An Open Letter to Senator Byrd, AKA "Comments on Byrd's letter to the POTUS"

had some kind of pay for play thing going on back in the primaries concerning the coal industry, which is big in west virginia.

for saftety kind of.  this weekend the web guy is free of the wifebot and I may fool with the code here

I'm glad you appreciated this, and I hope it will do some good.

For the record, I really hope that Byrd will hold Obama's feet to the fire for whatever time on Earth Byrd has left.  I realize that Sen. Byrd really isn't in the peak of health -- I mean, for 91 he's great, but he _is_ 91 and that has to take a toll.  And maybe that's why he did not want to fight for Senator Clinton.

However, Byrd is a statesman, and a scholar.  I think he should've made the right choice to back Hillary Clinton in 5/08.  It is a shame that he did not; we would've unfolded into a wholly different, and quite possibly much, much better, future had he done so.

(And glad to see you, btw.)

The Republicans see this as "easy pickin's," and they may well be right, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I, too, am glad Byrd spoke up, wish he would've done so sooner, and really wish that someone had invented a working time machine before now.  ;-)  (If we're wishing, why not wish for that?  Granted, I worked hard for Sen. Clinton anyway, and can't imagine working any harder.  But maybe it might've changed some minds had one of _them_ gone back to talk with their younger self -- if that were even possible, which of course it isn't.)

I know Senator Byrd comes from a different era, a highly checkered era at absolute best (mind you, even George Wallace repudiated much of the worst of his actions, and his medical assistant, an African-American gentleman, said that in his opinion Gov. Wallace was not racist but rather "the product of his times" and had progressed much further than most people thought -- at least, so I gathered from what he said; that's my best paraphrase of a book I read several years ago about the final years of George Wallace's life).  I agree that Sen. Byrd wanted to believe the best in Barack Obama, for that matter.

My main belief is that Sen. Byrd should've stayed neutral _or_ should've made a big push for Sen. Clinton; if he really did not want to get involved, he should've stayed on the fence.  I think most people would've understood that; one of those, "I respect them both, and really do not want to go against the will of the voters of my state, but on the other hand, Barack Obama has the pledged delegate lead right now and I don't want to adversely affect the outcome" would've been better than endorsing Obama six days after the primary.  As a Hillary Clinton supporter, how could I view that as anything other than a slap in the face?

Granted, all of what you've said is true, and I do think some "white guilt" was involved -- with a great deal of justification and complete understanding -- on Senator Byrd's part.  I just think that it would've been better for the country had Byrd taken a stand in our favor.

Of course, had he done so, this diary wouldn't have been written.

As I said at Alegre's Corner a few minutes ago (in an update), I can understand where someone may view Sen. Byrd as a "hack" due to the high amount of pork-barrel spending he brings home for his beleaguered constituents.  West Virginia is a poor state, and I can fully understand why Byrd does this, even as it has given me the occasion to give him the nickname "I Want to Pluck Your" Byrd.

But I see him as the statesman he obviously views himself to be -- and as such, I believe he failed the ultimate test of statesmanship.  To go against the popular will when he had to know, deep in his heart, that it was wrong, and do what was right for the good of the country -- not to mention the good of the Democratic Party as a whole.

I don't care what the idiots at the "typical liberal/Obama blogs" or MSNBO or what have you say -- the fact is, the PUMA movement (and/or Clinton Dem movement) is still alive and kicking precisely because we were ignored then and disregarded.  That we are starting to be proven right -- well, sometimes I wonder if those folks will see us as Cassandras, and treat us horribly even though we were -- and are -- right.

Even so -- I firmly believe that history is on our side on this one, unless Obama really is who he says he is and will help the country without making end-runs around the Constitution.  

But to be honest, I'd rather be wrong and have the country succeed and survive -- with Obama truly being what he believes himself to be despite the "any means to this end" tactics used by the Obama campaign staff -- than be right on this one.

That said, I appreciated your well-thought-out comment, NCgirl, and I agree that it was much harder for Sen. Byrd to come out in favor of Senator Clinton due to the factors you discussed.

I'm glad you appreciated it.

(Btw, I've been here for a while, even if I haven't commented or posted much recently.)

I agree with you; Obama's support _is_ a "mile wide and an inch deep," as both you _and_ Sharyn have said in recent days IIRC.  And I don't believe Obama will be able to hold his coalition together.

The only good thing I can say about Obama so far is that he appointed Hillary Clinton Sec. of State.  This means she didn't have to vote on that horrible stimulus bill and she won't have to vote on those other horrible budget bills, either.  I, for one, am glad she didn't have to stand up in the Senate and get behind something she patently disagreed with -- but isn't that a rather Machiavellian reason on my part to "like" Obama?

And I, for one, will never forget -- nor forgive -- it.

Going along with this, I believe the arm-twisting of Mrs. Gwatney in Arkansas was one of the most shameful things I've ever seen in American politics.  She was a newly-made widow; does anyone really _know_ why that guy flipped out?  And she couldn't possibly stand up to that pressure; she'd never been a career politician, was a newly-made widow, and her state, Arkansas, certainly did _not_ support Obama and she knew they'd _never_ support Obama . . . yet the delegation voted _en masse_ for Obama.

I wonder why that was, hmm?  Oh, yeah -- the whole emphasis on the unity pony, or as you say so accurately, "false unity."

I will say it again.  There is no unity within the Democratic Party, and we were never meant to _have_ enforced unity like this anyway; there's a reason Will Rogers said so aptly many years ago, "I do not belong to any organized political party.  I am a Democrat."

At any rate, all we have right now is illusion, and a media that's propping up that illusion like there's no tomorrow.  And we didn't have to have that, which is why my sig line at Alegre's Corner (I haven't figured out yet how to make one here) is, "There's no excuse for this, DNC.  None."

The DNC did this, not us.  And the DNC was wrong.

I fear they will learn that to their eternal sorrow, but in the meantime it will be the rest of us who suffer because they were venal, incompetent hacks.  (Note I'm not calling Byrd any of this.  I'm calling the DNC this.  There is a difference.  Byrd's main problem, it seems to me, is that he knew this was going on or should've known, and didn't do anything to stop it due to his age and perhaps his infirmity.)