Is Robert Byrd Cool?

Let’s face it: the living dead are very trendy right now. There are not one, not two, but three movies coming out this fall about zombies or horrible zombie-like disease outbreaks. If someone could find a way to inject some angsty teen romance in there, zombies would truly become the hottest ticket around (it’ll be super easy because, to be fair, Robert Pattinson is about as pale and dirty as a not-that recently buried corpse).

So when it was announced today that Robert Byrd- the 92 year old senator from West Virginia- is now the longest serving member of congress ever, I got to thinking about how cool this undead senator really is. Sure, the senate is designed to be a place where members bring stability and clout to their state through long and distinguished careers (of not getting elected president), but serving for 56 years and 320 days is kind of terrifying. He was elected senator from the Mountain State was just a backwoods coal dump filled with terrifyingly obese buck-toothed incestuous rednecks! Oh how things have changed.

Robert Byrd has lived a unique life. Born in 1917, when he was one his mother died of the fucking Spanish influenza (what, too soon?). In 1942, he was elected “Exalted Cyclops” of his local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, which despite how uncool most people are with the KKK, that title is, objectively, very cool. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1952 and the Senate in 1956, Byrd became the king of pork, famously getting a coast guard station for his totally landlocked and mountainous state. Again, a situation where what he did was pretty badass, but also kind of ridiculous and reprehensible. Sure it’s not KKK obnoxious, but it straddles that fine and embarrassing line.

Perhaps most terrifying of all, in his statement released today, Robert Byrd said “I look forward to serving you for the next 56 years and 320 days”. I’m not sure how the people of West Virginia would feel about having a 149 year old senator, but I’m sure that as long as he keeps bringing home the bacon- and maybe some of that good ol’ fashioned oxycontin or meth- the people of West Virginia will keep electing this guy, leaving one more undead politician to roam the streets of Capitol Hill in search of the intern blood that sustains his black and putrefying organs.

So while I’d like to extend the metaphorical corn whiskey jug of congratulations to Robert Byrd, I think I may have to label this milestone not very cool. I like a grizzled mountain coot as much as the next red-blooded American, and while I loved his vote against the Iraq war, there’s something about his advanced age kind of re-inforces the notion that Washington D.C is a city full of old not-quite-dead-yet-but-staring-the-reaper-in-the-face white men. Ben-Gay, Diagnosis Murder reruns and 4 p.m dinners aren’t exactly the hip sexy lifestyle that the District so badly needs.

I say it’s uncool, dag nabbit!