What Would Lincoln Say of Robert Byrd
By Nathan Porter
BSNN.net
While Tom Daschle received all the headlines for his rhetorical hemorrhage on the Senate floor this week, it was Robert Byrd who, as usual, filled me with a combination of outrage, hatred, and hilarity. Watching the old cock peck and cluck around the Senate has become a bizarre hobby of mine. More often than not he embarrasses himself through his demented outbursts, and there is no one in politics more worthy of eternal embarrassment than Robert Byrd.
“I am disgusted by the tenor of the war debate that has seemingly overtaken this Capital City,” Byrd said stamping his feet across the Senate floor. “The debate has taken an ugly turn, forcing many to question the motivations of this Administration's efforts to place America 's sons and daughters in harm's way.”
“Is the President determined to make the great party Abraham Lincoln the war party?” he continued. “What would Abraham Lincoln say if he were here?”
Good question, Senator. I suspect Lincoln might say your degeneracy appears to be pretty rapid. Or he might say that we should have faith that right makes might. He might say a house divided against itself cannot stand. That this government cannot endure permanently divided half-right and half-wrong.
Senator Byrd droned on: “It is despicable that any President would attempt to use the serious matter of impending war as a tool in a campaign year. The blood of our sons and daughters—our soldiers, sailors, and airmen—have far more value than a few votes in a ballot box. There is nothing more sobering than the decision to go to war, but the Administration has turned the decision into a bumper-sticker election theme.”
“I have been in this Congress for fifty years,” Byrd continued, “and I have never seen a President or Vice President stoop this low.”
Oh really? LBJ fabricated events to get the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, Nixon used the White House as his personal crime syndicate, and the atrocities of Clinton and Gore are simply too numerous to mention. But Bush speaking the truth is as low as it gets.
What is despicable and low is that this son of the KKK would invoke the name of Lincoln and discuss the value of our soldier’s blood to use his war against war as a campaign tool. And one can only assume that the valuable blood of which Byrd speaks is only that of Caucasian soldiers. For it was Senator Byrd who declared he would never fight in the armed services with a “Negro” by his side. “Rather I should die a thousand times,” he once wrote, “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, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”
What would Lincoln say, Senator Byrd? Would he say, “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for racial discrimination I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally”?
Think about this for a minute. Byrd would rather see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again. He would rather the United States cease to exist than suffer the personal indignity of fighting along side a person of color. Perhaps that is Senator Byrd’s real problem with the Bush Administration’s position on Iraq. Its national security team has been degraded by “race mongrels” like Colin Powell and Condi Rice, and “white niggers” like Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, and in the demented, racist mind of Robert Byrd it’s time for this nation to be trampled in the dirt never to rise again. What better way to accomplish this than to sit idly by as rogue nations and terror networks acquire weapons of mass destruction.
What would Lincoln say? Would he say it’s better to leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today? Would he say if all do not join now to save the good old ship America this voyage, no one will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage?
Senator Byrd ended his desk-thumping rant by making the anti-war argument du jour: “For the first time in the history of the Republic, the nation is considering a preemptive strike against a sovereign state… America fights wars, but America does not begin wars.”
This is a very popular argument, but like so many things uttered by politicians, it simply is not true. One can begin by examining the suspect rationale for the Mexican-American War. And what were Korea and Vietnam if not pre-emptive strikes? I don’t recall the US being attacked by either country, yet we spilled the blood of American soldiers, black and white alike, attempting to preempt Soviet domination of the entire planet. Was Senator Byrd opposed to that? It’s hard to know because in those days he was too busy filibustering the 1964 Civil Rights Act and opposing the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. What would Lincoln say? |
