Talk:Robert Byrd/Archive 1

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Removed editorial comment: Wikipedia is not a message board. Mike H 21:33, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

Byrd on Iraq

I think that his views on Iraq should be made clear and mentioned as a reason he is famous (a recent reason) in the general part of the article. Since he quite literally WAS the senate opposition to war, I think it is important. Like ignoring Eugene McCarthy's antiwar stance, it made him famous. More information about it should be at the bottom like the racial remarks part. The Bhat

If this article is going to go so far as to point out Byrd's stance on the US-Iraq war, it should also speak of his other positions. Otherwise, it seems like it violates NPOV by presenting only one view, the one that happened to agree with the person who added that text. Why should an article about a senator mention only one political view? Surely, the longest-serving member of the senate has had other views? Daniel Quinlan 11:39 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the Iraq text and speech link. There are many other speeches on the Byrd website. I see no reason why this one should be singled out unless Iraq-related views are more important than all of his other views. Daniel Quinlan 11:44 25 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"White nigger" quote

This article places too much emphasis on the "white n*gger" remark...

I agree, the man has been a Senator for approaching half a century and yet discussion of this remark constitutes a quarter of the article.

On the other hand, not enough information is presented on his Klan days. For example, it sounds like he happened to pay dues for a year and write a single letter, yet he was a top Klan LEADER. Not some casual dabbler. I'm gonna gather up some references and then insert the relevent information here.

Anyhow... didn't Byrd run for President in 1976? In the Democrat primary he won West Virgina (mind you, even Jesus couldn't beat Robert Byrd in West Virgina). It may have been a write-in campaign though. Should be mentioned. Al

done I added his presidential run 67.165.14.100 04:56, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

sorry that was me, I added it Alxt 04:57, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Out and Out RACIST!

I have searched the article for the word racist and it is not there. This Senator of the Democratic Party is an out and out racist! Read this: Ex-Klansman Blocks Condi's Confirmation If he makes racist remarks in public, what are is true beliefs and feelings?

In my opinion the wrong Byrd was dragged behind a car in Texas! I have a right to make these remarks. The fact is this article is bent to the left. I will keep posting this! Mike H did not like my observations and has already censored me once! People are allowed to give their opinions on a disucussion page even if you don't like what I have to say! MelisGood 21:54, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Your link points to an article about some hypocritical college banning the Passion of Christ, not about Byrd. I'd like to read it, to see how this relates to his being racist, since one could easily oppose Rice on many grounds beside race. Not that I'm denying the guy's probably a closet racist, there's as much evidence of that as there was of, say, David Duke. Kaz 00:36, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Sorry, I corrected the link. People will always bring up, David Duke, who, of course, is and was a racist! However, his racism was reported in the press constantly and he was only a State Rep. and never attained as much power or accolades as Senator Byrd! David Duke's article mentions his Klan leadership in the first paragraph but Byrd's leadership is mentioned later in the fourth. Duke is synonymous with the Ku Klux Klan and rightly reviled but Byrd is not and it is hardly ever mentioned. One Republican senator was forced to resign because he praised Strom Thurmond who had believed in segragation, but Sen. Byrd himself believed in segragation and as late as 2001 was still throwing around the N word! I don't like the fact that because one politician is of one party, his being a racist is terrible, but a racist in another party is not. A racist is a racist is a racist I hope they all rot in hell! MelisGood 01:59, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This discussion is in no way trying to help fix the article...it's basically an editorial comment, which are not allowed on these message boards. Mike H 02:38, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

• It is rather obvious that you are a Democrat who has no problem censoring someone who says something bad about one of your own! Of course my comments are indeed trying to make a point to help the article be more balanced. And as far as being able to state my opinion, which you don't like and have tried to silence, you have done nothing but state your opinion. Does erasing my first posting help the article? No, of course not. You have a lot to learn, but maybe you have learned what you wanted to already, just delete things by people with ideas different from your own! In fact, the last poster Al gave his opinion where are your comments there? That's right you only try to blot out the comments that call attention to this Senator being a racist and that the article just glosses over it. A racial remark after alll isn't the same as a racist one, is it? Have fun! MelisGood 20:32, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Let's get a few things straight here:

The statement "In January 2005, Byrd led the Democratic party in attempting to block the confirmation of prominent African-American Condoleezza Rice" is inaccurate. 12 Democrats, or 27% of the Democratic delegation, voted against Rice's nomination, with the remaining 73% of the delegation voting in favor. I do not see how "the Democratic party" in the Senate can have been "led" to do something that three-quarters of its members did not do. It is also inaccurate to portray opposition to Rice's nomination in the Senate as exclusively Democratic, as the Senate's single independent member also voted against it. In addition, if there was a single leader of the opposition to Rice, it was Barbara Boxer, who was Rice's most prominent opponent on the Judiciary Committee. On the floor of the Senate, the opposition was "led" by Boxer, Byrd, Ted Kennedy, and Harry Reid. It is misleading to imply that Byrd stood alone at the vanguard of the opposition.

