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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dan B. who wrote (301926)	9/28/2002 11:53:58 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Illinois Dem: KKK Membership OK for Congress Rep. Jan Schakowski, D-Ill., said Thursday that Ku Klux Klan members should be allowed to serve in Congress as long as they had resigned from the domestic terror group and had publicly renounced its beliefs. Asked if she thought leading Senate Democrat Robert Byrd's past Klan membership should have disqualified him from serving in the Senate, Schakowski told nationally syndicated radio host Sean Hannity, "No, not if you've totally rejected it - my goodness." "I think (Byrd) would agree that participation in the KKK is pretty bad," the Illinois Democrat argued, before contending that former Klan members were fit to serve in the Senate as long as they currently disavowed the organization. Initially Schakowski tried to defend Byrd's Klan membership by falsely claiming that Republican Senators Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms had also once belonged to the KKK. But the ploy was short circuited when Hannity told Schakowski she was wrong. The Illinois Democrat offered her controversial defense of politicians who were once in the Klan during an exchange about Sen. Byrd's opposition to the Bush administration's war plans for Iraq. HANNITY: You heard Daschle's meltdown on the Senate floor yesterday. And then you heard Sen. "KKK" Byrd on the Senate floor yesterday - you don't mind if I say that. Don't you think that anybody, if you're ever in the Ku Klux Klan, has no business serving in public office? I really feel strongly about it. SCHAKOWSKI: Well, so then, maybe if Strom Thurmond..... HANNITY: He's done. He's finished. SCHAKOWSKI: ....and Jesse Helms and.... HANNITY: Helms was never in the Ku Klux Klan. I don't think Thurmond was either. But Robert Byrd was. Don't you find that so obnoxious? SCHAKOWSKI: I think he would agree that participation in the KKK is pretty bad. HANNITY: But shouldn't that preclude you from being a U.S. Senator later in your life? SCHAKOWSKI: No, not if you've totally rejected it - my goodness. (End of Byrd-KKK exchange) As the segment was ending, Hannity reiterated that neither Sen. Thurmond nor Sen. Helms had ever belonged to the Klan. Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: