(USA Today) Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), who rose from West Virginia's impoverished hollows to aid, counsel, and sometimes chastise presidents from the Senate Seat he's occupied since 1959, died early Monday morning. He was 92 years old and served in Congress longer than anyone in the nation's history. He surpassed even Strom Thurmond's tenure in the U.S. Senate which was 46 years. He died at 3:00 a.m. at a suburban Washington hospital, according to Byrd's office. He had been in failing health recently but in May appeared at a hearing on mine safety. Though he was a partisan stalwart, the Democrat's courtly manners and "devotion" to the U.S. Senate won him the bipartisan affection of his colleagues. President Obama issued a statement saying he was "saddened to hear this morning that the people of West Virginia have lost a true champion, the United States Senate has lost a venerable institution, and America has lost a voice of principle and reason." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed that tribute. "We will remember him for his fighter's spirit, his abiding faith and for the many times he recalled the Senate to its purposes," according to McConnell.
A master of the Senate's arcane rules and a prolific chronicler of its history, Byrd fiercely defended Congress' prerogatives against those of the executive branch. "I have served with 11 presidents, I serve under no president," Byrd would say. Robert Byrd was elected to the House of Representatives in 1952, the same year Dwight D. Eisenhower won his first term as president. In 1958 Byrd won his first term in the U.S. Senate and was re-elected to an unprecedented ninth term in 2006. Over the years, Byrd has changed his philosophy in regards to Civil Rights. Back in the 1940's he was a member of the KKK or Ku Klux Klan. He even led an unsuccessful filibuster against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. By 2008 during the West Virginia primary, he endorsed Barack Obama in his bid to become the nation's first black president. Byrd later came to regret his views on civil rights and was glad to say that there were growing numbers of both minorities and women in Congress. Radio talk show host Sean Hannity always referred to Byrd as Robert "KKK" Byrd in lamenting the mainstream media's hypocrisy in criticizing Republicans if their was any hint of anything that could be viewed as racist while ignoring Senator Robert Byrd's past association with the KKK.
As part of the Senate Democratic leadership, Byrd was a staunch defender of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Toward the end of his career, Byrd was a darling of the Left because of his opposition to the Iraq War. He believed the Senate was to be a check on the power of the executive branch. He was a defender of the Senate's role and never relinquished his fight to keep the executive branch in check. Byrd held a special friendship with former Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. During Kennedy's 75th birthday in February 2007, Byrd acknowledged when he first met Kennedy in 1962 that they particularly didn't like each other. They two became such good friends to the point that Byrd sobbed on the Senate floor when he learned that Kennedy had terminal brain cancer. After Kennedy's death in August, a frail Byrd appeared on the Senate floor to pay tribute to "my ebullient, Irish-to-the-core friend." When the Senate held a crucial vote on the healthcare bill on Christmas Eve 2009, Byrd was wheeled to the Senate to vote and stated he was doing this for his friend, Ted Kennedy.
Byrd was also known as "king of pork barrel." As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he steered billions of dollars to West Virginia. There is a watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste which called him "King of Pork." At a campaign stop in Hinton during his last run for re-election in 2006, he boasted about how he "persuaded" defense contractors to locate a high-tech center there. "Don't you doubt it," Byrd said. "Man, I've brought billions to West Virginia."
Byrd grew up in a humble upbringing in West Virginia's coal-mining camps, where he learned to play the fiddle and attended a one-room schoolhouse. On the wall of his Senate office, he kept framed copies of his earliest pay stubs--which showed that he made $28.66 for two weeks as a meat cutter in 1937. Early poverty kept Byrd from finishing law school. But he eventually obtained a law degree by attending night school for 10 years at American University while he was in the Senate. He was a voracious reader and was self-educated. He devoured Latin and Greek histories and memorized long passages of poetry, many of which made their way into his Senate speeches. The funeral will probably be sometime at the end of this week.
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