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June 28, 2010
Senator Robert Byrd Dead at 92 (1917-2010 )
The training of these poor creatures... to turn themselves into fighting machines is simply barbaric. Barbaric. Barbaric! ...Barbaric!
Let that word resound from hill to hill and from mountain to mountain, valley to valley across this broad land!
Barbaric, barbaric.
.
Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate since 1959, had been plagued by health problems in recent years. Longest-Serving U.S. Senator dead at 92.
Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the longest-serving senator in American history, died Monday at the age of 92, a spokesman for the family said.
Byrd, a Democrat who served in the U.S. Senate since 1959, had been plagued by health problems in recent years and was confined to a wheelchair. He had skipped several votes in Congress in the past months.
Jesse Jacobs, a family spokesman, said Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va.
He was the oldest member of the 111th Congress.
The passing of Sen. Byrd will not affect the balance of power in the Senate. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin, a Democrat, will appoint a replacement senator to serve out the remainder of Byrd's term which ends in 2012.
Byrd held a number of leadership roles during his tenure in the Senate, including conference secretary, majority whip and majority leader -- twice.
Prior to his death, Byrd worked as the president pro tempore -- the second highest ranking official in the Senate and the highest ranking senator in the majority party, putting Byrd third in line to the presidency.
He also served as the senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Other committees on which Byrd served were the Senate Budget, Armed Services and Rules and Administration Committees.
Byrd, who never lost an election, cast more than 18,540 roll call votes -- more than any other senator in U.S. history. He had a 98 percent attendance record in his more than five decades of service in the Senate, according to his Web site.
Byrd was born Cornelius Calvin Sale, Jr. in North Wilkesboro, N.C., in 1917. When his mother died in the 1918 flu pandemic, he was sent to live with his aunt and uncle, who renamed him Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him in the coal-mining region of southern West Virginia.
He received his law degree from American University in 1963, and his undergraduate degree from Marshall University in 1994 -- at age 76.
Byrd was widely regarded as a pre-eminent expert on constitutional law and legislative procedures. Because of his intimate knowledge of Senate rules, he was both feared and respected by his political opponents.
He helped win ratification of the Panama Canal Treaty and was well known for steering federal dollars to his home state. He was also a strong opponent to the Iraq war and vehemently defended minority party rights in the Senate.
He was elected to Congress in 1952, representing West Virginia's 6th Congressional District. Six years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Byrd threw his support behind Barack Obama a week after the then-senator lost the West Virginia Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign -- an endorsement that symbolized the shift in his views on race.
Once a member of the Klu Klux Klan, it was the defining moment in his lifelong effort to convince the American public of his changed views on race.
"I have done my best to do the right thing," Byrd said during a March 2005 interview with FOX News, during which he was questioned about his KKK membership in the early 1940s.
"The people of West Virginia know that. They know the history. And they put it aside. They continue to return me. I was wrong, as many young men are wrong today, even when they join groups. That's all in the past," Byrd said.
Byrd characterized himself as a "born-again" Christian whose views on race were changed by "time, reflection and the teachings of the Bible."
Posted by Wild Thing at June 28, 2010 06:50 AM
Comments
Thank god this prick is finally dead. Now he can join his pal Teddy in their special little corner of hell.
Posted by: Eddie (A libs worst nightmare) at June 28, 2010 01:30 PM
So he finally assumed room temperature. I thought he died years ago just didn't know enough to lay down.
Posted by: Mark at June 28, 2010 06:05 PM
Eddie and Mark haha.
The left is trying to make it like he was so wonderful.
Posted by: Wild Thing at June 29, 2010 12:59 AM
