West Virginia daily

Republican Senate hopeful Jeanine Pirro attacked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday for hosting a birthday bash for West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan, last night at the Frederick Douglass House in Washington.

Pirro spokeswoman Andrea Tantaros said it was "outrageous and shocking" for Clinton and the Senate's eight other female Democrats to hold Byrd's 88th birthday party at the historic home of the runaway slave and abolitionist. Pirro, Westchester's departing district attorney, is seeking the GOP's nomination to challenge Clinton, a Democrat, in 2006.

"Any person who has made racially insensitive comments and participated in groups that promote ethnic prejudice — Republican or Democrat — do not deserve support from a United States senator, especially the senator from New York, at a landmark that is so cherished by those who respect and honor racial equality," Tantaros said in a press release.

Byrd, the dean of the Senate Democrats, was a member of the hate group for a brief period in 1942. He later called it the "most egregious mistake" he ever made.

In 2001, Byrd used a slur in discussing race relations during a televised interview. He subsequently apologized, saying the phrase dated to his youth.

"Sadly, Ms. Pirro continues to wage a campaign of insults and attacks instead of offering New Yorkers a positive agenda," said Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Clinton's re-election campaign. "Maybe that's why so many more New Yorkers have come to view her negatively than positively since she announced for the Senate."

Tantaros, however, accused Clinton of having a double standard when it comes to racial insensitivity, noting that the senator was critical of Republican Sen. Trent Lott for comments he made in late 2002 praising the segregationist presidential campaign once waged by Sen. Strom Thurmond. That controversy forced Lott to give up his post as Senate majority leader.

Her political action committee, HillPAC, gave money to Byrd, and its Web site praises him as a "senator, statesman, and effective advocate for the people of West Virginia."

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