Barack Obama campaigned for Robert Byrd in 2008, just 7 years after using the n-word on Fox News. This just goes to show how much Democrats really care about race. Robert Byrd was a grand dragon who filibustered the Civil Rights bill for 14 hours. Obama is a black guy who apparently doesn't really care about race after all. Actions speak louder than words and Obama's actions of campaigning for a Klansman speak volumes. I'm trying to figure out which one I hate more.
Byrd actually campaigned for Obama. It's similar to how Fritz Hollings (a former segregationist who voted against confirming Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court) supported Jesse Jackson for president in the 80s despite using racial and ethnic slurs repeatedly before and after doing so.
Robert Byrd, like all politicians of yesteryear, was the product of the sins of his country on race and politics. If a different Senator represented West Virginia, he would have been just as racist and provincial as Robert Byrd. But looking at Robert Byrd's life, agree or disagree with his positions and policies, he was a great figure in American history.
But, more importantly, today we need some Senators who are as authentic and passionate as Robert Byrd. And we need some Senators who can play the fiddle. Or at least we need some Senators that can play something that well. How awesome would it be if Barbara Mikulski could belt out a face-melting guitar solo? Fairly awesome say I.
You cannot simultaneously laud his authentic genuineness and dismiss his racism, which was extreme even by Southern Democrat standards despite his representing one of the most racially progressive southern states, on the basis of "well anyone from West Virginia would be." Do you see the logical inconsistency here?* Of course, it's plain that he was an authentic genuine extreme racist. Being the local Exalted Cyclops would've been a political liability in 1940s Alabama, much more so West Virginia. Remember also that this was the guy who as late as the 80s was joining filibusters of MLK Day, and dropping n-words on national television in the 2000s.
*It's also just plain not true, the Senators who served with him, Matt Neely, Jennings Randolph, and Jay Rockefeller were all not racists and in fact among the more actively anti-racist members of the Democratic caucus.
I hate to play devil's advocate, but MLK's family also opposed MLK Day initially. And how would being Exalted Cyclops of the KKK be a liability in Alabama in the 1940s? If anything, I would think just the opposite.
