Bob Byrd's tenure: Study in persistence

Former Klan organizer Robert C. Byrd has become the longest-serving U.S. senator in history. It is said he has risen above his past and the accolades flowed.

"The dean of the Senate, one of the greatest orators," said Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

At 88, the Democrat of neighboring West Virginia is seeking a ninth term and probably will win. The former butcher has delivered the pork to a state where it seems every other government building and highway bears his name.

We tend to esteem the aged because long life fulfills the instinct to survive. But age does not automatically confer the quality of statesmanship.

In 1945 Sen. Byrd opposed integration of the armed forces employing the delightful epithet "race mongrels." Nearly two decades later he filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

But then he changed. Supposedly.

It was Byrd's slip in 2001, when he referred on national TV to his intimate knowledge of the "white nigger," an event mostly brushed aside, that warranted re-evaluation of his "conversion." Byrd did not explain how he would distinguish the white variety from the black, but his reference points were clear.

It has been the chief success of the Democratic Party to capture the black community in a web of race grievance and mindless political loyalty.

The strategy has changed but the deepest feelings about overseeing an "inferior" race persist.

As does Sen. Byrd.