Sen. Byrd on Iraq

Lots of ink today on the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd.  Steve Kettman, author with Sen. Byrd of Letter to a New President, wrote on Huffington Post quoting Ted Kennedy on Byrd's opposition to the Iraq war

During the work on the book, the late Senator Ted Kennedy invited me into his office for a private talk about Byrd and he singled out Byrd's leadership in opposing the Iraq War.

"His eloquence and passion and his leadership on this will be memorable," Kennedy said. " My sense is that so much of that memory went back to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and where the United States got started on the war in Vietnam and they just couldn't end it. The Congress couldn't end it. The people couldn't end it. Presidents didn't end it. In '68, you had candidates to end the war and the government, the President, promised it, and it still went on until '75, still fighting in '72 or '73.

So in that sense, the fact that he had this historic perspective and awareness is something that really served the country in a very, very important way. Too many others were sort of taken up with the passion of the moment."