It Is What It Is

Ironic that the longest lasting racist in American politics would be eulogized by the first black President.

Such was the case when President Obama sent Robert Byrd off into the next dimension last week after the former Klansman's death at 92.

Bill Clinton tried to play it off as a man doing what was needed to get elected. (Nice condemnation of West Virginia)

Liberals across the country try to explain it away as a brief flirtation with the KKK, quickly passed by, by an ultimately good man.

Too bad it's all a lie.

Sen. Byrd started his own chapter of the KKK for crying out loud and achieved a high rank within the organization. He voted against civil rights acts, filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, fought attempts at the integration of the nation, voted against Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. He called blacks a mongrel race and refused to see them serve in the military along side whites.

And when did he see the light in his "brief flirtation" with the KKK? In 1982, according to him.

Apparently Sen. Byrd had his moment of clarity when his son died in a car wreck in 1982. This led Sen. Byrd to think that maybe black people love their kids as well.

How touching. It took just about 40 years for Sen. Byrd to realize that maybe African Americans are actual human beings. Not a brief flirtation with racism by any means. I guess it shouldn't be surprising that Bill Clinton defended him so passionately at his funeral. After all, the Democratic Party is littered with the corpses of Southern racists throughout history. Clinton himself was mentored by his dear friend J. William Fulbright, who was a Senate racist much like Byrd before the people of Arkansas canned him in 1974.

I suppose it's just good form to be complimentary about the dead but a person only deserves as good as they gave in life. Maybe a little better but the brush of time can't wash away the hate that was bred in the KKK during the civil rights era. Clinton, Obama, etc. can try and explain it away as best they can and the people of West Virginia can send him to Washington but the fact remains that Byrd was an awful man who did awful things in the past. It's shameful that he managed to bring his poison into the Senate to serve longer than anyone in history. Maybe he was a truly repentant man, although there is no way to tell that from his actions. Any forgiveness that Byrd earned will have had to be awarded to him by God at the time of his death. He certainly hasn't earned any from those of us here on Earth. To say otherwise is just disingenuous.