Posted on 02/28/2006 6:13:17 AM PST by mathprof
Sen. Robert Byrd, the dean of the Senate and its resident constitutional expert, counts only a few regrets in his 48-year Senate career: filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act, voting to expand the Vietnam War, deregulating airlines.
Add to the list a new one from this century: supporting the anti-terror USA Patriot Act after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
"The original Patriot Act is a case study in the perils of speed, herd instinct and lack of vigilance when it comes to legislating in times of crisis," the West Virginia Democrat said Monday on the eve of the Senate's final votes on its renewal. "The Congress was stampeded, and the values of freedom, justice and equality received a trampling in the headlong rush."
This week as he embarks on a re-election campaign for a record ninth term, Byrd, 88, will vote "no" on renewing 16 major provisions of the act due to expire March 10. He argues that even with new privacy protections added this year by the Bush administration and its allies, the law has given the government too much power to pry.
"This new proposal would erase too many of our freedoms guaranteed to the American people," Byrd added in a statement to The Associated Press. "In essence, this legislation says that the Bill of Rights is right no more."
[snip]
As for changing sides, Byrd's got a favorite phrase, from the poet James Russell Lowell:
"The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
The Klansman speaks.
Cyclotic regrets that Byrd is a US Senator
The one in 1776?
Weak.
I guess that The Conscience Of The Senate (a title that he was awarded during impeachment) has realized that the only folks supporting the Act are "white niggers".
He wouldn't regret it had it been called "The Robert Byrd Patriot Act"...
This can't go over with the voters of WV..maybe Sheets can be folded up.permanently..
Can "sheets remember what he yesterday, let alone a few months or years ago?
I wonder if he remembers his grand Kleagle days?
Uh huh...he also "regrets" filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, opposing Justice Thurgood Marshall for the Supreme Court, his Gulf of Tonkin Resolution endorsement, and his vote to allow Operation Iraqi Freedom...give him time and he'll perhaps backtrack on his pork votes for items such as the bridge to nowhere over the hollars of W. Va., et al
We all have our crosses to burn, uh, bear.
So, the only things Byrd regrets his votes on are the key issues of the past 50 years -- Civil Rights, Viet Nam, economic deregulation, and the War on Terror. Other than that, he's pretty happy with his votes on Fire Prevention Week and Mothers Day.
At 88 years old I doubt Sheets can live through another
term in the Senate. He may die in office. The people of West Virginia would be doing him a favor to retire him.
The Vatican decided that Cardinals over 80 didnt have enough common sense left to vote in the Papal election. I think they may have a better clue than a lot of West Virginia voters.
Hmmmm, I wonder why he qualified the answer to limit it to his Senate career, is there something else he regrets. What I want to know does he regret lynching blacks or not lynching enough of them. He obviously did not regret lynching blacks too much when he was filibustering civil rights.
He regrets that he couldn't carry it off to West VA.
He said he "regrets-" being one of the head honchos in the KKK, too. The man is an embarrassment.
I wonder if he will resign over his poor judgement...
...after he found out that it didn't really move the entire government to West Virginia.
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