Robert Byrd

Robert Byrd died today at 92. I was 11 when he entered the Senate. For me, he has simply always been there, in the Senate, for good and ill. Highlights of that career here.

Now I learn in the local paper that his life and mine intersected at two points, widely separated in time. He was born in North Wilkesboro, just a mile or two from where I am setting. And during World War II he worked as a welder in the Tampa ship yards not far from where I lived once.

I did not always like him, nor all of the things he did and stood for. But compared to what we have in the Senate today he was a giant.