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September 29, 2005

Another Six Years of Robert "Sheets" Byrd?

Posted by Dave Blount at September 29, 2005 8:51 PM

The 87-year-old Democrat Robert Byrd is running for reelection to the Senate yet again.

The former butcher and KKK Kleagle began his political career as a state legislator 59 years ago. Although Byrd left the Klan in 1943, he continued his association with the group long afterward, and was still publicly calling people "niggers" as recently as 2001. In 1964 Byrd demonstrated his devotion to racial harmony by filibustering the Civil Rights Act for 14 straight hours. His opposition to black nominees Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas, and Condoleezza Rice was unyielding.

He does have a gift for rhetoric, as displayed in this well-known quote:

I should rather die a thousand times and see old glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen of the wilds.

Thanks to the remarkable moral elasticity of the Democratic party, none of this has prevented Barack Obama from pleading for money on Byrd's behalf.

But Byrd is known for more than his bigotry. Some know him as the King of Pork. Byrd doesn't mind a bit:

They call me "The Pork King," they don't know how much I enjoy it.

Thanks to his privileged position on the Appropriations Committee, Byrd was able to rake in $399 million in pork for his state in 2005 — that's $220 for each of West Virginia's inhabitants.

Byrd is also remarkable for his ego. He convinced the state legislature to erect a statue of himself in the state Capitol, despite the West Virginia law prohibiting statues of government officials who have not been dead for at least 50 years.

At least Sheets won't have to worry about senility. Anyone who has seen him holding forth on the Senate floor can tell you that he has passed through to whatever lies beyond it.