Robert Byrd: A story of change and redemption
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
“End of an era” is an overused trope, but in this case it’s appropriate: The last of the old Southern Democrats is gone.
Sen. Robert Byrd had long since repented, of course. The West Virginian, who died Monday at 92, deeply regretted his segregationist past, which included a year as a member of the Ku Klux Klan and at least several more years as a Klan sympathizer. He eventually became a passionate advocate for civil rights, and he was one of the most vocal supporters of legislation making the birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday.
The L.A. Times had a more even-handed obituary. Not too bad for a newspaper that leans far left:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-james-kilpatrick-20100817,0,1928236.story
excerpt:
Described by political commentator and columnist George Will as “a Jeffersonian, Virginia, small-government, free-market, classic conservative,” Kilpatrick once defined a conservative as one who says “no” more than “yes.”
“If you think of the body politic as a machine, the liberals’ habit is to accelerate,” he told an interviewer some years ago. “The conservatives’ function is to apply the brakes.”