July 1, 2010
 
Of Liberty, Special Elections and Bluegrass Music … remembering Sen. Robert C. Byrd
 
By Rick Robinson
 
The death of Senator Robert C. Byrd ends an era in the United States Congress. The last of the old soldiers is gone.
 
One of the characters in my series of political thrillers is a young staffer in the United States Senate. The character is based upon a friend of mine who actually works on Capitol Hill.
 
The young staffer called me a year or so ago laughing so hard that he was almost unable to speak. It seems that he and several reporters had been standing just outside the Senate press gallery waiting for an elevator. When the doors opened up, there was Sen. Bob Byrd. As Byrd was not one of the members of Congress known to frequent the pressroom, the reporters stood shocked, not immediately moving to let the old warrior off the elevator.
 
Byrd lifted his cane and waved it wildly to clear a path. “Liberty coming through,” he shouted as he walked through the reporters who parted like the Red Sea.
 
While the thought of Bob Byrd waving his cane to clear a path through a swarm of reporters was a fond remembrance I had when I learned that Byrd had died, his words have resonated with me over the last couple of days.
 
Liberty Coming Through
 
The early debate over the replacement of Robert C. Byrd has centered around the timetable for Governor Joe Manchin’s announcement and the special election that will follow in 2012 (as opposed to this November). While most commentators have dropped the names being knocked around as the obvious choices to fill Byrd’s seat, few have analyzed the metrics the Governor should use to pick amongst those he is considering. In fact, it would appear from the press coverage that the governor’s only major concerns are a) appointing someone who will not challenge him in a special or general election and b) deciding whether he’d rather run himself at President Obama’s mid-term or re-elect. If Gov. Manchin would like to measure his candidates for appointment for U.S. Senate with something more than the yardstick of his own political ambition, I would suggest that he look to the words of Sen. Byrd himself.
 
In a 2004 Baltimore Sun editorial titled “Defending Liberty,” Byrd took on the George W. Bush White House for sending troops to Iraq. In closing his op-ed, Byrd wrote: “Each generation of Americans has the responsibility to renew the framer’s legacy, and to make this nation shine as a lasting beacon of hope for the world. ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’ We must reacquaint ourselves with the Constitution and forge new links with our history. Congress must reinvigorate its defense of the people’s liberties. Amid the sound and fury of election-year politics, all of us must take a long, hard look at the kind of country we want to leave to our children.”
 
If, in Byrd’s words, Gov. Manchin should concern himself more with defense of the people’s liberties and less with his own career options, in the end, such a path might even lead the voters of West Virginia to support him regardless of whether he faced them in the year of President Obama’s mid-term or his re-elect.
 
A Mountain Fiddler’s Last Song
 
In 1978 Robert Byrd played fiddle on a bluegrass album titled “Mountain Fiddler” with a couple of old boys from the great Country Gentleman. The album, which featured such bluegrass classics as “Turkey in the Straw” and “Cripple Creek,” will be re-released on CD later this year. For anyone under 25, an album was a vinyl disc that allowed your parents to listen to scratchy recordings of music on something other than an iPhone.
 
The closing song on “Mountain Fiddler,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” is a song that comforts us in a time of loss by reminding is “there’s a better world awaiting, in the sky, Lord, in the sky.”
 
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Rick Robinson is an award-winning author of political thrillers, published by Headline Books of Terra Alta, W.Va. His latest title, Manifest Destiny, has won six awards, including Best Fiction at the Paris Book Festivals and Winner Best Fiction at the New York Book Festival. Robinson has spent 30 years in politics and law, including a stint on Capitol Hill and a run for Congress.