A little history lesson for Harry Reid

reid-grimHistorians are begining to fault dingy Harry Reid’s curious reference to the Senate civil rights debates of the 1960s. Liberals almost must have forgotten how it was a Democrat who assassinated Harvey Milk. Also according to the Wall Street Journal, Liberals and Democrats tend to forget that it was Southern Democrats who mounted an 83-day filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The final vote to cut off debate saw 29 Senators in opposition, 80% of them Democrats. Among those voting to block the civil rights bill was West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who personally filibustered the bill for 14 hours. The next year he also opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Byrd still sits in the Senate, and indeed preceded Mr. Reid as his party’s majority leader until he stepped down from that role in 1989. You know, the same Robert Byrd who was a proud member of the KKK? The same Robert Byrd wrote a letter in 1946 to the group’s Imperial Wizard stating “The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.” Byrd defended the Klan in his 1958 U.S. Senate campaign when he was 41 years old.

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December 9, 2009 · Filed Under congress, Democrats, Harry Reid


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