To: Sub-Driver

“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. “

Well DUH! He was a Southern Democrat!

As for “fleeting”, I don’t think the Klan handed out “Grand Kleagle” titles like Crakerjack toys.


47 posted on 07/02/2010 1:32:54 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: Sub-Driver

Attn: Rand Paul...take notes (supreme sarc).


48 posted on 07/02/2010 1:33:28 PM PDT by 10Ring
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To: AnotherUnixGeek
Maybe Bubba is secretly joining the Klan and will run for office again. Did ya think of that??
49 posted on 07/02/2010 1:36:56 PM PDT by mfish13 ( Bubba is ihn the Klan)
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To: Sub-Driver

“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,”

Wonderful. It means you had an unprincipled politician willing to associate with, and such up to anyone to get elected.

Once again for the Clintons, all morals are situational.


50 posted on 07/02/2010 1:37:51 PM PDT by PGR88
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To: Kozak

“Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 when he was 24.”

And was not elected to the House until 1954. I guess as an election strategy it did not work out so well, eh? All that effort rising in the Klan ranks did not get him elected for more than a decade!


51 posted on 07/02/2010 1:38:05 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: Sub-Driver

Why would a politician do that? Would a politician get his wife to change her name so he could get elected? Would a politician take time out of his campaign to oversee the execution of a mentally retarded man to get elected?

Oh, right. Clinton did both those things. Clinton has grown up with this idea that anything is all right if it helps you get elected. It’s very disturbing.


52 posted on 07/02/2010 1:41:09 PM PDT by Our man in washington
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To: my small voice

I just want to throw up every day now.


53 posted on 07/02/2010 1:44:38 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Ok, joke's over....Bring back Bush !)
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To: Sub-Driver

What it means is if Byrd were a Republican be would have been forced out of office.


54 posted on 07/02/2010 1:44:47 PM PDT by chippewaman
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To: Sub-Driver
"The things we do for votes (the things we do for votes.)"

(Sung to the tune of The Things We Do for Love.)

55 posted on 07/02/2010 1:46:05 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: Sub-Driver

Such revisionist horseshit. Byrd was a happy camper as a Klansman.


56 posted on 07/02/2010 1:51:11 PM PDT by StAnDeliver (/)
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To: Gator113
Oh good. So it wasn’t for his hatred of blacks and Jews. Right.

Byrd: [I 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
________________________________________________

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

57 posted on 07/02/2010 1:52:36 PM PDT by ETL (ALL (most?) of the Obama-commie connections at my FR Home page: http://www.freerepublic.com/~etl/)
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To: Sub-Driver

Racist or political whore for 200 Alex.


58 posted on 07/02/2010 1:56:43 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: cripplecreek

Makes ya wonder how they knew who they were voting for..


59 posted on 07/02/2010 1:59:31 PM PDT by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: Sub-Driver

Backwards. Byrd only quit the KKK to get elected.


60 posted on 07/02/2010 2:00:03 PM PDT by Mojave (Ignorant and stoned - Obama's natural constituency.)
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