In eulogizing Senator Robert Byrd-Democrat West Virginia, former President Bill Clinton-Democrat, Arkansas, said: "There are a lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers, and I read a bunch of them, and they mentioned he once had a fleeting association with the Klu (sic) Klux Klan (KKK) and what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and the hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected, and maybe he did something he shouldn't have done, and he spent the rest of his like making it up -- and that's what a good person does....There are no perfect people! There are certainly no perfect politicians."
Well, the former liar-in-state was right about one thing; there are no perfect politicians. However, to gloss over Robert Byrd's association with the racist KKK is beyond distortion. It's re-writing history. So what's new? The Liberal/Progressives have been doing that for a hundred years.
Byrd was not just a country boy trying to get elected. He was also, a lifetime bigot, who was a big player in the Klan.
He didn't just go to a couple of meetings either. He was an Exalted Cyclops. He got close to the Grand Kleagle, who was almost the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of the Klan. This certainly was not just a casual or "fleeting" association (as suggested by our former president) that Senator Byrd had. An Exalted Cyclops means he was a recruiter. He solicited new members to hate black Americans; to segregate black Americans; even to beat and murder black Americans. Robert Byrd formed a KKK chapter of his own. He didn't just go to a couple of "fleeting" meetings, and he was a recruiter for years. He formed his KKK chapter in 1943. And he was still writing about the 'vital need' for the Klan in 1946. How do you "fleet" for three years?
Senator Byrd was so "repentant" he opposed every piece of civil rights legislation. He filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1965. It wasn't until the death of his son in a car accident in the early 1980s that Robert Byrd said he had to rethink his feelings about black people. He said -- in the 1980s -- that it 'finally occurred to (him) that they might love their children, too. What an awakening! Black people actually love their children too! My, oh my, wake up the kids!
Robert Byrd wrote to segregationist Senator Theodore Bilbo-Democrat, Mississippi, in 1944, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. Rather, I should die a thousand times, 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."
Sometime before the decade ended, the future senator later wrote a letter to the Grand Wizard (the REAL Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler) of the Klan saying, "The Klan is needed today as never before. I'm anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state of the nation." Robert Byrd was the only Senator to have voted against Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, the only two African-Americans to be nominated to the Supreme Court. Senator Byrd opposed Clarence Thomas because Byrd stated he was offended by Thomas' use of the phrase 'high-tech lynching' of uppity blacks in his defense. Senator Byrd also opposed some of George W. Bush's judicial and cabinet nominees who were black. Notably, Janice Rogers Brown for judge of the US Court of Appeals DC district, and Condoleezza Rice for Secretary of State.
And that was only a decade ago.
For years the Democrats have been telling us that
Republicans are racist. Maybe it's
time they learn their own history.
But, of course, that would necessitate telling the truth. And sometimes, the truth hurts. Especially at election time.
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