Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Robert C. Byrd, after speaking at a MoveOn.org rally last month in Washington, defending the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees.
Posted on 04/03/2005 3:04:42 PM PDT by neverdem
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Senator Robert C. Byrd, after speaking at a MoveOn.org rally last month in Washington, defending the use of the filibuster to block judicial nominees.
The man is an absolute Disgrace.
But he's a Big Time Democrat. So he's given a Pass by the MSM.
That pretty much says it all. I'm surprised the Times saw fit to print it, even buried in the middle of the article.
Poor old Sheets Byrd, Pinch Sulzberger feels your pain. What's an old KKK Kleagle to do, anyway? Everyone is picking on you. How unfair.
Buried in the article. And inaccurate--he was a RECRUITER for the Klan, not just a member.
The Times also neglects to mention that Byrd was a segregationist and filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But, the Times also liked Stalin, Castro, and Ho Chi Minh, so they're not perfect.
escutcheon
perhaps L scutum=shield
species: noun
defn: 1 part of a coat of arms
2 protective or decorative shield such as around a keyhole
3 the part of ship to the stern where its name is displayed
In 1968, Senator Byrd said: "Martin Luther King fled the scene. He took to his heels and disappeared, leaving it to others to cope with the destructive forces he had helped to unleash. And I hope that well-meaning negro leaders and individuals in the negro community in Washington will now take a new look at this man who gets other people into trouble and then takes off like a scared rabbit."
will this man please moveon.org. Please, someone slap the retired military folks in WV. Come on people.
Byrd was a local leader of the Ku Klux Klan for a period of time in the early 1940s, holding the title Kleagle; Klan recruiter. In 1945, controversy was raging over the idea of racially integrating the military. In his book When Jim Crow Met John Bull [1] (http://www.heretical.com/smith/wwar2.html),
Graham Smith referred to a letter written that year by Byrd to racist Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi, in which Byrd vowed never to fight, "with a Negro by my side. 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." [2](http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/02/standards.html)
In a 1946 letter, he wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia." However, when running for Congress in 1952, he announced, "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan."
Since then, Senator Byrd has often referred to his Klan membership as a mistake of his youth, less often as a moral outrage. As recently as 1997, he told an interviewer he'd encourage young people to become involved in politics, but with this warning: "Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena."
As a result of this 50 year old affiliation, Senator Byrd is often maligned by his critics with the moniker, Robert "Sheets" Byrd.
I see him as suffering from extreme dementia, and his family hasn't go the courage to keep him home (for fear he will filibuster at the dinner table).
How nice, he thinks it will protect him; he obviously doesn't give a hoot about what it actually says and means.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/pageone/
It's the first of the lesser stories referenced on the front page. I doubt that they would place untoward information in the lead paragraph.
The Slimes is pretty hard up for leftie heroes when they have to lionize a Klansman. Too bad liberals are impervious to irony.
The fact is that Byrd is a fraud. His act might impress his constituents back in West Virginia, but I think the Senate is showing him way too much respect.
"The Great Compromise resulted in proportional representation for the States in the less-powerful House of Representatives, and disproportional representation in the Senate. To calculate State populations for House representation, each slave was counted as three-fifths of a free person (Article I, Section 2, third clause)."
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