Sen. Robert Byrd, unapologetic, confronts Bush in a new book.

[jbfam4]

STYLE & CULTURE
His voice rises
Sen. Robert Byrd, unapologetic, confronts Bush in a new book.

By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-et-neuman21jul21,1,6248066.story?coll=la-home-style

Sen. Robert C. Byrd, the 87-year-old Democrat from West Virginia, has been called the conscience of the Senate. He's also been called the Senate scold, its unofficial historian and the guardian of the Senate's constitutionally mandated powers of the purse.

Now, author of a new book lambasting President Bush for the war in Iraq, Byrd wants to be known as the Paul Revere of his time. "Paul Revere woke up Concord," Byrd said in an interview last week in his high-ceilinged office on the first floor of the Capitol. "I hope I can wake up some people in this country and that I would lend strength to those in the Congress today and in the future who may have to make a similar decision to go to war."

Byrd is an unlikely hero of the antiwar movement. Raised in the hardscrabble poverty of coal mine country in West Virginia during the Depression, he could not afford to go to college. A gas station attendant and a welder, he joined the Ku Klux Klan during his first run for the state Legislature because he thought it would earn him votes. He quickly renounced his membership and spent 10 years getting his law degree at night while serving as a U.S. senator. He speaks in the oratory of a self-made man — flowery phrases, references to Thucydides and Cicero, hardly the stuff of modern TV sound bites.

But he is also passionate about the war in Iraq and knowledgeable about the Senate psyche. So when he rose on Feb. 12, 2003, to speak against the Bush administration's request for congressional authorization, his words ricocheted around the world. He chided his colleagues for standing "passively mute … paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events." He attacked the idea of preemptive war, calling Iraq "the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time … in contravention of international law."

[BeyondGeography]

1. Byrd turned out to be our gutsiest Senator

Anyone who has tuned into his anti-Bush, anti-Republican, pro-Constitution orations on C-Span comes away wishing we had an army of speakers like Byrd in our party. He speaks for the moment, but he also speaks to history. It's high art for the political junkie.

Looking forward to the book.

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2. I keep thinking, if everyone in America could hear his speeches,

Bush would be demolished in November. If people had heard his speeches in 2002, we wouldn't be in Iraq.

[jbfam4]

3. The Book is out

My Son got me a copy.......my 86 year old Mother wanted to read it so I am next in line.