Robert Byrd, the KKK, and Obama
Sen. Barack Obama’s favorite Ku Klux Klan leader has written a book. Hooray!
Let’s see. Who wants to bet that Sen. Robert Byrd (aka Exalted Cyclops Byrd) doesn’t have too many statements like these in the 770 pages:
He would never fight in the armed forces “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.”
What a patriot!
For a man who sees his leadership of the KKK as a youthful mistake (like presidential candidates smoking pot but not inhaling?) his record is kind of troubling:
Byrd’s Klan past became an issue again when he joined with other southern Democrats to oppose the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Byrd filibustered the bill for more than 14 hours as he argued that it abrogated principles of federalism. He criticized most anti-poverty programs except for food stamps. And in 1967, he voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall, the first black appointed to the Supreme Court.
Then he goes on TV (2001) and starts calling people white niggers. Smooth.
As Michelle Malkin wrote a couple of years back,
The ex-Klansman’s admirers praise his historical knowledge, mastery of procedural rules, and outspokenness. They refer to the Senate’s senior Democrat as the “conscience of the Senate.” They downplay his white-sheet-wearing days as a “brief mistake” — as if joining the Klan were like knocking over a glass of water. Oopsy.
I don’t know what is more frustrating…that Sen. Byrd hasn’t been run out of the Senate yet, or that new Senators (including the only Black senator around) are working hard to keep his racist behind there.
Obama has long lost any respect I might of had for him as a Black man doing big things.
Claudio