Senator Robert Byrd Dead At 92
Monday, June 28, 2010 at 7:39AM This from the AP:
Senator Robert "Sheets" ByrdRobert C. Byrd, a conservative West Virginia Democrat who became the longest-serving member of Congress in history and used his masterful knowledge of the institution to shape the federal budget, protect the procedural rules of the Senate and, above all else, tend to the interests of his state, died at 3 a.m. Monday at Inova Fairfax Hospital, his office said.
Mr. Byrd had been hospitalized last week with what was thought to be heat exhaustion, but more serious issues were discovered, aides said Sunday. No formal cause of death was given.
Starting in 1958, Mr. Byrd was elected to the Senate an unprecedented nine times.He wrote a four-volume history of the body, was majority leader twice and chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, controlling the nation's purse strings, and yet the positions of influence he held did not convey the astonishing arc of his life.
As noted by Newsbusters, it is amusing they use the term conservative to describe a Senator who had a lifetime rating of 28 by the American Conservative Union. Of course, he's got that KKK thing in his background, so better to tie him to the right in the history books than the left.
Stay tuned to see how this impacts the financial reform bill. It would be wishful thinking to hope it kills it since there is a partisan Democrat Governor in West Virginia who will replace Byrd. That said, we can always dream.
Following is a brief CNN report of his passing:
Reader Comments (6)
Not to sound like a pregressive/liberal, but he should have passed in the 60's when his KKK "uniform" was out of date.
He looks like the Emporer from Star Wars.
To bad the people of West Virginia are too dense to elect a Republican governor. At least then this seat would be going to a conservative.
Does the KKK do funerals and if so will Barry attend...
put him next to teddy-goodnight
Like Kennedy the only way to get these lifelong leeches out of Congress is the body bag. Says something very bad about the average voter.