Similarly, the statement "In 2004 he fought to keep black Appeals Court nominee Janice Rogers Brown from receiving a confirmation vote" is, depending on one's interpretation of the word "fought," either misleading or wholly false. The sum total of Byrd's "fight," as far as I can determine, was joining 42 other senators to vote against invoking cloture on her nomination. (This, incidentally, is identical to the treatment Byrd and most of the Democratic caucus had given two weeks earlier to judicial nominee Charles Pickering, who is controversial because of a 1994 case in which he appeared to bend over backward to improperly help out a defendant accused of burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. It seems to me that those who would accuse Byrd of racist motives in voting against cloture on the Brown nomination, against all available evidence, would first need to explain his behavior regarding Pickering.) --Paul 18:16, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah, if you're going to keep posting inaccurate and irrelevant information in this article, I'm going to have to keep reverting you.

• You removed the statement "Byrd's defenders note that both nominations were widely opposed on the left by people of many different ethnicities and that Byrd has not opposed other people of color that Bush has nominated in the past, such as Secretary of Education Rod Paige and Secretary of State Colin Powell", calling it a "lie," but that is not true. As I am sure you know, the NAACP opposed Janice Brown's nomination, and Rice was opposed by prominent African-Americans including Julian Bond, Maxine Waters, and Al Sharpton, as well as by many people of color in the rank & file of the left (one need look no further than the comics page). It is also not true that, as you contend, "all of the Senators that voted against Rice were white": Sen. Daniel Akaka, who is of Chinese and Hawaiian ancestry, voted nay.
• You also wrote that "Even former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, a Democrat, questioned the motives of the small number of Senators who voted against Rice's nomination." There are two problems with this statement. First, in the link you supply, Young simply states his belief that Rice should be confirmed; he does not speculate on anyone's motives at all. You appear to be putting words in Young's mouth. Second, even if Young had said exactly what you claim he said, his remarks would be more appropriate for the Condoleezza Rice article, unless he had indicated in some way that Byrd was one of the senators he was thinking of.

Your insistence on repeatedly adding inaccurate information to this article, as well as your apparent reluctance to discuss the matter here, are making you difficult to work with. --Paul 21:03, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah, please do not keep adding inaccurate information to the Robert Byrd article. I went into detail on the talk page about why I had to revert some of your latest additions. I understand that this is something you feel strongly about, but that does not justify abandoning NPOV and posting untrue statements and inflammatory assertions without evidence. If you still do not feel this is something we can come to a consensus on, we can go to Requests for comment and ask for additional perspectives. But I will continue to revert any untrue statements you add to any article. --Paul 21:21, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Generally, I don't acknowledge the comments of someone who goes out of his/her way to talk down to me. Suffice it to say that the burden of proof is on you and the Democrats to prove that the Grand Kleagle is NOT a racist pig of a Senator. He was the one who choose to join the Klan, it was he that choose to recruit new members to the cross-burning organization. It was NOT me that made him do those things. It was him that wrote several articles defending the Klan after he supposedly left it. It was him that as recently as 2001 was throwing around the n-word. He is the racist, not me. You have chosen to use your time and effort to defend the racist. You need to look inside you for your personal motivation on why you feel that you must defend the racist. The section of the article defending the Kleagle is indefensible. Look at Trent Lott's bio. There is no Republican writing an apology for Lott's comments. Why do you feel the need to defend the Kleagle? Oh, by the way, I can't believe that I even responded to you. I only responded because you are fellow Jayhawk, but I normally would not respond to comments of your tone. I will continue to remove and edit any untrue information that you place in an article also. Only 13 Senators voted against Rice. That is 13% of the Senators. That is not a large segment of the society--no matter how hard you try to make people believe that it is. The one African-American Senator did not vote against her. Only the most partisan Democrats voted against her.-----Keetoowah 01:19, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Friend Jayhawk, it has never been my intention to talk down to you, nor have I any particular interest in Sen. Byrd, whom I have never met and generally have no opinion on one way or another. My only interest is in seeing that untruths and inflammatory accusations do not find a home in Wikipedia. You may call me disingenuous for saying that; I don't really care.

Suggesting that someone has racist motives for pursuing a course of action is a serious charge, and the burden of proof is on the accuser to provide serious evidence to support it. You have not done this, either because you do not want to or because you cannot. It is not enough to say, well, he used to be a vicious racist, therefore he still is. If George Wallace can be redeemed, presumably anyone can. I don't know what's in Robert Byrd's heart, and am not qualified to take a position on whether he is a racist. I do know that the "evidence" you've presented in support of that contention is laughable, and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article without challenge. You do not seem willing to consider the obvious explanation that Byrd's opposition to Rice may have had something to do with her part in the atrocious prosecution of Bush's war, which Byrd has opposed from the start. Actually, that's not quite true--you tacitly acknowledge it by saying that "[o]nly the most partisan Democrats voted against her," which suggests that political motives were at the heart of senatorial opposition to Rice, not racial ones. (And it wasn't even really the most partisan Democrats who voted against her, anyway; Evan Bayh is one of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus--as is Robert Byrd on a number of issues, as a matter of fact.)

