Posted on 07/02/2010 10:49:09 AM PDT by i88schwartz
He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected," former President Bill Clinton said of Sen. Robert Byrd.
"And maybe he did something he shouldn't have done come and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that's what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians," he added.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Way to go Slick Willy. Slick finally speaks some truth. LOL!!!!
Bill is saying (in my best Bill Clinton voice)”Hey if you want to be elected as a Democrat you have to be a member of the KKK. Plus white stains don’t show up so well on those sheets and hoods we Democrats have to wear. Saves on dry cleaning bills if you get my drift. Hey Monica want to come to a Democratic clan meeting? I hear she gives good hood. Someone should have told Al about this. He could have borrowed some Robert Bryd’s sheets and hoods and maybe he would not be in the mess he is in. Hehehe”
He was 24 when he joined the KKK. From the Wikipedia:
Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 when he was 24. His local chapter unanimously elected him the top officer of its unit.[10]According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob ... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation." Byrd later recalled, "suddenly lights flashed in my mind! Someone important had recognized my abilities! I was only 23 or 24 years old, and the thought of a political career had never really hit me. But strike me that night, it did."[10] Byrd held the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops.[10]
In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo:[17]
“ I shall never fight in the armed forces 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. ” In 1946 or 1947 Byrd wrote a letter to a Grand Wizard stating, "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation.".[19] However, when running for the United States House of Representatives in 1952, he announced "After about a year, I became disinterested, quit paying my dues, and dropped my membership in the organization. During the nine years that have followed, I have never been interested in the Klan." He said he had joined the Klan because he felt it offered excitement and was anti-communist.[10]
Remember, the Klan was founded to fight Republicans after the Civil War, and the resistance to the Klan and anti-Klan legislation was pushed by the Republicans.
It is fitting that Byrd was a Democrat.
I’d actually forgive Klan mambership for someone that old. It’s quite possible for a weak kid back then to get swept-up. Die-hard Klan recruiter who established his own chapter is an entirely different matter.
**********
My favorite aunt passed away a few years ago; she was effectively a grandmother to me. I took her to see ‘Places in the Heart’ when it came out, and she loved it. She FREAKED when the Klan came into the picture. I asked her about it because I assumed the Klan was no threat to poor whites - which we were - and she had shown signs of real distress.
According to her, they were viewed in the same light as gangs are in blighted cities. They were hated and feared by ALL who were vulnerable. She said that mostly what they did was get drunk and raised hell without regard to who was in the area. Her descriptions made them sound like a biker gang on a tear.
She was a contemporary of Byrd. She had no respect for the Klan and viewed them as basically straight up thugs and no accounts.
I know slick Willy is trying to put lipstick on a pig here, but isn’t he pretty much saying a politician is willing to sell his soul to the devil to get elected?
In other words, Byrd was no worse than say . . . Arlan Specter. *Now* I understand.
It was founded to get rid of Reconstruction.
When that was accomplished, many stood down, most famously Nathan Bedford Forrest.
Some did not get them memo. Whatever it may have been, I hae met about a half dozen who I knew were in the Klan. I would not let any of them in my house.
Actually, after having read the TUCC's (Wright's church) 'about us' page, and seen excerpts of some of Wright's 'sermons' -- I'd call being a 20 year member of that 'church' more unforgivable for someone who sought to be a government official in this Country....
Does the Klan allow a “fleeting” member to become Grand Kleagle?
Hah! I'm sure that was a photoshopped picture. He must've been in his 20s/30s when he was a Klansman ...
Unless he wore his old outfit around the house...
Well, not if your a Democrat. You obviously haven’t been paying attention.
“He was a country boy from the hills...”
We all know what that translates to.
Byrd was more than a member . . . he was a senior recruiter.
Unfortunately it is photoshopped. However, one of his quotes, during WWII was such that he said, in effect, that as long as any black man served in the military he wouldn’t, he said he would rather see the nation totally destroyed before surrendering the military to the black savages or something very similar. The quotes are online, along with others of a more recent nature. He never really gave up the Klan. As Clinton the spoiler said, “he was trying to get elected”, so he bad mouthed the klan but still took an inactive part for many years.
That is the same way it’s said here in SE Ohio and in WV. It is (CLUE) KLU strong vowels in all.
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