by Chuck Ring (GadaboutBlogalot ©2009).

Quote Freely From The Article – Leave The Pseudonym Alone

No, not hardly. Not now; nor ever.  And, while I am at it, I would like to indulge another blogger and state that I did not wrongly characterize the nature of an earmark that Senator Robert Byrd made this year to a company that was actually sold to another firm in 2007.  See Article Here Regarding the earmark and the mix-up by the Senator and/or his staff, I can only suppose that such mistakes show what is wrong with our system of earmarks, which I thought were to go the way of the Cuckoo Bird (really, no pun intended) according to President Obama. This was to have occurred after we elected President Obama, although to date, he has not started the process. But, Senator Byrd is still close to being, if he isn’t in fact,  “the king of pork.”  In other words, he appropriates plates, platters and pots of the stuff. The closest I might come to anything resembling an apology would be to say that I did not get the story right in its entirety through my depending on another source article. The fact remains, I did correctly state the “meat” of the pork,  I posted my source  and I did not pull the allegation out of pig manure or pork bellies. Now, I post another source which might  suffice to satisfy my blogger detractor.  More On 5 Million

To explain further about my refusal to apologize, it needs saying that, Mr. Byrd was a booger under the sheets. That is, he was an avowed member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Not only was he a member of that nefarious group, he held himself out as a Kleagle of the organization. He continued his support of the KKK and urged others to do the same after being elected to the West Virginia State Senate according to an article in The Wall Street Journal dated December 28, 2002.

Quoting

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.”

Please read the complete article if you need further convincing of why Mr. Byrd is to be pitied and disdained and is not a fitting subject for an apology. But,we digress. Let us go look to the star of a 2001 video that again shows Mr. Byrd’s true opinion of color.

Of course, the good/bad senator, after he had time to have his thoughts collected by his staff, saw fit to weasel-word his way out of what must for him, be a difficult habit to break. If you wish to spend more time on this man, who will likely leave this world in the near future, you are welcome to read as much as you can stomach starting right here.

If he is your hero, you are welcome to him, but the best I can offer from my heart and soul is that I do not hold it against him for being a useful fool for those who would attempt to hold him out as a great man worthy of an apology.

Apparently, a history of racism during a large part of one’s life, and particularly one’s adult life, is difficult to rectify when continued during a large segment of public service. It  makes a person wonder if Mr. Byrd’s racism is his “pig in a poke,” i.e., he hides his racist angst away until it seeps or leaks out again. As some say, “Only God knows for sure.”

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