...I saw this earlier on
CNN, but I waited until the transcript was available so I would have the full quote. Judy Woodruff interviewed Senator Robert Bird today for
"Inside Politics". The Republicans have signaled that they want to tie Byrd's connection to
MOVEON, saying that he's out of the mainstream in West Virginia.
Byrd said this when he was asked about whether he'll run next year...
WOODRUFF: ...Senator. Are you running for re- election?
BYRD: Well, I'm not going to announce it today. I'm thinking about it, seriously.
WOODRUFF: What are you leaning toward?
BYRD: Taking care of the issues here. I'm leaning toward defeating this opening of Pandora's box, cutting off the filibuster.
Sort of a non-answer, but I would guess that he's running, but the part I loved about the interview was when Woodruff basically repeated Republican talking points to Byrd, and he told her what's wrong with her & the company she works for...
WOODRUFF: Well, let me ask you this, there are Democrats on the more moderate end who say that the vocal, the most vocal elements of the party are the liberal groups like MoveOn, and they say it's not good for the party. Is that something you're concerned with?
BYRD: You know, I pay no attention to the talk about labels. What I'm concerned about is the liberties of the people of this country. The liberty to speak out, to say what they think, and not be intimidated. That's one thing that's happening in this political atmosphere these days.
And I have to say there's too much of the effort to intimidate. There's an effort to intimidate those who speak out, who are critical of the administration, who are critical of the president.
They try to intimidate, intimidate the media. That's a good one. They've got you intimidated.
Intimidate senators who have the backbone to stand up for the rights of the people they represent, they try to intimidate. They try to -- now they're trying to intimidate the courts. Back off.
WOODRUFF: Well, I certainly don't believe they have me intimidated or my news organization intimidated.
BYRD: I don't think so. But look back at debate on the war.
Where was it? The Senate was mute. The media didn't ask questions, and the people didn't ask questions. We were mute.
People were intimidated. That's the effort now, is to intimidate anybody who has this common sense, and the courage and a strong feeling of what's right and what's wrong, trying to intimidate them. They're trying to do that to me.
...It will probably fall on deaf ears, but it was nice to hear someone say it to one of them.