[Timeout]

Recall the media kerfuffle over Trent Lott's comments about "maybe things would be better if Strom had been elected president".

Now take a gander at what Sen. Chris Dodd recently had to say on the occasion of Senator and Former KKK Grand Wizard Robert Byrd's 17,000th senate vote:

"It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment.

"Some were right for the time. ROBERT C. BYRD, in my view, would have been right at any time. He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation. He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century.

I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true."

Haven't heard this in the media, have you? I detect not one scintilla of difference between Dodd's statement and Lott's.

[mountaineer]

He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century.

I bet Dodd can't name two things Byrd ever has accomplished in the course of his illustrious career (funneling money to W.Va. to get buildings and highways named after him doesn't count).