Democratic Senator Robert Byrd came out with criticism of the flight that President Bush took to the USS Abraham Lincoln stating that it was simply a partisan campaign tactic designed to bolster the launching of the president’s election campaign and that it was "an affront” to the efforts of those who died in the liberation of Iraq. Of course this would be news to the compliment of men aboard the vessel as they were absolutely thrilled that a sitting president would come out personally to thank them for putting their lives on the line, something that Bill Clinton was evidently too busy to do during the Kosovo and Somalia conflicts.

As Byrd spews his partisan attacks and US Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) calls for yet another investigation of a Republican at the taxpayers expense it should be pointed out that the only results that can come of such actions and statements are painted politically partisan, something that the Democrats keep saying that they don’t condone from one side of their mouths and a tactic that they employ with glee from the other. The hypocrisy, especially from Senator Byrd, is quite disturbing considering his past.

A case in point:

A California-based civil rights organization, Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny, called for an investigation into Byrd's involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. "Congress should investigate Sen. Byrd and his relationship with the Klan," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Byrd’s press secretary asserted that Sen. Byrd maintains he didn't embrace racist views during the time he was a full-fledged Klan member but that would make him the only Klansman in the history of the world not to be. Byrd said that he left the Klan in 1943 but he continued to advise senior Klan officials on appointments and strategy for years afterward. I am sure that whomever he advised was just a grand proponent of civil rights as Klansman Byrd was during the time of his membership.

Considering that the information concerning Senator Byrd’s past is documented and not denied by the senator or his spin-doctors it is quite challenging not to see the hypocrisy that abounds in his rhetoric. It is also hard not to see the partisan bias within the liberal Democratic Party and in the alphabet media with regard to applying an appropriate level of disdain when partisan politics, racism within the Democratic Party and hypocrisy rears their ugly heads. In comparison, the level of condescension that is being heaped onto a sitting Republican president with regard to the unpopular opinion that a trip he made to congratulate troops as their commander and Chief wasn’t necessary is beyond hypocritical.

But that isn’t the end of it, not by a long shot. Senator Byrd not only was a member in good standing of an organization that promoted the murder of innocents and the blatant violation of an entire racial community’s civil rights BEFORE he was elected to office, he even continued to emulate and revere those who held the doctrine of the Klan as their own AFTER he was elected to office.

Byrd, the same man who said that President Bush sullied the memories of those who died liberating Iraq by traveling to an aircraft carrier to say thank you, cosponsored the legislation that named the Senate Office Building after Richard Russell, the long dead Georgia Democrat, 31-years ago. "He was kind of my mentor," Byrd said. Russell, dead since 1971, was a committed racist and segregationist. The Albany Times-Union Newspaper described him as, "a slayer of civil rights legislation during his 38-year Senate career." Among Sen. Russell's more venomous ideas, according to the Times-Union, was a 1964 proposal to create a federal racial relocation commission that would "distribute" African-Americans more equitably throughout the nation so that each state would be 10 percent American-African. The late Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) said of Russell’s proposal, "It is a product of the "Hitler-Stalin school of shifting populations around." Senator Byrd's hero also helped block anti-lynching legislation for years.

So, here we have a United States Senator, a leader of the Democratic Party, a documented racist, whose hero was even more of a racist than he is, criticizing a sitting president for flying out to an aircraft carrier that has been away from its home port for over 10 months and engaged in combat in order to express his gratitude to a crew for a job well done not only from himself but from a mostly grateful nation. The hypocrisy displayed here may be apples and oranges but it remains hypocrisy nevertheless and it sure does paint a picture that is full of questions doesn’t it?

The questions I have are three:

One, how does the alphabet media not jump all over Byrd for his past, ala Trent Lott, and force him to resign his post if not his office?

Two, how do the people of West Virginia keep electing this guy to public office without coming under fire from the good Reverend Jesse Jackson and his Rainbow Extortion Coalition (ala NASCAR’s pay-off)?

Three, how does the liberal-left gather the gall to suggest that the alphabet media is slanted to the right when a documented racist gets to sit in good standing within their party and in our country’s Senate and not suffocate from the barrage of criticism?

I suppose the alphabet media, the mainstream media, is too busy trying to figure out how much a plane ride to an aircraft carrier costs to bother with exposing a racist who was a member in good standing in an organization that condoned and actually committed lynchings of American-Africans during the civil rights era. After all, that story wouldn’t sell as many papers as something that bashes our president, right?

Democrats, liberals, and the alphabet media: hypocrites.

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.