Good Morning America does it again...

"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow.

The folks over at Good Morning America are at it again. Not long ago, anxious to discredit the Catholic Church with false accusations which had already been thoroughly refuted, GMA solicited the views of Father Richard P. McBrien regarding the sexual abuse scandal within the Church. See here. Before that, GMA's one-time host Diane Sawyer grilled John and Cindy McCain on abortion while Robin Roberts, who interviewed Barack and Michelle Obama, never broached the subject. See here.

But now that Senator Robert Byrd, the long-time Democratic Senator from West Virginia, has died, GMA has taken great pains to whitewash his past. This morning, while reviewing the Senator's life, hosts kept repeating - almost as a mantra - that his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan was "brief." As if to suggest his time with the Klan was merely a youthful indiscretion.

Hardly.

Senator Byrd joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 at the age of 24. He was elected top officer of his local chapter and would go on to hold the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. If his involvement with the Klan was as "brief" as GMA asserts, then why is it that in 1944, a full two years after joining the Klan, Senator Byrd wrote a letter to Senator Theodore Bilbo saying that, "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side...Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this blessed land of ours degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."

And, in a letter to a Grand Wizard written two or three years later (1946 or 1947), Senator Byrd wrote, "The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation." (See here). And yet, GMA assures us that his time with the Klan was "brief." If a Republican politician had such a history, and had expounded such views, GMA - and the rest of the liberal media - would engage in a sort of public crucifixion. But there was absolutely no mention of these comments. Instead, GMA downplayed the Senator's involvement with the hate group.

Of course, when Dan Quayle misspelled the word potato, GMA - and the same liberal media - were all over the incident. Although this incident occurred back in 1992, ABC News still has a post online detailing what happened. See here.

There you have it, Dan Quayle's misspelling of potato is a big deal to MSM liberals. But a Democrat who belonged to the Klan for years, referred to African-Americans as "mongrels," and who expressed his desire to see the rebirth of the hate group "in every state in the nation," is beyond criticism.

GMA is an embarassment to authentic journalism.