Curious as to your take on this guy and this speech in specific. http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_newsroom/byrd_news_oct2002/rls_oct2002/rls_oct2002_2.html
It took me awhile, but I finally found this. It's a list, actually a SHORT list, of the projects you and I have paid for that were built in West Virginia and named after this disgusting old crook. The Robert C. Byrd Highway; the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam; the Robert C. Byrd Institute; the Robert C. Byrd Life Long Learning Center; the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program; the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope; the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing; the Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse; the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center; the Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center; the Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center; the Robert C. Byrd Federal Building; the Robert C. Byrd Drive; the Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex; the Robert C. Byrd Library; the Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center; the Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center. Nowhere of course is there any suggestion that he actuially PAID for these things, like some sort of kindly old benefactor. Because of course he didn't - he just loots the Federal Treasury for the money to build things that act as constant reelection billboards. If he were a Republican, we would never hear the end of how he was not just a MEMBER of the Ku Klux Klan, but actually a RECRUITER for them. Jesse Helms never even came close to anything like that, but it's a foregone conclusion that, to them, is not even debatable that because he once favored segregated schools (in the 1940's) that therefore he is Satan's own son and the next best thing to Adolf Hitler. But then, imagine the sarcastic remarks if George Bush had once gotten drunk and driven a young girl off a bridge and then abandoned her to drown while he went to breakfast. As to the article: What a crock of crap from this disgusting old dirtbag. Just a couple comments: The Cuban Missle Crisis was settled without a "preemptive strike" because the Russians backed down. (The Cubans, BTW, were furious about this - Fidel wanted to fight). The WHOLE POINT is that we THREATENED a "preemptive strike" and fully intended to launch one, because those missles were unacceptable. Just as, today, we are threatening a strike because we find Saddam's weapons unacceptable. Seems to me the case proves the President's case, not his. The really striking thing, even amogbst this much cynical slithering by the Senator, is this: He is complaining, as all of them did last summer, about the President not "consulting" them. Not asking Congress for the authority to hit Iraq. But then, last month, when the President announced that he DID intend to ask Congress, Byrd and Daschle and the rest of this gang of creeps threw a FIT!!!! HOW can the President actually ask Congress to decide this? (they asked) It's the PRESIDENT'S responsibility!!! Is he too weak to make decisions?? And anyway, there's an election next month!! What an outrage that Bush is asking us to vote now. It's so blatent, so obvious. Whatever Bush does, they take the opposite case. And then they claim it's not political. As for this whole "Was should be a last resort, not a first resort" thing that Byrd and the Dems are peddling: excuse me, but we've been screwing around with Hussein for over ten years. And notice, they offer no other solution, no suggestions of alternate plans: becuase they have none, because there really is one, and they bloody well know it. More hypocrisy for your buck. What a disgusting display by another disgusting hack politician.
The fact that Robert Byrd is still a Senator disgusts me. This is the man who called MLK . . ."Martin Luther Coon" during the debates over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Look it up . . .it's true. That man makes my skin crawl.
And now that the Democrats are trotting out every old fossil they can find in an attempt to hold onto the Senate regardless of who they have to run, in addition to 78 year old Frank Lautenberg they now have the prospect of relative youngster Fritz Mondale, 74. For years now street-wise young liberals have engaged in their usual condescending gibberish about the bunch of old fossils the Republicans had running the Senate. Thurmond, Helms and Co. were just too old to "get it" about contemp[orary America. Well, Strom and Jesse are retiring in January. The new dean of the Senate? 85 year old Bob Byrd, along with their buds Fritz Hollings (79) Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka, all 78 along with Lautenberg. Murdering drunkard Ted Kennedy, 70, is a relative baby in this crowd. The fact that he has abused enough alchohol to end up LOOKING like he's 100 isn't really the point. Yes sir, the "New Democrats" now in charge of the US Senate, most of whom date back to the Johnson Adminsitration, must make the youngsters proud. Is this what Liberalism comes down to? Running disgusting old fossils with name recognition because they can come up with nobody better? Jean Carnahan running in Missouri (slogan: "Keep the Flame Alive" reminding everyone that they are still supposed to vote for her in honor of her dead husband) because there is no actual, viable, competent Democrat? Geriatric politics courtesy of American Liberalism: Bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of candidates.
Hey, you know I respect your ideas and all but that last post looked like a very bad political cartoon by Gary Varvel in the Indy $tar mocking the "new" democrats. The Lautenburg scenario is a bit odd (to say the least) but as an ex citizen of NJ (through '95) and with my parents still living there i feel connection to NJ. It was a seedy scenario, but given the situation and the court's ruling, the whining the Republicans have done seems a lot like the whining that they were mocking the Dems for post 2002 election. It was a seedy situation, no doubt about that, but in US politics in 2002 that's sort of the run of the mill, is it not? Personal attacks and getting away with what you can. The Dems got away with name recognition and though it may not be "ethical" in 2002 USA, it's good politics (which for a long time, unfortunately has been separate from morals). As for Mondale, when you have less than two weeks left after a tradgedy until election day, it also only seems smart for the Dems to go with name recognition. Wellstone was up by 7-8 points in that race so it fits the Dems would wanna keep status quo there and they did. The Democrats really will give you enough to mock them on without personal attacks on their age. And this is where your statement on them being bankrupt of ideas, in my opinion holds maximum value. The climate of the United States obviously speaks with more than one voice when multiple news sources quote last weekend's war protest in DC as the biggest since the Vietnam war - we haven't even gone to war yet against Iraq. Now if these were true liberals, do you not think that they would have spoken out more than they did against the potential (inevitable) agression vs Iraq? I for one think they should have. They did not, and therein lies one of the major downfalls of liberalism in the past decade. The Dems have drifted more towards the conservative and feel like they can save face by fillerbustering on the budget until the elections come around. It's tough to defend a liberal cause these days because the elected officials (which supposedly represent the views of the people as much as our President) do not have the balls (to use a crude term) to do so. To be a liberal these days means to be an apologist for their misguided, misled democratic party. And many, including myself, do not really feel like wasting their energy apologizing for these guys anymore.