A Pork Farmer's Palimpsest

Robert Byrd has a new autobiography out, and at 770 pages, it should make for some light and lazy summer reading. Say what you will of Byrd, he speaks the truth:

The Washington critics of 'pork' had a full-time job in trying to keep up with me.

On the other hand, Byrd's take on his youthful Klan indiscretion isn't quite so believable:

My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision -- a jejune and immature outlook -- seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions.

Even granting the benefit of the doubt to the 20-something year-old Byrd, he's had more than 60 years in which to revise his judgment that the Klan's membership included "many of the 'best' people."

Link via Rick Brookhiser, who wonders if Byrd might have misspelled his official Klan title of "Exalted Cyclops."

Comments

[kmw]

And just in time for election 2006, even.

[panurge]

I hear they're already doing the casting for the movie based on Byrd's memoir.

Sen. Robert Byrd ......... Abe "Grandpa" Simpson

[Ken Shultz]

Porky, porky sniveling pig.

...I've been shittin' your hard earned money down the West Virginia outhouse for years, and there's nothin you could do to stop me! Isn't that hilarious?

FU Byrd.

[Some Confused Marylander]

So, like, running through the far west of Maryland is an Interstate, I-68. It goes from I-70 west of Hagerstown (pop 50k-something) to Morgantown, WVA (pop 20k-something), dead-ending in that city.

You can then drive 30 miles north on I-81 to get back to I-70, a westbound Interstate that, err, actually goes west.

Which state government brought home this mass o' pork? MD or WVA? Were they acting in concert...

Weird road.

Cool that nobody's on it and you can skip the PA turnpike, but... mmm, why?

[Interstate highway nerd]

That's I-79, not 81. I-81 goes from Knoxville, TN to Canada, running quite a ways east from Morgantown.

[joe]

Harry Truman joined the Klan to get votes, too.

And regretted it and quit, as well.

So I don't find the explanation that he gave in and joined because of ambition so unbelievable.

[thoreau]

I have no idea why Byrd joined the Klan. Here's what I do know:

1) He left.
2) Since then his most odious traits have been his love of pork and general bombast. Those traits are worthy of loathing but have no real connection to being a klansman.

So I conclude that I should loathe Byrd for the things he's done since then, rather than for being a klansman at one point.

See, we can let the past be the past and continue to loathe him nonetheless!

[Trent Lott]

Tell me again why I'M the one who had to step down?

[RCB]

Now,now,Trent,
Do you not recall that we had that discussion previously and that we both agreed that it was because you are simply not one of "the best people."

[Douglas Fletcher]

I'm wondering if Byrd isn't a West Virginia version of DC's Marion Barry.

[Bart S.]

Lott may claim to be "reformed", but he clearly harbors segregationist fantasies to this day. Byrd, for all his failings (or successes) as a pork-monger, provides no evidence that he does.

[jw]

Thirty-five dollars for a 770 page paperback. Damn! But that sure gonna be mighty expensive asswipe, Mistah Byrd. Couldn't us po' folks get some kinda guvment help to buy it?

[clark]

A Byrd in the Senate is worth a dozen phony "free market," warmongering Republicans.

[jw]

"Lott may claim to be 'reformed,' but he clearly harbors segregationist fantasies to this day. Byrd, for all his failings (or successes) as a pork-monger, provides no evidence that he does."

No! He is superior to ALL of us Plebes! By God! HE is a member of the United States Senate! All hail The Right Honorable,the most pompous old fart in the land, Robert Byrd! (or was that the
Roman Senate?) The man has delusions of grandeur.
Does anyone recall his subsequent remarks after some DateLine reporters tried to question him several years ago? How dare those media people approach HIM, a Senator?!!

Country roads take him home
To the hole where he was born,
To West Virginia, pork-fed mothers,
Take him home,
Please, take him home!

[R C Dean]

thoreau - yeah, he may have quit, but the fact that he joined to further his political career, and that he actively recruited, and that he was writing the most astonishing hate-filled letters about blacks years later, all tell you something about his character.

And, contrary to the popular cant these days, I think that most people don't really change much after they reach adulthood. A 30 year old bigoted asshole is odds on, 30 years later, to be a 60 year old bigoted asshole. And I guarantee you that a 60 year old BA will still be one when he hits 80 or 90.

[Voiceover]

Yeah, joe. Everyone furthers their career with the Klan. It's the new "networking".

The lack of "outrage" is disheartening.

[wellfellow]

RC, You're a hundred percent right. It wasn't greenpeace or young republicans or anything, it was the frickin' clan. Shame.

[John Q]

Unlike, say Truman or Hugo Black, who got out of the Klan in the 1920's or earlier, Byrd stayed in even after World War II! And as late as 1967 he voted against confirming Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court -- hmmmm, I wonder why he cast that vote.

As with all human beings, he also has some redeeming qualities. For one, he stood up to Bush and Cheney during their attempt to do away with any checks on their authority. We should all thank him for having the balls to do that when everyone else was busy slavishly licking their boots.

[Ayn_Randian]

Shh! joe's too busy defending a Democrat to actually think like a freaking liberal . Seriously, joe, are you such a demagogue that you have to defend an Ex-Klansman?

[db]

That's I-79, not 81. I-81 goes from Knoxville, TN to Canada, running quite a ways east from Morgantown.

Wrong. I-81 goes through VA, WV, MD, and PA (that's as much as I know about it.)

It passes through Chambersburg, PA, which is quite a ways east from where you place it. It may go through Knoxville, but it then takes a sharp turn east.

[db]

Um, never mind.

[Eric the .5b]

So I conclude that I should loathe Byrd for the things he's done since then, rather than for being a klansman at one point.

Unfortunately, the whole ex-KKK aspect tends to rile people up who don't have a allegiance to the guy's party. It is a bit convenient for the Democrats, though. They can focus on winning the "but he's very ex-KKK" argument and derail any meaningful criticism of the guy - and the Republicans walk right into it.

[joe]

Let me just say, meaningful criticism of the guy - have at it.

Oh, and why should we have any respect for that miserable communist, Whittaker Chambers? He was in the CPUSA, wasn't he? Wasn't he?

Tell me, wellfellow, what's worse - joining the Klan, or being one of Stalin's minions?

[kevrob]

One could make a case that young Robert joined the Klan out of opportunism, and quit when it became a political liability. There's no reason to believe he ever was any more prejudiced than your average Mountaineer, just that, out of ambition, he hooked up with the worst of them. When the center of gravity of the Democratic party changed in the 60s, he eventually cut his coat so as to get along with the new pro-Civil Rights majority. Old "Sheets" may not have had a shred more sympathy, or less, for minorities, but he knew he wouldn't rise to the top in the then Democratic Senate if he kept allegiance to segregationist policies.

He is plainly lying about how long he kept ties to the KKK, though, in an effort to make himself look better.

Kevin