Not looking good for the senior Senator from West Virginia:
Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has been admitted to a Washington-area hospital and is in “seriously ill” condition, his office said in a news release Sunday.
The statement said that Byrd, 92, “was admitted to the hospital late last week suffering from what was believed to be heat exhaustion and severe dehydration as a result of the extreme temperatures.” The region has experienced a stretch of temperatures in the 90s with high humidity.
Byrd’s office said he was not expected to remain in the hospital more than a few days, but “other conditions have developed which has resulted in his condition being described as ‘serious.'”
D-day and 538 have done the political analysis of what would happen should he pass in the short term, and I would suggest checking that out.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
When you get to be 92, each day extra is a gift and don’t buy no green bananas. I will hate to see the old lord of lard go. He is still one of my fav senators and spoke for me in the Iraq war run up. We damn sure should have listened to him then, because he was totally right.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I’m not quite sure how to say this with taste and sensitivity, but here goes; when a politician remains in an important office at an advanced age and allows himself to appear in public in such a doddering state it is not a good thing for him, his party, or his country. If only there was a way to ease him into the retirement home before it all comes down to a death watch like this.
New Yorker
So we won’t have to hear Sean Hannity tell us how the Democrats are the real racists because Byrd was in the KKK like 70 years ago? I guess there could be one positive if he passes away.
Keith G
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Yes. I just wish he could have found a way in ’08 to be satisfied with his legacy and let another Dem have a crack at it in a year that was great for the Dem Party. Ego causes a lot of fell shit.
stuckinred
@New Yorker: when dog, when
Ash Can
Damn.
Violet
I remember when I first moved to West Virginia. I didn’t follow politics much at had no idea why everything seemed to be named Robert Byrd this and Robert Byrd that. Someone explained to me that he was a Senator from WV. Still didn’t make much sense to me. Senators come and go and where I came from, not a whole lot was named for Senators. I had no idea he was such a force in the Senate and had been there for so long.
Kryptik
It’s crazy to think of a WV without Byrd, to be honest. I don’t know how many things you’d pass bearing his name just on a trip from the southern part of the state into Charleston.
QuaintIrene
That is a shame. Hope things improve for him.
On a related note. Dick Cheney was hospitalized a day or so ago. The news report was ‘he felt some discomfort.’
My first thought-‘In his conscience?’
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@Keith G: I don’t follow WV politics but I believe they still have a popular dem governor Manchin. So if Byrd passed he would choose a successor, maybe even himself, or a caretaker replacement ,where Manchin could run for the seat later.
Spaghetti Lee
I first saw it on Huffpo, and I’d say the comment section was half-filled with people screaming “Term Limits!” with no context or explanation. It’s a fetish that I don’t understand. Would this country have been better off if the likes of Ted Kennedy, George E. Brown, or Ron Dellums were forced into retirement after 12 years?
Spaghetti Lee
And does anyone honestly believe that it would cut back on corruption and entrenchment? Hell, political parties could just have a candidate groomed and ready every 10 or 12 years and turn the whole thing into a revolving door.
Keith G
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: If he passes before Jul 4, there may have to be a special election. Either way, there is a pending conference report that needs 60 votes in the next day or two…IIRC.
Elizabelle
@Keith G:
re letting another Dem run in 2008: kick me if you wish, but I thought the same thing about Senator Kennedy.
Keith G
@Elizabelle: Of course. It’s a most unhelpful conceit.
Honus
Manchin will appoint himself, and then run either in 2010 or 2012. In either case he is the strongest democratic candidate in the state. So it wasn’t any disaster that Byrd didn’t retire in 2008.
As for pork, when Byrd decided in the early 80s to be West Virginia’s billion dollar a year industry, (unlike a lot of supposedly anti-earmark hypocrites, he made no bones about the fact that he was going to bring federal money to the state) Byrd pointed out that at that time West Virginia was one of the few states that actually sent more money to Washington than it got back. For many years, one of the poorest states in the union was actually subsidizing states like California and New York.
And unlike people like Trent Lott and Jesse Helms, Byrd had the moral decency to repudiate his youthful racism and membership in the KKK, instead of celebrating it, like George Allen did with his nooses and confederate flags.
Read his biography. He came from one of the poorest backgrounds to make himself one of the most powerful men in the world. And he never forgot where he came from.
Mnemosyne
@QuaintIrene:
That would be impossible. Cheney had his conscience surgically removed in 1972 and I’ve never heard of one growing back.
Svensker
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
His speeches before Iraq should be required reading for all the war mongers. They were elegant, erudite and right. He will be missed.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Elizabelle:
not really.
he got his diagnosis at the end of may, five months before the general election.
and who could have forseen 2008 the perfect storm that led to brown’s narrow election in 2010: a special election held in the middle of winter, when the colleges were still on break; 10% unemployment; a state that already has a form universal health care being asked to kick in cash to extend it nationwide; and a horrible democratic candidate who mocked the state’s official religion (the Red Sox).
Honus
@Svensker: As was his speech during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. I remember his response to Thomas’s arrogant statement that God was his judge, not the senators. Byrd replied that God was his judge, too, bit in this case, his job was to be Thomas’s judge. A beautiful statement of the law by a very erudite constitutional lawyer.
dmsilev
@New Yorker:
Pfft. Hannity and his ilk will be riding that particular hobbyhorse for the next fifty or so years.
dms
mai naem
Byrd’s one of my fav senators. One of the few guys left in the senate who fights for the institution and not just whatever is convenient for his party at a particular point in time. He also comes across as a down to earth decent person. Hate to use these words but he doesn’t come across as elitist.