Senator Birds passing...

[tater]

It's not that they don't mention it, it's that it's a non-issue. if he had an "R" after his name he'd have been run out of Congress.

Saying something nice about someone formerly in the KKK at his birthday party is enough to get you booted from the Republican party leadership, after all. The current VP saying "we'll not see his like again" in a complementary manner, OTOH is fine.

Byrd was a scumbag, plains and simple. He abused his power to secure "pork" and was a member of an organization that would disqualify him for office with any electorate that had any decency.

[mookiemookie]

His words are especially poignant here amidst the partisan sniping.

"[H]atred is an ugly thing. It can seize the psyche and twist sound reasoning. I have seen it unleashed in all its mindless fury too many times in my own life. In a charged political atmosphere, it can destroy all in its path with the blind fury of a whirlwind. I hear its ominous rumble and see its destructive funnel on the horizon in our land today. I fear for our nation if its turbulent winds are not calmed and its storm clouds somehow dispersed."

Byrd hoped the nation would come together to heal. He hoped that "we can, together, crush the seeds of ugliness and enmity which have taken root in the sacred soil of our republic, and, instead, sow new respect for honestly differing views, bipartisanship, and simple kindness towards each other." And in words that ring true today as they did at the disgraceful end of the previous century, Byrd said, "We have much important work to do. And, in truth, it is long past time for us to move on."

[Zachstar]

An interesting note about the vacancy. The gov will appoint a replacement which will serve until 2012 then there will be an election... And 6 weeks afterwards due to the wording there will be ANOTHER election in 2013

Most likely the replacement will win the 2012 election. Nobody is going to seriously challenge for a spot for 6 weeks.

[tater]

Clinton says Byrd was just trying to get elected, no foul.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...t_elected.html

Jonah Goldberg has it right:

And then, of course, there is the issue of race. The common interpretation is that Byrd’s is a story of redemption. A one-time Exalted Cyclops of the KKK, Byrd recruited some 150 members to the chapter he led — that’s led, not “joined,” by the way. (If you doubt his commitment to the cause, try to recruit 150 people to do anything, never mind have them pay a hefty fee up front.)

Byrd filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As Bruce Bartlett notes in his book Wrong on Race, Byrd knew he would fail, but he stood on bedrock principle that integration was evil. His individual filibuster, the second longest in American history, fills 86 pages of fine print in the Congressional Record. “Only a true believer,” writes Bartlett, “would ever undertake such a futile effort.”

Unlike some segregationists’, Byrd’s arguments rested less on the principle of states’ rights than on his conviction that black people were simply biologically inferior.

Sure, he lied for years about his repudiation of the Klan. Sure, he was still referring to “white ******s” as recently as 2001. But everyone agrees his change of heart is sincere. And for all I know, it was.

What’s odd is what passes for proof of his sincerity. Yes, he voted to make Martin Luther King Day a holiday. But to listen to some eulogizers, the real proof came in the fact that he supported ever more lavish government programs — and opposed the Iraq War. Am I alone in taking offense at the idea that supporting big government and opposing the Iraq War somehow count as proof of racial enlightenment?

Robert Byrd was a complicated man, but the explanation for the outsized celebration of his career strikes me as far more simple. He was a powerful man who abandoned his bigoted principles in order to keep power. And his party loved him for it.

Trent Lott, of course, lost his job as Senate Minority Leader for saying something nice about Senator Thurmond at Thurmond's birthday party. Lost his job. Meanwhile, defending a former KKK member has no ill-effects for any democrat.