I disagreed with the former Senator on a lot of issues, but out of respect for his decades of honorable service in the Senate, I will restrain from using any personal insults towards the Senator or from highlighting the unfavorables of his long record.
May the Senator Rest In Peace.
On a political note: according to West Virginia state law, the state must hold a special election to replace the Senator this November. We should see Governor Manchin appoint a successor soon.
2 comments:
I'll do it for you, then.
Byrd was an unabashed segreagationist and Klansman who opposed the integration of the United States Armed Forces.
I noticed that nowhere in his bios or obituaries does it make any mention of military service- Byrd would've been in his mid-20's at the start of WWII. Instead of fighting the Nazis and Imperial Japan, he seemed more fixated in fighting racial intergration of the US Military:
I shall 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, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.
—Byrd in Letter to pro-segregationist Mississippi Sen. Theo Bilbo in 1944
I won't deny that 50 years of service in the senate is no small feat, and that Byrd had his sort of folksy moments reading scripture or poetry from the floor of the senate, but to gloss over his affiliation with the KKK out of respect for the dead would come off as a sort of MSM-style whitewash.
Fenway-- well put and prescient.
Post a Comment