Byrd, at 85, Fills the Forum With Romans and Wrath

By JOHN TIERNEY

ASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — As his colleagues hurriedly tried to give the president a domestic security bill, Senator Robert C. Byrd took the floor this morning to tell them of a "truly great" senator from the first century A.D. named Helvidius Priscus. One day this Roman was met outside the senate by the emperor Vespasian, who threatened to execute him if he spoke too freely.

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"And so both did their parts," Mr. Byrd said. "Helvidius Priscus spoke his mind; the emperor Vespasian killed him. In this effeminate age it is instructive to read of courage. There are members of the U.S. Senate and House who are terrified apparently if the president of the United States tells them, urges them, to vote a certain way that may be against their belief."

Mr. Byrd, of course, is not one of those timid souls, and his recent speeches have been extraordinary even for the maestro of senatorial rhetoric, who turns 85 on Wednesday. While his colleagues have debated the fine points of the domestic security bill, he has been virtually alone in asking the larger question: Why is this new department suddenly so necessary? What will the largest and hastiest reorganization of the federal government in half a century do besides allow politicians to claim instant credit for fighting terrorism?

"This mon-stros-ity," Mr. Byrd has been calling the bill, repeatedly lifting its 484 pages above his head with trembling hands and flinging them down on his desk with the fury of Moses smashing the tablets. Mr. Byrd used to be known less for his distaste of federal bureaucracy than for his love of federal aid — he once vowed to be West Virginia's "billion-dollar industry," while his critics crowned him the "prince of pork." But now he is riffing against big government.

"Osama bin Laden is still alive and plotting more attacks while we play bureaucratic shuffleboard," Mr. Byrd told the Senate. "With a battle plan like the Bush administration is proposing, instead of crossing the Delaware River to capture the Hessian soldiers on Christmas Day, George Washington would have stayed on his side of the river and built a bureaucracy." Mr. Byrd imagined Nathan Hale declaring, "I have but one life to lose for my bureaucracy," and Commodore Oliver Perry hoisting a flag on his ship with the rallying cry, "Don't give up the bureaucracy!"

It would not be strictly accurate to say that Mr. Byrd's speeches have fallen on deaf ears in the Senate, since the chamber was mostly empty when he spoke. But thanks to C-Span, his recent oratory has won this traditional Democrat new allies across the political spectrum — from Barbra Streisand to Phyllis Schlafly, according to the letters his office has received. While liberals have hailed his opposition to the president on Iraq, which generated more than 50,000 letters, conservatives have joined him in warning of a threat to privacy from the domestic security bill.

As he was waiting to speak on the floor yet again this afternoon, Mr. Byrd sat in his office and marveled at the rush to pass the bill.

"That Department of Homeland Security will not add one whit of security in the near future to the American people," he said. "In the meantime, the terrorists are going to be very busy. I'm concerned that in our drive to focus on the war in Iraq and the Department of Homeland Security, we're going to be taking our eyes off what the terrorists may do to us."

Mr. Byrd advocated slowly creating the department, with Congress overseeing the process, and he pulled out the ever-present copy of the Constitution from his breast pocket to make his point. "We're being recreant in turning over to this president the power shift that is included in that bill," he said.

One Democratic senator who voted for the domestic security department said he and his colleagues were exasperated by Mr. Byrd's delaying tactics on this and other measures.

"More and more of our members feel he's dragging it on and on ad infinitum, which is not necessary," that senator said. "Make your point. Have a vote. And move on. He's not willing to do that. He's from a different school. At some point you have to say, `Enough is enough.' "

That senator, acknowledging that Mr. Byrd is a powerful colleague, declined to be named publicly, saying, "I'll get killed."

Mr. Byrd's long speeches have irritated some of his colleagues anxious to adjourn, but he has his defenders even across the aisle.

"I don't happen to agree with Senator Byrd's position on homeland security, but he deserves to be heard," said Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. "Some senators think we ought to be on a bus schedule, but I don't have any sympathy for people whining about being delayed. This is our job. I agree with Senator Byrd that we sometimes need to spend more time considering issues as important as this."

Mr. Byrd, who will celebrate his 50th anniversary in Congress in January, said he had no illusions that his oratory was going to change the outcome of the final vote. So why was he on the floor day after day? What was he accomplishing?

"To me, that question misses the point, with all due respect to you for asking it," he said. "To me, the matter is there for a thousand years in the record. I stood for the Constitution. I stood for the institution. If it isn't heard today, there'll be some future member who will come through and will comb these tomes."