As for the Byrd endorsement...I cannot express how happy that made me. I simply can't. Bob Byrd has done more for this state than...well, pretty much anybody, ever. He's been a pillar of the United States Senate for decades, and is the living, breathing embodiment of that august institution. The man is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to Senate history, and there was never a need for a rules discussion or research on precedent if he was around, because he had it in his head already.
For anyone that doesn't know, Senator Byrd has not been doing well physically of late, and I do not expect he will be with us for very much longer. With that in mind, I have to tell you that knowing one of his last acts as a United States Senator and representative of this state that both he and I dearly love was to endorse a black man that has so inspired me, personally.....I literally got tears in my eyes as I read that.
Senator, you were a real SOB when you were younger. The real epitome of a "Southern Democrat" that woulda kicked Zell Miller's goofy butt all the way back to Georgia if he'd ever got into you the way he did into Chris Matthews. You did a lot of things that were deplorable.......and you showed everybody what it means to truly admit you were wrong about something, because you spent most of the last 40 years giving a voice to people that didn't have one of their own. Senator Obama said it best when he said that you embodied all of the good, bad, and the conflict between the two that we have faced as a nation in the last 50 years...and out of that you became a great man. Not only a great man, but a good one as well.
No matter what history writes about Senator Byrd's early years, it will also have to take note of just how far this one man came in his time in Washington.
Thank you, Senator Byrd. From a very grateful, admiring, and, this day, PROUD West-by-God-Virginian!!!