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Klansman quits post ahead of inauguration of Black man

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  November 7th, 2008 at 08:33 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Senator and former Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in West Virginia Robert C. Byrd is giving up his chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee on January 6, 2009, a short 14 days before Senator Barack Obama is to be inaugurated.

To those who say that it is unfair of me to juxtapose these two surely unrelated events, allow me to quote from the press release from Byrd’s office:

I have been privileged to be a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee
for 50 years and to have chaired the Committee for ten years, during a time
of enormous change in our great country, both culturally and politically. I
have learned that nothing is quite so permanent as change. It is simply a
part of living and should not be feared. To be serving in the Senate at
such a momentous time in our history fills me with enormous pride. I
endorsed President-elect Obama because I believed that we had taken the
wrong course both at home and abroad. I am delighted with his victory. I was
an early critic of the war in Iraq, as was the President-elect, who decried
this war even before he was running for a United States Senate seat. I wish
our new President every success with his commitment to unite us as one
people.

Doth the Senator protest too much? If he wanted to join in HopeChange™ so badly, why wouldn’t he stay on another year, or at least another two weeks in some symbolic form? Surely the former Majority Leader would be given that leeway by his caucus.

Regardless, I wonder if Senator Reid and the gang will let him keep some post, perhaps becoming Co-Chairman of the Joint Select Committee on Soft Desserts, joining new colleagues to vote on what flavor pudding the Congress gets to eat at lunch.

I bet he picks vanilla.

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COMMENTS

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  • towdogInCal

    Surely that’s a cooincidence?
    Yeah sure it is, and stop calling me Shirley

  • 29Victor

    k?

  • EdgeOfTheStorm

    Wouldn’t it be nice to see him retire.

  • IJB

    There have been a number of reports lately that Dems had come to think that neither Byrd, nor Johnson of SD (who, BTW, was just reelected with 64% of the vote – nice, SD! you can forget about the populace of your state getting any respect from this poster any time soon!), were up to the tasks they were assigned.

    Basically, Reid and co. were starting to worry that Byrd was losing it. (Yeah, ironic, I know.)

    So I think ol’ Senator from KKK was given the not-so-gentle nudge to the side.

    After all, you can’t let a senile old fool stand in the way of socialist utopia!!1!

  • Neil_Stevens
  • DellaMore

    ex-clansman who is 91 feels that its time for a younger generation to take the reins? show some respect. He might have been wrong 50 years ago, but he was right 5 years ago when the GOP was pushing for the deaths of 4000 of our troops. stay classy Redstate.

  • IJB
  • 29Victor

    If not, then you’re just sad.

  • mbecker908

    Reid couldn’t force out a turd.

  • neum432

    I thought the “Bush lied people died” argument was over. You are so 2 years ago. Go back to Dkos!

  • janis

    see the hypocrisy of screeching about the deaths of our soldiers in battle yet they seem to be just fine with what Saddam and his boys did to hundreds of thousands of their own citizens, including women and children. Gassing them, raping them, dismembering them for no more reason than that they could–so that’s all right with you folks?

    Every soldier’s death is mourned and honored, never to be forgotten. They died in the fight for freedom. The fact that it was for the freedom of Iraqis does not lessen the honor of what they did. You, of course, would place no importance on that fact. And you are vermin.

  • Neil_Stevens

    I know they tolerate racism, sexism, and hatred of Jews over at the left (witness the way Sarah Palin was treated, or the whole Lieberman-in-blackface routine for proof), but we don’t here.

    So if you want to defend a man who was an active leader in a group that routinely commited unspeakable acts of terrorism, go over there.

    Blam.

  • bamapachyderm

    For the original post, AND the troll-slaying.

  • IJB
  • 2006_personoftheyear

    I don’t see any reason to view this as anything other than a straightforward, vanilla press release announcing this sort of thing. When a 91 year old Senator announces he’s stepping down from his chairmanship, I assume it’s because he realizes he is getting on in years, or because others gently push him towards that conclusion. I don’t see any reason to think otherwise.

    Also, wouldn’t it be more accurate to call him a “Former Klansman?” Reagan was a Democrat at one time (I think), in 1980 nobody would say “Democrat elected President”…

  • text97

    I wonder if Obama himself was the one who asked Reid to boot Byrd. I only say that because if I was in Obama’s shoes, I would have done the same. Yeah, he may have voted for me, but I know what you did before. Obama’s own books show he can store quite a bit of racial animosity, particularly towards those who have been less than fair to blacks, in his view.

    I just find it quite odd that he mentioned he was an early supporter of Obama, as if that had any particular relevance to him departing as chair of that commmittee.

  • text97

    Don’t doubt Reid’s abilities to assert leadership over his own caucus. He may be an idiot and I’m already salivating over 2010 and knocking him out of the Senate, but I suspect he can hold his own over the Dem caucus.

  • JLenardDetroit

    Obama, the guy that wants/expects everyone to IGNORE/FORGET everything he had done in the past. Like:

    • Attend “Black Liberation theology Church” that preaches HATE, but probably does think it is OK for him to HATE and hold against Byrd his past (double-standards, kinda like Hate crimes, Affirmative action, Redistributive Justice, etc…)

    • Affiliations with Terrorists/enemies-of-the-state

    • Most Liberal voting record of anyone in history, for us to believe (er… HOPE) that he had “CHANGED” and is Moderate, or Conservative at times, as he tried to have us believe during the campaign

    • Claims to oppose Infanticide, while voting against measures to SAVE those babies

    • That he opposes everything that supports our troops and wants to SURRENDER, while proclaiming he supports the Troops

    • Claims to want to be a TAX CUTTER when he’s never introduced any such legislation and/or voted for any tax cuts

    and on… and on… and on….

