Robert Byrd, Longest-Serving Member of Congress, Dies

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robert-byrdRobert C. Byrd, the longest serving member of the U.S. Senate, a fiery orator and hard-charging power broker who steered billions of federal dollars to his beloved West Virginia, died today. He was 92.

A spokesman for the family, Jesse Jacobs, said that Byrd died peacefully at about 3 a.m. at Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. He had been in the hospital since late last week.

At first Byrd was believed to be suffering from heat exhaustion and severe dehydration, but other medical conditions developed. He had been in frail health for several years.

A man of humble, Depression-era upbringing, Byrd held his seat for over 50 years, working tirelessly all that time to make sure his state never missed out on its share – or even more, in some cases – of the federal largesse. He was the Senate’s majority leader for six of those years and was third in the line of succession to the presidency, behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Flags at the Capitol and the White House flew at half-staff Monday as Washington mourned Byrd’s passing. Byrd’s desk in Senate chamber was draped in black.

{DailyCaller/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}


4 COMMENTS

  1. As one would expect, many media are downplaying the disgraceful past of Byrd, solely because he is a Democrat. Scott Johnson of Powerline followed Byrd’s career, and reminds us of the following:

    Byrd was old enough, for example, to have vowed memorably regarding the integration of the Armed Forces by President Truman that he would never fight “with a Negro by my side. 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, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

    Even after his resignation from the Klan, Byrd continued to hold it in high esteem, writing to the Klan’s Imperial Wizard in 1946: “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.”

    And Byrd was old enough to have participated in filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to have voted against it after cloture along with 18 other Democrats — in the name of the Constitution, of course.

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