In this May 15, 2008 file photo Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., presides over the committee's hearing on markup of the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill, which included spending in Iraq, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and a one-time opponent of civil rights legislation, is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying Obama has the qualities to end the Iraq war. In a written statement, Byrd called Obama "a shining young statesman, who possesses the personal temperament and courage necessary to extricate our country from this costly misadventure in Iraq." (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File)

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