Lionized in Winter

摘要

In the history of the republic, 11,7O7 men and women have served in Congress. Only two have held office longer than Robert Byrd, first elected to the House in 1952 and the Senate in '58. He has been around long enough to have served with a Connecticut Brahmin named Prescott Bush, the President's grandfather. With his white hair, benign tremor and penchant for quoting the Romans, Byrd seems more like a Senator from the 19th century than one from the 21st. He has never seen MTV. He refers to the camera in the Senate chamber as "the eee-leck-tronic eye." But due to his fierce opposition to the Iraq war, Byrd at 85 has become an Internet icon with a rash of young and liberal admirers, which is ironic given that Byrd fought civil rights in the '60s and, as is often noted, briefly joined the Ku Klux Klan. Once known as a hawk ("I was the last man out of Vietnam," he says), Byrd has become the Senate's new Paul Wellstone.