Tag Archive for 'Robert Byrd'

Senator Dick Durbin apoligized for his seditious remarks but not really…

?More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country?s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.?

?I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.?

?I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.?

Not really much of an apology is it? He’s basically saying I’m sorry I put our soldiers at risk but I’m not sorry I compared Gitmo to Auschwitz, the Soviet Gulags, and Pol Pot. Unfortunately you can’t unring the bell Senator.

***

And a follow-up to Senator Robert Byrd’s (D-WV-KKK) memoirs in which he said…

Byrd says he never resented blacks, Catholics or Jews, but he failed to ?examine the full meaning and impact of the ugly prejudice behind the positive, pro-American veneer.?

Well an article from the Washington Post (who knew?) tells me other wise…

Byrd wrote that he continued as a “Kleagle” recruiting for the Klan until early 1943, when he and his family left Crab Orchard for a welding job in a Baltimore shipyard. Returning to West Virginia after World War II ended in 1945, he launched his political career, but not before writing another letter, to one of the Senate’s most notorious segregationists, Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.), complaining about the Truman administration’s efforts to integrate the military.

Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter — which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith — that he would never fight in the armed forces “with a Negro by my side.” Byrd added that, “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.”

Emphasis mine.

Yet he says he never resented blacks. Right. Whatever. And the left had the audacity to call Strom Thurmond a racist. At least he recanted his segregationist ways and I doubt you can call a man who fathered a black daughter racist. And yet the left says nothing about Exalted Cyclops Byrd.

***

Rep. John Conyers Jr. is all in a snit over the Washington Post Article by Dana Milbank about his little anti-semitic mock trial. He’s allegedly written a letter to the Post. I don’t know if they printed it or not but it’s all over the blog world and you can see a copy of the alleged letter here. The part of the letter I want to focus on is this…

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.

Fair enough Congressman but James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal put’s it best I think…

But Conyers can’t get off so easy. After all, he invited Ray McGovern, the “witness” whose statements Conyers claims he doesn’t “condone,” to “testify” at his “hearing.” As blogger Richard Baehr notes, “McGovern’s views are well known (that is why he was invited by Conyers, presumably), and the activists were handing out their anti-Semitic literature openly to everyone in sight in the DNC office.”

He’s got a point.

Brought to you by the Democrats, the party of irresponsibility.