Senator Byrd has long been held up as an Democrat icon in the Senate> Just thought you proud Democrats should see your hero as he really is.

"Senator Byrd filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and that he opposed the nominations of Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, but his bigotry didn't end there. Author Graham Smith, cited in Michele Malkin's column, recently discovered another letter Senator Byrd wrote after he supposedly quit the Klan, this time attacking desegregation of the armed forces.

"The ex-Klansman," Malkin writes, "vowed never to fight 'with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.'"

Michelle Malkin sums up her column this way: "If this ex-Klansman were a conservative Republican, he would never hear the end of his sordid past. 'Ex-Klansman who opposed civil rights and black justices...' would appear in every reference to Senator Byrd. And even the 'ex-' would be in doubt...left-wing bloodhounds who sniff racism in every crevice of American life would be barking up a storm over Senator Byrd's latest fulminations