A great American statesman has passed away. (Please be respectful; we will delete all inappropriate comments.)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtOi8eDkTTE&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Sad to hear. Whether you liked him or not, that ends an era of politics.
two hands clasping.
Few families have given more, and worked harder for all Americans.
Rest in Peace Ted
The most fitting memorial to his service to our nation would be passage of a comprehensive health care reform bill this fall.
Truly sad news. God rest your soul, Senator. If only he could have hung on to lead the fight on health care….
“…the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.” – Ted Kennedy
Good idea – call it the Edward Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill. It would be a great legacy to leave the country as long as it has a public option.
A great man.
He will be missed.
He was flawed, tragic, but ultimately heroic man. Truly a sad day for everyone who has dreamed of making this country a kinder more inclusive place.
But looking at this in coldly political terms, it is an opportunity Obama and the Democrats cannot let slip away. Steve@7 is absolutely right. Call it the Kennedy Health Bill and include every progressive component — most particularly a government run public insurance option — then beat the living bejesus out of anyone who waffles and pass it using reconciliation so it only requires 51 votes.
Ironically, it would not be the first time the death of a Kennedy is used to push through major change. Lyndon Johnson used the death of JFK to shame Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
There can be only one true legacy to give this great man and that’s to pass the legislation he would have wanted. Not some half-assed GOP bullshit co-op or a dandied-up windfall for the insurance companies but real, substantial health care reform with a viable public option.
To do less is to sully his good name.
it is with the utmost respect I say:
The Lion sleeps tonight.
RIP Senator Kennedy. I’m so sorry that you must have felt so frustrated. Your decades long passion of meaningful healthcare reform while your body weakened and didn’t let you see it happen; didn’t even let you make that one last desperately needed vote.
Yes, I agree it would be fitting to call it the Edward Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill. Now that would be a fitting legacy.
He will be missed. RIP Senator Kennedy. He has many siblings waiting for him when he gets out of purgatory.
The tributes are rolling in from both sides of the aisle. Nancy Reagan mentioned how although they had political differences, him and former President Reagan often could find common ground on issues. Arnold has said some good words about him, and so has Former Mass Governor Mitt Romney.
http://www.seattlepi.com/natio.....ource=mypi
A Youtube worth watching, gives a better sense of why he was fighting for this:
Ted Kennedy on Health Care
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrJVbCzJH6c
May 20, 2008
Senator Edward Kennedy speaks passionately about trying to get health care reform passed during his career. In this video he talks about his own family’s struggles in the past with sickness and injury, and now he faces a battle of his own with cancer.
This is not a time to talk about Senator Kennedys faults. It is a time to morn his passing.
I hope it doesn’t violate HA’s comment policy, but it seems appropriate to bring this up:
(I have no doubt Senator Kennedy would approve!)
A friend and co-worker of mine, one of the smartest and gutsiest people I personally know, has celebrated her recovery from multiple brain tumors by organizing an annual event to raise money for brain tumor research at Chidren’s Hospital. This is the second year, and last year’s event was great fun for all ages.
This one’s coming up Friday and Saturday, September 18 and 19. Go to http://www.circusofdreams.org for more information and to buy tickets.
RIP, Senator.
In the short-term, this is a serious blow to the “Yoostabees” (“I used to be a Democrat, but 9/11 changed everything. Now I’m outraged by Chappaquiddick.”). I guess they’ll have to find someone else to hate.
That shouldn’t be a problem for them over the long haul, though.
20, 22, 23
Tell me, fellows, about the great service you have give to this country. Tell me about a lifetime of tragedy that you have lived through, tell me how you will have left this entire nation a better place. Tell me how you will match up to Senator Kennedy’s lifetime of achievements and accomplishments.
[…]
It will be interesting to see which Kennedy will stand and walk in the shoes of the three great brothers. Because you know someone is.
RIP
RIP, Ted Kennedy.
I admired Teddy for always giving it his best shot…even though I disagree with him on pretty much everything. He had immense tragedy to deal with in his life….I belief his faith in Jesus Christ got him thru all of that.
Flawed individual===Yes, aren’t we all.
Perfect==Hardly, who is besides Jesus
Saved–My guess is Yes…by God’s Grace, not Ted’s actions.
The free gift of salvation.
Will see you someday Ted!!
Now is the time to pass the universal health care to which Senator Kenndy dedicated his life.
Kennedy will be missed in the Senate.
I second the motion at #4, passing real health care reform would be a fitting tribute.
By the way, great clip. I always get chills every time I hear that speech. A full throated call to traditional liberalism if there ever was one.
R.I.P. Ted Kennedy. Flawed like any human being, but more humane than most. He will be missed.
My heart goes out to his family and friends. Knowing the death is coming doesn’t make it any easier on those left behind.
Living to age 77 is a pretty good run. When I heard about the brain cancer, I thought it would take him sooner than it actually did. After his diagnosis, he lived longer than most would have.
More of Kennedy at his finest:
Ted Kennedy
1980 Democratic National Convention Address
delivered 12 August 1980, New York, NY
Full transcript with audio.
I’ll bet Ted knew this well:
Philippians 4:7 (New International Version)
The liberal lion has passed. Others inspired by his example will carry on and finish his great work.
The struggle continues. May he rest in peace.
The Lion of the Senate, R.I.P.
I was surprised, actually, that he had the third-longest term in the history of the United States Senate. Robert Byrd continues to add to his record (but for how much longer?), and Dan Inouye will pass Kennedy in October.
With Teddy’s death, Pat Leahy moves into third place among current Senators (he’s #23 on the all-time list). Interestingly, the man who Leahy replaced in the Senate, George Aiken, is #25 … which means that Vermont has been represented in that Senate seat by only two people since January 1941.
