As I’m off with my family listening to loons who escaped the Gulf Oil Spill I’m reduced to catching up on the Trib strictly on line. Today’s online story had what I presumed was the story of Senator Robert Byrds death. It was not. I learned that the Senator had died elsewhere on the Internet but the Trib’s online paper only had this summation of his life. I presume the paper version actually mentioned his death.
I’ve enjoyed criticizing Byrd’s porkish ways ever since he stuck the FBI fingerprinting lab in West Virginia. I admired him when he opposed George W Bush’s War in Iraq and the insinuation that it was unpatriotic to send soldiers off where they shouldn’t be. Pork got him elected and elected over to Congress and over starting when I was two years old.
Much has been made of his 1920’s membership in the KKK. Shameful yes, but he’s apologized for it many times since. Sad to say but the Klan was a cross between Rotary and a band of vigilantes. It was a sign of distinction that many wore like Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black one of my heroes for his steadfast fight for 1st Amendment rights. It was a political stepping stone.
