Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, served 51 years in the United States Senate and, at his death, was the longest serving, most senior Senator in United States history. For that reason, perhaps it's only fitting that unusually long career would end with an unusually long and unique goodbye.

A joint-services military honor guard carries the casket of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WestVirginia, Tuesday, July 6, 2010, after a funeral service at the Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia.

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Since his passing on Monday, June 28, Senator Byrd's casket has been carried more than 750 miles. While Senator Ted Kennedy's body traveled a great distance as well, the journey began at his home in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, and ended at his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.

Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, served 51 years in the United States Senate and, at his death, was the longest serving, most senior Senator in United States history. For that reason, perhaps it's only fitting that unusually long career would end with an unusually long and unique goodbye.

A joint-services military honor guard carries the casket of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WestVirginia, Tuesday, July 6, 2010, after a funeral service at the Memorial Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia.

(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

Since his passing on Monday, June 28, Senator Byrd's casket has been carried more than 750 miles. While Senator Ted Kennedy's body traveled a great distance as well, the journey began at his home in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, and ended at his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery.

As the nation enjoys a holiday weekend celebrating the Fourth of July, word has come down from the Pentagon that for the first time since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a living serviceman could receive the Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest military decoration for valor.

The Pentagon, for the first time, could honor a living serviceman with the Medal of Honor -- the nation's highest military decoration -- for showing valor Afghanistan.

(AP Photo)

It would be the first time the Medal of Honor has gone to a living serviceman since the Vietnam War.

Here's something Capitol Hill lawmakers in both parties generally agree on: With the jobless rate near 10 percent and the economy only sputtering toward recovery, unemployment benefits should be extended beyond the 99 weeks -- or nearly two years -- that state and federal benefits currently last in the hardest-hit states.

But out on the campaign trail, it's a different story -- some insurgent Republican candidates with libertarian streaks are arguing to scale back -- not extend -- the benefits.

The ease of Gen. David Petraeus' confirmation by the Senate to succeed Gen. Stanely McChrystal and lead American and NATO forces in Afghanistan belies the very real problems that President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan faces on Capitol Hill.

'There is unease in our caucus, as you well know, about the situation in Afghanistan,' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters last week, perhaps understating things. 'I don't think that the change in command affects that.'

Sen. Robert Byrd was many things during his more than 50 years in the Senate: orator, fiddler, lecturer and author of a multi-volume history of the Senate. But it is his role as an appropriator that leaves his name emblazoned across West Virginia -- on highways, schools, even the world's largest radio telescope.

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, speaks at the Government Accountability Office in observance of Constitution Day. Byrd was proud of his legacy as a heavy appropriator for his home state.

(Tom Williams/Roll Call/Getty Images)

If something was built with federal dollars in the state of West Virginia in the last half century, there is a good chance that Byrd helped get the funding -- more than $3.3 billion over his career. And that is only what such watchdogs as the Citizens Against Government Waste can attribute to him. Recent years have seen disclosure requirements for pet projects that were unheard of when Byrd became a senator in 1959.

Crack a cold one and help save the economy?

That's what an unlikely pair of political allies believe could be the brew with a bill in Congress that would reduce taxes for small breweries and, they say, create new jobs.

Anyone born on American soil is an American.

That's an unconditional right, according to the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

A bill in the House of Representatives would change the 14th amendment to the US Constitution that grants anyone who is born on US soil the right of American citizenship.

(Eric Meola/Getty Images)

It's not an exclusively American practice. Worldwide, about 30 nations (mostly in the Western Hemisphere) have similar birthright citizenship policy. Citizenship based on where a person is born, is called jus soli, which is Latin for 'right of the soil.'

Helen Thomas, columnist for the Hearst Newspapers, is under heavy fire by former U.S. officials and colleagues for her recent comments that Israelis should 'get the hell out of Palestine.'

Helen Thomas reads through her stack of morning newspapers at her desk inside the White House briefing room March 27, 2009 as she waits for the daily briefing by US President Barack Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

(Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images)

In a short interview on May 27 with Rabbi David Nesenoff at RabbiLive.com, Thomas suggested that Jews 'go home' to Poland and Germany and America and 'everywhere else.' Thomas, 89, has a front-row, center seat at the White House press briefings -- due to her long-time career as a White House correspondent.

The U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington will participate in a joint naval exercise with South Korea next week in the Yellow Sea, the same waters west of the Korean peninsula where North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean warship last March, ABC News has learned.

A U.S. official said the carrier, which operates from its home port in Japan, 'will be sent to the waters off South Korea within coming days to participate in joint exercises' with the South Korean navy.