I hope the passing of Robert Byrd, longest-serving Senator in the history of this country, will inspire at least a brief consideration of what made him great -- and what his legacy tells us about the politics of today.
Byrd was a flawed man. He understood for many decades that when this day came, his last on earth, his obituaries would all include mention of his membership in the Ku Klux Klan more than sixty years ago.
I may have been one of the last ones to discuss this chapter in his life with Byrd during the many private conversations I had with him in his Senate office as we worked together on a book, published in 2008 as "Letter to a New President" and excerpted right here at Huffington Post.
Here's what Byrd had to say about that: "I have lived with the weight of my own youthful mistakes my whole life, like a millstone around my neck, and I accept that those mistakes will forever be mentioned when people talk about me. I believe I have learned from those mistakes. I know I've tried very hard to do so."
Byrd did not use the English language the way that other politicians do. He loved books and for years his idea of the ideal break from his duties in the Senate was to spend his weeks off digging through books. He had a rococo speaking style that some mocked, but it was all his, though it very much drew on the tradition of southern oratory, and there was nothing feigned about his erudition.
He was morally flawed, yes, but he believed absolutely in our better natures and always sought to better himself and to fight for what he saw as the best in our Constitution. The New York Times obit by Adam Clymer claimed in its first paragraph, maybe with tongue in cheek, that Byrd always fought for the "primacy" of the legislative branch, but this is incorrect. Byrd fought for the balance of power between the three branches. As he told me in one of our conversations for the book, describing a meeting in the Soviet Union with Leonid Brezhnev, Byrd told him that in the U.S. system of government, the President has neither more nor less power than the Congress, which are "equal in every way under our Constitution." Byrd opposed what he saw as power grabs from the executive branch, and worked to thwart them whether the President was named Reagan or Bush or Clinton or Obama.
Above all, though, I'd like to mention Byrd's series of speeches arguing against blundering into the Iraq War all based on misconceptions, half-truths and worse. During the work on the book, the late Senator Ted Kennedy invited me into his office for a private talk about Byrd and he singled out Byrd's leadership in opposing the Iraq War.
"His eloquence and passion and his leadership on this will be memorable," Kennedy said. " My sense is that so much of that memory went back to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and where the United States got started on the war in Vietnam and they just couldn't end it. The Congress couldn't end it. The people couldn't end it. Presidents didn't end it. In '68, you had candidates to end the war and the government, the President, promised it, and it still went on until '75, still fighting in '72 or '73.
So in that sense, the fact that he had this historic perspective and awareness is something that really served the country in a very, very important way. Too many others were sort of taken up with the passion of the moment."
Robert Byrd - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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He was able to get reelected over and over from a poor state that benefited from his actions, his constituents were convinced of that... and cared about little else. He brought "pork" to his state-a dubious benefit to the rest of the country in favor of W.Va. It is fair to say that we need less of that rather than more as it is plain and simple a corrupt practice the country can ill afford. W. Virginians were also more forgiving about his "wild and rambunctious past".
Senator Byrd has perhaps changed my bias: maybe a devil's horns are not permanent? Though if I were Afro-American, I might not be so willing to forgive? And indeed as a Jew I am again unsure, the KKK also approved of the Nazis.
His death gives life to a large debate: how far can we go to forgive? If he was a Blackshirt would America have forgiven him? The fact is we do not treat what the KKK stood for and killed for as seriously as being a supporter of Nazism.
I would prefer to think only good of what was Senator Byrd but the land I was born and raised would never or rarely have forgiven. Yet he was not the first to morph into a gentler old man.
Politics in America are completely different from Britain or Germany the only other country I have lived in.
I also believe that Senator Byrd's life journey, from a Klan member to a Senator beloved by men and women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, could not have happened had he not had the courage to examine himself, to acknowledge his wrong, to seek forgiveness, and to spend the rest of his life - literally - redeeming himself from that part of his life when he lived in darkness.
I think it's true however that we do not treat what the KKK stood and killed for as seriously as being a supporter of Nazism, and I think we both probably know the reason why. The KKK largedly stood against blacks, whereas the Nazis largely stood against European Jews, but it's the European part that generally garners more sympathy than the black party, not only in Britain or Germany, but here in America as well.
Having said that, Senator Byrd, imo, is far better than many who may not have been members of the Klan in the past, but who may as well be members of the Klan today, considering the hate they spew and the racial divisiveness they've engaged in and exploited for political gain.
http://www.latticetheory.net/media/pdf/nashville_banner_september_2_1997_i.pdf
I want to be a truly opened minded human, and am willing to give a person the opportunity to grow, and change. If I am judged, solely, by things I have done and said, but have learned better and regretted, doing all I can to improve, I dislike being judged by my past, and not my growth and change.
This attitude and action will not work when the need to change is not apparent and acted upon. Still, we're all in transition. Some know, some don't. Did Byrd really change-grow...? What is the balance on his productivity?
Some doctor . . . who's happy to see such an effective statesman die.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/opinion/29roundup.html
Hmmm. I just wonder, if Byrd had been a Republican, would his Klan involvement be dismissed as merely being part of a 'dark past'? For non-Dems, you can count on it being a case of "once the Klan, always the Klan" as far as how such non-Dems would forever be viewed, and tainted. That is almost laughable, given how the Klan is a direct creation of the Dem Party! But that bit of truth is always conveniently ignored by the left.
That said, I did not, and do not, hate Robert Byrd. I have always despised the unfettered hypocrisy the usual suspects on the left displayed when they portrayed and defended him, while demonizing those they oppose for far less. THEY, then as now, so readily spit out accusations based on 'racism', while ignoring Byrd's past with (arguably) the most racist of all organizations in this nation's history. That's what I always hated!
Now get back to your Kool-Aid before it gets warm!
I feel strongly that we should have some kind of term limits. Someone dying while in office at 92 is just a bit too much.
Senator Byrd remained in the Senate for as long as he did because his constituents continued to vote for him, which seems to say quite a lot about the kind of man he was. And even as old as he was, I can remember Senator Byrd giving some of the most incredibly moving speeches, filled with the kind of wisdom and deliberaton that his younger counterparts couldn't compete with if they tried.
I will miss Senator Byrd, and if it was up to me, he would grace the chambers of our Congress indefinitely.
He acquired great power and status.
That is his epitaph.
There was nothing "great" about him. He was exactly what the founding fathers must have been thinking a representative of the people should be. A common citizen with an uncommon and uncanny knack for articulating his position and selling it. Nobody ever accused him of being a master of the flip-flop.
That what should be considered the normal, routine character of a political leader is somehow special just further illustrates the dumbing down of the American voter. Few in the current Congress and Senate have the mettle of Robert Byrd.
I never agreed with much of what he stood for but he did perform his duties well. He just wasn't a "great" Senator. Still he should lie in state in the Capitol rotunda and Obama should order flags to half staff for a day or two. (IMHO)
My only problem with his time in the Senate is the fact that he was 92 years old! He should have retired 30 years ago. There is a big difference between a career politician and a lifetime politician. He was way past retirement age.