Robert Byrd, the longest serving United States Senator, has sworn repeatedly to uphold the Constitution of the United States.

Now 87, he prides himself on his knowledge of history and often makes historical references in his speeches.

He poses as a guardian of the Constitution as well as of the Senate prerogatives.

The Constitution trumps any Senate rule.

And Byrd still knows it (unless he is senile).

The Senate's current procedure of allowing a vote on a presidential nominee to be blocked unless three-fifths of the Senators require the vote is an extra-Constitutional, unconstitutional, defacto amendment of the Constitution that should not be tolerated, regardless of who is President.

Instead of upholding the Constitution, Byrd charged that the Republicans would be following in Hitler's path if they didn't keep presidential judicial nominees subject to filibuster and filibuster effective unless three-fifths of the Senators vote to end it.

Byrd cited Hitler's rise to power by, in part, pushing legislation through the German parliament that seemed to legitimize his ascension.

"We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men," Byrd conceded.

"But," Byrd declared, "witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends."

Byrd then quoted historian Alan Bullock, saying Hitler "turned the law inside out and made illegality legal."

Byrd added, "That is what the nuclear option seeks to do."

What Byrd and his Democrat allies call "the nuclear option" is what the Framers of the Constitution provided for.

It is THE CONSTITUTIONAL OPTION.

There IS a supermajority requirement in the Constitution.

Treaties require a two-third vote in order to be ratified.

There is no 60% requirement in the Constitution, however.

Presidential nominees need only a simple majority to be confirmed.

A Senate rule that blocks a vote on a presidential nominee is extra constitutional.

The Senate is supposed to advise and then either give or withhold its consent.

A minority is not supposed to obstruct.

And a majority is supposed to uphold the Constitution instead of submitting to blackmail by a disgruntled minority.

The former Klansman from West Virginia is rightfully being taken to task for... analogy abuse.

Two Jewish groups accused Byrd of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler's Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering.

 Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, put it well: "With his knowledge of history and his own personal background as a KKK member, he should be ashamed for implying that his political opponents are using Nazi tactics."

Abraham H. Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's national director, said Byrd's remarks showed "a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was" and called upon Byrd to apologize to the American people.

"It is hideous, outrageous and offensive for Senator Byrd to suggest that the Republican Party's tactics could in any way resemble those of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party," Foxman explained.

Obviously.

Byrd spokesman Tom Gavin denied that Byrd had compared Republicans to Hitler.

He said that instead, the reference to Nazis in a Senate speech on Tuesday was meant to underscore that the past should not be ignored.

Those who saw the speech know that Gavin compounded Byrd's problems with a readily recognizable lie.

Byrd had remarked that "some in the Senate are ready to callously incinerate" Senators' rights to filibuster.

Am I the only one to recognize "callously incinerate" as a very thinly veiled illusion to the crematoria at Hitler's concentration camps?

Definitely not!

Matt Brooks commented: "There is no excuse for raising the specter of the Holocaust crematoria in a discussion of the Senate filibuster.  That kind of political heavy-handedness is inappropriate and reprehensible."

But, instead of apologizing, Byrd's spokesman solemnly intoned, "Terrible chapters of history ought never be repeated.  All one needs to do is to look at history to see how dangerous it is to curb the rights of the minority."

The minority does not have a right to deny a presidential nominee an up-or-down vote on confirmation.

If the Framers wanted presidential nominees to need to be confirmed by more than a simple majority, they would have so stated in the Constitution.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman characterized Byrd's remarks as "poisonous rhetoric,"  "reprehensible," and "beyond the pale."

All that, and stupid too.

Matt Brooks also called upon Ira Foreman, his  counterpart at the National Jewish Democratic Council to condemn Byrd's comments.

Mr. Foreman declined to comment.

If an aged Republican Senator had babbled such inanities, would Mr. Foreman have remained mute?

Hopefully not.

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Email: GaynorMike@aol.com