This is the third time you have deleted a passage saying that Rice's nomination was opposed by people of many different ethnicities, even though nobody, to my knowledge, denies it and it is a viable counter to charges of racism. Why is this? If you can provide evidence that this is not the case--which should be difficult for you given that, as I believe I mentioned earlier, one need look no further than The Boondocks for proof--I will stop restoring it. --Paul 03:16, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

You call my argument laughable when you resort to quoting the race pimps of a political cartoon like The Boondocks? Get over yourself. Byrd has a 60 year history of espousing racism and you are pointing to one over-the-top cartoon. Your sense of balance, now that is what is laughable.

You never responded to my main argument in that the article has a whole paragraph dedicated to being an apologist for the old racist, that in and of itself is non-NPV. If you could argue that the man was a racist and Kleagle earlier in life (his 20s and 30s--not the early 20s like you stated) and then he turned around and live a completely different life, then you MIGHT have an argument. But that is not the case. The Kleagle has been throwing around the n-word as recently as 2001 (in his 70s and 80s), obviously old enough to know better. And finally, your agnostic approach to whether the Kleagle is a racist or not doesn't fly with me. You know damn well the Kleagle is still an old racist segregationist at heart, you are just engaging in sophist argumentation to defend the undefensible.-----Keetoowah 15:42, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I understand now. It is not possible to disagree with Keetoowah about anything without being either a racist or a "race pimp," whatever that is. Thanks for clearing that up. --Paul 06:11, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Phenry, I apologize that I won't roll over and agree with your bully tactics (See your comments above). I filled the article with facts and since you can't pull out facts, you simply got mad and put a "disputed" sticker on the whole article. That was very childish of you. Why do you feel compelled to make excuses for the old racist anyway? Making excuses for a man that is 87 years old and there is documentation of racist comments from the time the man was 20 years old to the time he was 84 years old!!!! 60 years of documentation backing up Byrd's racist attitude, but yet you want to defend the guy. You should be embarassed. And the only documentation that you point to is a cartoon! Pure Genius!!! You defend the Kleagle and then you come back at me! Get over yourself. There exists 60 years of documentation where Byrd the Kleagle has been spouting off racist comments and you are defending the man as misunderstood!!! Does the Kleagle have to whack you aside of your head for you to see that he is a Kleagle! What is the problem with you???? Why don't you go over the Nazi page in Wikipedia and put together some Doonesbury cartoons to defend Hitler, okay?-----Keetoowah 15:49, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Keetoowah, unilaterally removing an NPOV tag from a page is a pretty big no-no, I believe. The nature of the disagreement we have been having is prima facie evidence that the neutrality of this article is in dispute. Whether you believe it should or should not be in dispute is not the issue. By removing the NPOV tag you indicate that you are unwilling to even attempt to forge a consensus here, which all but consigns this article to a never-ending edit war, unless it is protected.

I have listed this page on Requests for comment, in hopes that others might be able to help resolve this impasse. I am also willing to enter into mediation with you if you would like. However, I no longer wish to be subject to your constant personal attacks and insinuations. If I have been uncivil to you, I apologize. I hope you can see your way to extending me the same courtesy. --Paul 21:38, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have been silent for at least two weeks and there has been no attempt on your part to reach a consensus. It is clear that you slapped the sticker on the top because you did not have valid reasons to edit out what is in the article. I'm going to remove the sticker because you have NOT listed a definitive listing of what is wrong with the article--you have merely given the world your arbitrary position that the article is NPOV--that is not enough justification for the sticker.-----Keetoowah 14:08, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You made it fairly clear that you were not interested in reaching any kind of consensus at all, or anything else other than turning the article into a platform for your personal beliefs. If you've changed your mind about this, great! But I have no desire to waste any more of my time trying to craft a middle-ground position with someone who'd rather fling insults than work on a compromise. --Paul 20:43, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My personal beliefs do not appear in the article--just facts and they are facts that you do not like. Without further discussion, the disputed tagline will be removed.-----Keetoowah 21:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you remove it I'll just revert it again. If you're genuinely interested in working towards a middle ground here, then let's proceed. But I don't intend to let you get away with turning this article or any other one into your personal sounding board and then erasing any evidence that others disagree with you. --Paul 23:05, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you make a specific complaint other than just constantly stating that you don't think the article is NPOV? Could it be that you don't have a specific complaint, you just like to make comments such as this, "If you remove it I'll just revert it again." Somehow or another it must give you some sense of power and control. What is your specific complaint with article?-----Keetoowah 23:35, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

See Talk:Robert Byrd/temp for my response. --Paul 19:18, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)