@27 Not at all. In this case, the man’s faith was something that benefitted not only him but many others.
I’ve always felt that evangelization is best done by example. That is, trying to do something good in God’s name and be willing to explain that to those who are interested. Non-believers may not understand faith, but everyone understands righteousness. Ted Kennedy was as flawed as any of us, and stumbled in his personal life more than some, but as public servants he and his brothers always strove to “do for the least of these”. We would all do well to emulate them in this regard.
Though I knew his passing was imminent, the news still brought me tears. I will miss Teddy.
@27 For the record, the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit is crying this morning — For Ted, because he has gone to the Vast Meadow In The Sky; and also for you, because you’re a person of such mean spirit.
Zotz, you’ve got to admire the way Kennedy laid into Reagan and the GOP in his 1980 convention speech and throughout his career. He called them for what they were and presented the truth for all who cared to hear it.
@32: Evidently, calling out fascists like man-o’lies, is not respectful.
I apologize — to Goldy.
I again offer my respect to a man who embodied selflessness and public service “…unto the least of these…”.
RIP, Teddy.
I met Teddy once on the steps of the Capital building…he was charming and unassuming. He fought for those who did not have the priviledged upbringing that he did.
He had his flaws, but the measure of the man is the respect his colleagues on both sides (Republican and Democrat) had for him.
Anyone who can count Orrin Hatch, John McCain and others as friends …yet oppose them on most issues, while still trying to find common ground, is a remarkable person.
Teddy will go down in history next to his brothers for his long and distinguished record in the Senate and his concern for the everyday person.
My first vote was for Ted Kennedy – a write-in in 1972, Ted and Tom Eagleton for president and vice president. Nothing against McGovern, well, except for maybe the Eagleton mess, it was strictly a personal thing, something I had to do at the time.
I have a prejudice against the inherited wealth and was not a supporter of the youngest of the Kennedy brothers. Still, I was fortunate to be seated with Teddy on an airplane flying across the US.
I really thought I was going to met an egotistic, overly privileged aristocrat like many of the upper class Bostonians I knew as classmates at Harvard College. I was very wrong.
I was “pushing” school reform and had many of my thoughts changed completely by Teddy. He generously talked with me for the whole trip. He patiently listened to this unkempt Jewish guy and then taught me a huge amount about the process, about how someone devoted to education (as I became convinced he was) would always be limited by the fact that kids can not lobby for themselves.
For a person of the level of privilege Teddy had, seeing the good in someone as different in background as Obama was and remains a true credit to both men and a major source of my own hope for our future.
I guess this sort of standard is why I am so proud of some of the locals, esp. Senator Murry, Senator Jackson, Ron Sims, and Senator Evans, Secretary Gates … all of whom seem to me to share in the heritage given us by this phenomenal family.
Politicians like that are the best possible blessing to us all.
@37 Anyone with a great deal of wealth didn’t get it just by the sweat of his brow. How is inheritance any worse than getting lucky in that great government-sanctioned casino known as Wall Street, or happening to record a song that a lot of people decide they like (or which the recording cartel chooses to tell people that they’re supposed to like), or being born with a really good pitching arm? As long as someone didn’t come by his loot at the direct, demonstrable expense of the well-being of others (which for instance, might put Dick Cheney and the drug lords on my own moral shit list), what’s far more important is what someone does with that wealth and the power to influence society that comes with it.
#39 ArtFart
Really do not want to argue in this thread. Some folks are bigoted agaist Jews, some against Euroes, some against Tacomans. I am bigoted vs. the wealthy. Just being honest.
FWIW, I am a bit discriminating. I almost feel there should be a distinction between the worthy wealthy and the wastrel wealthy (Gates vs Allan is the local conundrum).
Kennedy, though Irish, seemed to have somehow inherited the traditions of Boston’s aristocracy .. the Cabots and the Lowells. They too have lots of money but the number of folks from those clans who have done good is very high.
There is a remarkable set of essays on Sen Kennedy at Politico.
I also posted some other links at SJ, including this quote by Jack Burkman, a Republican party strategist to Al Jazeera
“I am a Republican and he was a Democrat, but we were friends, ..He was one of the few people in the United States senate who could genuinely reach across the aisle and bring Democrats and Republicans together,”
A lesson the extremists of the right badly need to learn from.
For those who do not understand Sen. Kennedy’s illness, he died of one of the worst tumors that exist: “Glioblastoma multiforme.” This is a horrible killer. Death from ” Glio”is painful and the loss of ones own brain in an aware individual hard to describe.
For reasons I do not understand, I have lost a number of admired colleagues to this evil fate. Some of you may have known one of these folks, Hal Weintraub. One of the building at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center is named for Hal Weintraub, one of the smartest scientists and best people I have ever known .. a person whose own research at the utch and at the UW has already saved many lives.
There is, however, a small bit of good news. Recently the drug Avastin has shown some promise. Avastin was developed as an “anti tumor angiogeneisis drug” at Genentech by another friend, Napoleon Ferrara … a name many of us hope to see in the Nobel announcement some October.
The effect is small, extending life rather tha saving it.
The hope, however is large because once we find a limited effect, we can work with the drug to optimize it and .. maybe .. even save lives.
I am fairly certain mr. Kennedy received Avastin as an experimental drug and if so, future victims of this horrid disease owe him one more “thank you.”
From MSNBC.com:
“His children had expected him to hold on longer — Mr. Kennedy’s son Patrick and daughter Kara could not get back to Hyannis Port in time from California and Washington. But the senator’s condition took a turn Tuesday night and a priest — the Rev. Patrick Tarrant of Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Mass. — was called to his bedside. Mr. Kennedy spent his last hours in prayer, Father Tarrant told a Boston television station, WCVB-TV.”
It appears the original #27 has been deleted.