Summary and analysis of Robert Byrd obituary

WHENEVER Robert Byrd strolled the corridors and sleeping rooms of the Senate, he went in a gathering of people. Some were his constituents, in camouflage caps and T-shirts, gape-mouthed amidst the gilt and marble, arrive to converse to him about the difficulties of Marsh Fork Elementary School or their uncle's very dark lung. But he furthermore glimpsed Henry Foote of Mississippi wielding his pistol, Sam Houston of Texas whittling timber hearts for the females, and little John Randolph of Virginia strutting past with his searching dogs; and Cicero in the shaded, and just behind him Cato the junior, whispering “I would not be beholden to a tyrant.” (www.esquire.com)

The Roman Senate enthralled Mr Byrd nearly as much as the American. When it turned down, the Republic fell. And why had it declined? Because it had become passive, failed to lift its voice; and particularly because it had presented meekly to Caesar and Sulla the power of the pursestrings. Mr Byrd thus expended his career—the longest Senate service in American annals, integrating six years as most whip, 12 years as most or few foremost and 20 years as head individual or grading few constituent of the Appropriations Committee—learning, recounting and expertly applying the directions that kept the Senate a force in government. He was certainly attentive both to boss overreach and to flaw in his own beloved sleeping room, “the anchor of the Republic, the forenoon and night celebrity in the American legal constellation”.

Dignity was his byword: three-piece matches, velvet waistcoats and the revolving oratory of a man who had been a fine lay preacher before he left West Virginia. His courtesy was innate, his thank-you remarks reliably there the next day. The issue of all this, though, was to support the worth of the Senate. ...