  • Gumby87

    Sorry you have this one wrong. While Byrd has a ton of baggage and will always be affiliated with two things, 1.) his KKK connections and 2.) “Byrd” droppings to the state of WV, this commentary is wrong and offensive. Conservatives are better than this. This is just downright shameful. You know the facts behind the situation and still write such hateful things. Your association is bogus and I am ashamed that Redstate permits you to post such worthless nonesense.

  • Joelim

    For whatever reason, he is out.

  • mbecker908

    hb

  • ClassicConservative

    and you know it. Why be intellectually dishonest? I come to the blogs to escape the faux-sensational stories the media has, and it makes me sick to see it from people who hate the liberal left media.

    The truth is, the obvious truth, that they have been trying to can him for a year now. This is old news. Anyone who didn’t see this coming is clueless.

    Why can’t we rejoice it? Robert Byrd is the epitome of pork-barrel spending. I have never seen someone so addicted to abusing appropriation power. Good riddance I say.

    This is good news for my tax dollars. I find it hard to believe there could be someone more liberal with appropriations.

  • JLenardDetroit

    Is the new slogan… at least it’s the one I’m pushing.

  • JLenardDetroit

    The new guy is just another Democrat fool that is 70 some years old

    huh?? sure, that’s CHANGE

  • antisocial

    I had this in mind but had to drop the idea as Sean Hannity started using this on his radio show 3-4 days back.

  • Darin_H

    It’s hilarious watching all these people defend a former Kleagle!

  • speciallist

    n/p

  • Rod_Patrick

    LOL!

  • Rod_Patrick

    nt

  • Moriah

    … I have very little tolerance for “Democrats” like Byrd.

    Part of the reason I use the term liberal most often when I refer to my political ideology is that Republican and Democrat have meant very different things at different points in history.

    Byrd is a classic example.

    Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, he freed the slaves. During the Reconstruction, many Republicans came to the South to run the government. (This is where the derogatory term “carpetbagger” comes from — which is why I thought it deliciously funny that Hillary Clinton carpetbagged to New York. She may have been from Illinois originally, but she married into the Arkansas family — after all, they say we’re all related….)

    At that time, the Democratic party stood for segregation, “state’s rights”, and considered the Republican Party the party of “big government”.

    Byrd is a holdover of the Democrats who were unwilling to accept the direction that Roosevelt and Truman wanted to take the party and the country — toward its current socially liberal ideas — and instead held tight to the racist attitudes prevalent in the South.

    Party loyalty is much less important to me than ideals and ideas.

    I realize that people can change, but I have no problems with seeing him depart the office. I personally think his departure will be good for the Democratic party — I will not make judgments as to why he may have decided to quit now, but all I can say is to not let the door hit that particular donkey on his way out.

    Just my personal opinion and all.

  • Jaded

    uhhh ummm no we are not….ummmm uhhh we are just fine with this commentary…..and ummmm uhhhh if you don’t like it I do believe there are some Rockefeller Republican sites such as Peggy Noonan and George Will for you to feel oh so much better on!

    hattip to Obama for the ummm’s and uhhh’s!

  • Lords86

    First, Senator Byrd can hardly put a sentence together anymore in less than 20 seconds. It’s kind of hard to run a meeting when your speech and thought pattern makes a turtle look fast.

    More to your point, he’s not resigning –he’s been told to resign or, more particularly, that he is stepping down. Dem leadership is afraid of his past, of his blurting out something stupid, like his “white _” comment from a few years ago. And, perhaps, Obama has said something?! That’s the story here.

  • streiff

    you’ll find no argument from me. I’m more than happy to accept that analogy if you guys are.

    But, for the sake of sanity, don’t you think there just a little bit of difference between serving as a Klan recruiter and being a registered democrat.

  • streiff

    1. your opinion doesn’t matter.

    2. you don’t have grounds to be ashamed of anything here.

  • David_Hinz

    for the record books!

  • jonathan_pujals

    Actually, the new committee head is 84-years old, not “…seventy some”. As you said: some change!

  • bs
  • Neil_Stevens

    That makes it highly questionable that this is about change, about age, or about vitality.

  • 2006_personoftheyear

    the only similarity between the two that I am saying exists is that you can be one at one point and no longer be one at a point in the future…I could say the same thing about Lincoln Chafee and being Republican. Or, say, you and being an infant.

    (That is, at one point you were an infant but I would not currently describe you as one)

  • JLenardDetroit

    which is to throw in the face of Liberals one of their moronic chants (the Bush Lied bs) by mocking their slogan with this slogan: “Obama Lies, and you Bank account will Die.” It is meant to convey truth while being insulting to Lib’s, to rub their faces into the Code Pink, Move On, etc… controlling groups of their Party.

  • IJB

    P.S. That pic needs to be used on every troll who pops up from now on.

  • itrytobenice

    I mean, I know he doesn’t know he endorsed The One. But I’ll bet he doesn’t know he’s not the chairman either.

    He probably doesn’t even know he’s a Senator. I saw him speak on CSPAN a couple of years ago, and was astounded that the libs ever let him take the podium.

    If more people sat and watched that channel, some things would surely change.

  • Rod_Patrick

    I seriously think that some of us are really in peril because of this new president. I don’t want to be a harbinger of fear, but I feel that it’s really like this: “Obama Lies, and some of us are gonna die”. For our own good, I pray that the same is “wrong”.