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

To: sea_biscuit who wrote (686369)	6/21/2005 12:27:06 PM
From: Hope Praytochange	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Sen. Robert Byrd has a memoir out today, and in it he deals with his membership in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s. But the Washington Post reports that "the account is not complete. He does not acknowledge the full length of time he spent as a Klan organizer and advocate. Nor does he make any mention of a particularly incendiary letter he wrote in 1945 complaining about efforts to integrate the military." The recipient of that letter was Sen. Theodore Bilbo, a Mississippi Democrat who was "one of the Senate's most notorious segregationists": Byrd said in the Dec. 11, 1945, letter--which would not become public for 42 more years with the publication of a book on blacks in the military during World War II by author Graham Smith--that he would never fight in the armed forces "with a Negro by my side." Byrd added that, "Rather I should die a thousand times, 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." Wow, this guy is as patriotic as Dick Durbin and as tolerant as Trent Lott! Byrd also tries to minimize the Klan's racism: Byrd says he viewed the Klan as a useful platform from which to launch his political career. He described it essentially as a fraternal group of elites--doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other "upstanding people" who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan. Down in Philadelphia, Miss., another former Klansman is on trial for the 1964 murders of civil-rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman. The Jackson Clarion-Ledger has an update on the trial: The Ku Klux Klan is a "peaceful organization," a former Philadelphia mayor said today to jurors in the murder trial of 80-year-old Edgar Ray Killen. Harlan Majure, mayor of the Neshoba County city in the 1990s, testified as the defense's presentation wound down and the case moved closer to jury deliberations. . . . Majure, under questioning from District Attorney Mark Duncan, said that Killen's character is "good." When asked by Duncan if he'd change his opinion if he knew Killen was a Klan member, Majure said he wouldn't. "Come on, Mr. Majure," Duncan said. "You've lived in this county. You've read the books and seen the movies. You know this organization is not peaceful." "The Klan did a lot of good," Majure answered. Byrd at least acknowledges that his involvement with the Klan was a "major mistake. . . . 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." Given the echoes of Byrd's memoir in that Mississippi courthouse, we'd say that affliction hasn't been completely cured.