What contrition?

The news this week has emphasized Senator Robert Byrd's latest attempt to deal with his KKK past. The article was written in connection with Byrd's newly published memoirs.

He has explained it, regretted it, lamented it, and confronted it.

An AOL poll attached to the story asks readers if they are satisfied with his contrition.

Shoot! He hasn't expressed any contrition. Contrition means that a person is sorry for having done something which they acknowledge as bad.

In connection with the his KKK background, Robert Byrd has never, to my knowledge, said the words "I am sorry" or "I apologize".

Over the last 24 hours, I have repeatedly done word searches trying to link "sorry", "apology", or "apologize" with "Byrd". Some people have attributed apologies to him for his KKK past, but they give no dates or references and I could find no quotes from himself. He did apologize for using the "N word" on a television interview in 2001 (a stunt which would have ended the career of a Republican Senator) but I could find nothing regarding the KKK.

He has said he was stupid and regrets what he characterizes as a mistake-- but that does not acknowledge that he made a choice (not a mistake) to do evil and that his choice may have directly or indirectly hurt people by strengthening an explicitly violent, racist organization in West Virginia in the early 1940s. Rather, it is a highly ambivalent statement which could merely mean that he should have been more discrete in expressing his support for racist organizations.

There is no apology there. The man just wants to sell a book.

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BY THE WAY:

If any readers can direct me to a real apology that Robert Byrd might ever have made for his leadership in the KKK, please send me a link. If it is legitimate, I will post it as an entry and apologize for libeling the senator.