Drat! What better way to taint someone as a potential lunatic or extremist than for Byrd to alight at his side?

This is not just a matter of levity. Other reactions are also apt: sadness, incredulity, and disgust, for instance. It is simply the case that this nomination will be confirmed or rejected by a political body containing men like Senator Robert C. Byrd.

We'll learn more about Judge John Roberts, Jr. in the coming months. But why do so many Americans still know so little about Senator Byrd?

After all, this man has occupied space in the United States Congress for longer than any other person in our history. George Washington may be "the Father of our Country," but he served just two terms as president. Byrd has been Congress's "crazy uncle" for three years more than half a century. And during that time he's wielded tremendous power.

Robert C. Byrd is not just any Senator. He's a leader. Respected (pardon my French) by his colleagues . . . apparently. He has been elected by his fellow Senators numerous times to be Majority Leader, Minority Leader, and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. He has been president pro tempore of the Senate three times. That's third in line to the presidency, after the Vice President and Speaker of the House. (Thank goodness for the Secret Service.)

Do his Senate colleagues not know much about him, either?

To those Americans who follow politics, Byrd's pork-barreling feats are legend. The veteran charlatan has pilfered taxpayers nationwide of billions to place his name on dozens of highways, government programs and public buildings in West Virginia.

While taxpayers despise Byrd, his pork-barreling actually earns him kudos from much of the mainstream press. A recent Sunday front-page story in the Washington Post called Byrd "venerated," and spoke of "his achievements."

Venerated? Ugh. Achievements? Is pork now an achievement? With all the Senator's pork, West Virginia still ranks 48th in per capita income. Funny, how the constituents of the various High Knights of Pork never seem to cash in, to escape poverty. Only the porkers themselves seem fatter.

But in recent years, more Americans have begun to learn a shocking tidbit about Byrd's past: He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

This uncomfortable fact first came out in 1952, when Byrd, then a three-term state legislator, ran for the U.S. House. He addressed the charges by acknowledging that he had been a Klan member from "mid-1942 to early 1943" and explaining that he had joined "because it offered excitement and because it was strongly opposed to communism." Byrd said at the time that he had quit the KKK in less than a year and never had any interest again.

Byrd's story got him through the primary, but in the general election campaign a letter surfaced that Byrd had written in 1946 to the Klan's Imperial Wizard. That was long after Byrd had vowed he was finished with the Klan. In the letter, Byrd endorsed someone for a leadership post. He also wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia."

Byrd survived this complete lack of honesty and decency to still whip his Republican opponent. After six years in the House, he won a U.S. Senate seat in 1958. In the course of that campaign, Byrd reportedly stated that the KKK had been unjustly blamed for many acts committed by others.

Many decades later a 1945 letter to Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi was also discovered. The language of that letter is enough to make decent people retch. Byrd argued against integrating the military, saying that he would never fight alongside black soldiers. Placing his bigotry far ahead of his country, Byrd wrote, "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."

So, we know that Byrd's first statements in defense of his involvement in the Ku Klux Klan were untrue. They were also terribly misleading. Many people remain misled. Even today the Almanac of American Politics 2004 is quick to dismiss Byrd's involvement in the KKK, explaining: Continued...