He's a leftist - what good is that? Let's focus on some more of KKK Byrd's words - shall we, newbie? Pretty wild stuff - from just last year!
http://hnn.us/comments/6185.html
Subject: Robert Byrd
Posted By: Editor
Date Posted: December 23, 2002, 8:32 PM
WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL: 12-23-02
The Democrats' Lott
Now that Republicans are replacing Trent Lott with Bill Frist as Senate leader, grumpy Democrats are suggesting that the entire GOP needs to make amends for a racist past. Well, fine, if it's a wholesale purge Democrats want, we assume they'll be happy to start with their own ranks and oust the former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle, Robert Byrd of West Virginia.
As usual, this high moral and political tone was set by the Democrats' supreme leader, Bill Clinton, and his wife Hillary. "I think there is something hypocritical about the way Republicans are jumping all over" Mr. Lott, the former President said last week. "He just embarrassed them by saying in Washington what they do on the back roads every day." Massaging the same talking points, Hillary added Friday that what Mr. Lott "did was state publicly what many of them have stated privately over many years in the back roads and back streets of the South."
Last time we looked, however, Republicans didn't have any KKK alumni in their ranks. Especially not someone who has been the Senate's president pro-tem, putting him third in line for the Presidency after the Vice President and Speaker of the House. Surely this must shock the conscience of the Clintons.
Senator Byrd quit the Klan in the 1940s and has renounced it since. On the other hand, his history is worth revisiting, since it's something Democrats have been willing to tolerate, despite Lott-like remarks that would have ended a Republican's career. Only last year Mr. Byrd told Fox News that "There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time, if you want to use that word. But we all -- we all -- we just need to work together to make our country a better country and I -- I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much."
Mr. Byrd quickly apologized, but he wasn't denounced by Democrats, much less by the Clintons. Nor did the press corps use the opportunity to wallow in other Byrd racial lowlights, such as the 14 hours and 13 minutes he spent in an unsuccessful filibuster during the debate over the 1964 civil rights act, which he voted against along with 20 other Senate Democrats. The political press also didn't dredge up his votes against both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, votes that made him the only Senator to have opposed the only two black Supreme Court nominees in U.S. history.
At the time of his "white nigger" remarks last year, no national papers bothered to mention two letters that the Senator had distanced himself from, Clinton-style, by saying he didn't recall writing them, though he also didn't dispute them. The New York Times reported in 1971 on a letter Mr. Byrd wrote in 1946, after leaving the Klan. Writing to the Klan's Imperial Wizard, Mr. Byrd identified himself as a former Kleagle and recommended a person to serve as state Klan coordinator. He wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia...It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W. Va?"
And in a 1947 letter, after Mr. Byrd had been elected to the state senate, he wrote that he would "never submit to fight beneath that banner (the American flag) 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."
Since those unfortunate days, 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."
Not that this record inhibited Mr. Byrd's Senate rise. Democrats knew all about his racist past when they elected him their majority whip in 1971 over Ted Kennedy. He moved up to majority leader in 1977, defeating Hubert Humphrey, and led his party in the Senate until 1989. Even now as senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee he is regularly hailed by fellow Democrats as the conscience of the Senate.
By ousting Mr. Lott, Republicans have shown a willingness to punish any nostalgia in their own ranks for the misbegotten days of segregation. Democrats should be applauding this act of hygiene, especially given their own tolerance for leaders who have prospered by playing the race card.
Updated December 23, 2002