After nearly 50 years in the Senate, Democrats are beginning to question whether or not 90-year-old ex-Klansman Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) has the capacity to continue chairing the Senate Appropriations Committee. Yeah, their concern is apparently how old he’s getting and not, you know, the fact he started a chapter of the Klu Klux Klan.

Senior Democratic senators privately considered Tuesday Sen. Robert Byrd’s capacity to handle his spot at the top of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, but the 90-year-old lawmaker won’t be stepping down from the demanding job, his office told CNN.

See-Dubya links to the background for Kleagle (Byrd’s actual rank in the Klan).

In the early 1940s, a politically ambitious butcher from West Virginia named Bob Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to form a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. After Byrd had collected the $10 joining fee and $3 charge for a robe and hood from every applicant, the “Grand Dragon” for the mid-Atlantic states came down to tiny Crab Orchard, W.Va., to officially organize the chapter.

As Byrd recalls now, the Klan official, Joel L. Baskin of Arlington, Va., was so impressed with the young Byrd’s organizational skills that he urged him to go into politics. “The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation,” Baskin said.

Say “macaca” in a joking manner and Democrats will drive you out of office. Start your own fricken chapter of the Klu Klux Klan and they’ll give you the Chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee.