Robert C. Byrd to become longest-serving senator in U.S. history Monday

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

as a liberal West Virginian, I have a love/frustration attitude towards him, but congrats to the old guy, regardless. and time has proven him right on the war.
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WASHINGTON - Former Sen. George Smathers used to tell the story about how Robert C. Byrd had turned down a half-dozen invitations to join other senators in Florida for deep sea fishing or golf or gin rummy or tennis.

"I have never in my life played a game of cards. I have never had a golf club in my hand. I have never in life hit a tennis ball," Byrd told the Florida Democrat, according to an interview Smathers gave to a Senate historian.

"I don't do any of those things. I have only had to work all my life."

After almost 48 years in the Senate, Byrd is still working. On Monday, the West Virginia Democrat passes the late GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as the longest serving senator in history.

And Byrd is not finished.

Slowed by age and grief-stricken over the recent death of Erma, his wife of almost 69 years, Byrd still is running for an unprecedented ninth term. At 88, he uses two canes as he slowly makes his way around the Capitol. Yet he can thunder orations from the Senate floor.

more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060610/ap_on_go_co/byrd_senate_record_1




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060610/ap_on_go_co/byrd_senate_record_1