We’re getting a lot of garbage fact checks from the Washington Post and the New York Times this week, but USA TODAY wants in on the action and decided to do some damage control for Joe Biden after a photo of him with former KKK member Robert Byrd was being passed around on social media.
USA TODAY says it’s “partly false” that Biden had posed with a grand wizard, and they’re correct: Byrd wasn’t a grand wizard — he was an exalted cyclops.
No, he was an Exalted Cyclops, which I guess to the mainstream media means it was OK.
The media is garbage.
Fact check: Biden isn’t with KKK grand wizard in photo https://t.co/VLY8FWMiwX
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) July 30, 2020
We suppose we wouldn’t be so bothered if President Trump weren’t called a white supremacist every single day. Ella Lee reports for USA TODAY:
… When he involved enough people to start a klavern, a unanimous vote among the recruits named him “Exalted Cyclops” of their group, which is the highest-ranking position in a chapter.
We rate the claim that Biden was photographed with a grand wizard of the KKK to be PARTLY FALSE because some of it was not supported by our research. Byrd, the alleged grand wizard, in fact, was not one. However, he was the leader of a chapter of the KKK briefly by his own admission and was involved the KKK ” throughout much of the 1940s,” according to the Washington Post. Byrd later renounced his KKK ties, calling it the “greatest mistake” he ever made.
Trump is a white supremacist but Hillary Clinton was perfectly comfortable calling Byrd her mentor. As long as we’re toppling statues and renaming schools and buildings named after slave owners and taking down portraits of Confederate speakers of the House, wouldn’t it be appropriate to take Byrd’s name off of everything in West Virginia?
?♂️ pic.twitter.com/Wq6FfCNFiI
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) July 30, 2020
The spin never ends
— Philbert (@philbert996) July 30, 2020
KKK Exalted Cyclops it is.
— ?heymikey80? (@heymikey80) July 30, 2020
Exalted Cyclops is the Grand Poobah of Grand Wizards.
— HighPerformanceHVAC ?? (@ricksheatcool) July 30, 2020
Does it really matter if he was a Grand Wizard or just a member? The point is he was a member of an organization that burned crosses, beat, tortured, and killed African Americans and created & enforced Jim Crow Laws and racial oppression.
— Outlaw 2 (@Outlaw257776078) July 30, 2020
Unbelievable. One of the head guys in the KKK and it's okay. #Democrats #JoeBiden
— Teresa † ن (@BlackIrishI) July 30, 2020
Ralph “Coonman” Northam is still governor of Virginia; Democrats are very forgiving of each other.
Related:
'Beyond parody': PolitiFact rules 100% real photo of Joe Biden with former KKK leader Robert Byrd as 'Mostly False' https://t.co/JQuPO4TRkC
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 31, 2019
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