Good Bye Senator Byrd

Posted by Larry Miller on July 6, 2010 under Why | Be the First to Comment

Eulogies for the late Senator Robert Byrd, referring to him as the “conscience of the Senate”, told us little about about the recently departed, but a lot about the speakers. Hardly anyone referenced his career as a Klansman who rose to the ranks of Grand Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops. Most people are not sure of what those positions are, but they sure sound important… grand and exalted, even.

After looking it up, I found that a kleagle was a recruiting officer and a cyclops presided over a Council of the Centaurs and reported to a Grand Giant. It’s clear he ranked far above the average Buford in sheets. In fact, it is said that the good Senator was responsible for recruiting more than one hundred klansmen into the cause. Yet, on his death, little is said by the formerly main stream media about his illustrious career dressed appropriately in garb purchased at a “white” sale.

The one person to bring it up during Byrd’s memorial service was that paragon of American values, William Jefferson Clinton. Yet, as we could expect, even he did not get it right when he said, “A lot of people who wrote these eulogies for Senator Byrd in the newspapers, and I read a bunch of them, and they mention that he once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan and what does that mean. I tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and the hollows of West Virginia. He was trying to get elected, and maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done.”

It is possible that he could not resist the allure of joining an organization that gave it’s leaders such exotic, fifth grade names. However, one does not get to be anything grand or exalted in this organization with such colorful titles through a “fleeting involvement” as the former President would have us believe. Yet his comments are revealing.

Senator Byrd was a product of the West Virginia mountain culture. From his later filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it seems the good old boy culture was more than an affectation to get votes… it went clear to the bone. To say that he joined, and advanced in the Klan just to get elected does him a disservice on at least two counts. On one hand, it is to say that his participation in the leadership of an organization that terrorized, tortured and killed black Americans was half hearted shows him to be disloyal to his friends and associates… the good old boy network that kept him in office for years.

If we accept the premise that he was not a true believer in the cause, it may even be worse. If we believe he just went through the membership rituals just to get elected, as Mr. Clinton would have us believe, we see a totally unprincipled man who would say and do anything to get into an office.

While I would believe this of many beltway bandits, from what I’ve seen, Senator Byrd had more integrity than this. He really was what he appeared to be when he made his way to Washington for the first time. Then later, when leadership positions became available and the Klan membership became a liability, he quietly disassociated himself from it, much like Barack Hussein Obama dropped Rev. Wright, but with more class and dignity.

So what is the point of digging into the actions and associations of a man who has gone on to his final reward, whatever that may be? The point is that there is a lot going on in the various levels of government that we don’t know about. Information is kept from the people by politicians who find certain facts about themselves inconvenient and they are aided by a willing media, making it difficult for many voters to separate fact from fantasy. Senator Byrd fit the mold of the formerly main stream media in that he was instrumental in bringing about the grand (there’s that word again) governmental schemes they longed to see implemented. They ignored his racist past, and some say, present, much like they overlooked the late Sen. Kennedy’s womanizing and alcoholic excesses.

It is our job to, first, discover the truth about those who would be our leaders, and second, to spread the truth. As John 8:32 tells us, “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Free from dishonest, deceitful and sometimes downright evil politicians along with the havoc they wreak on our country. But we won’t discover the truth sitting on the couch, with our hands in a bowl of cheese puffs, watching American Idol.