The Wind And The Lion: Ted Kennedy Mans Up To Mortality

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/the-wind-and-the-lion-ted-kennedy-mans-up-to-mortality/

The Wind And The Lion: Ted Kennedy Mans Up To Mortality
By: bmaz Wednesday August 19, 2009 11:21 pm


The question has gone unasked out of respect, or murmured only quietly in back rooms: What about Teddy's health? Nobody wanted to be the one to say it in public. Nobody had to; once again Ted Kennedy is ahead of us. In a posting late Wednesday at the Boston Globe, comes news that Senator Edward M. Kennedy has authored a letter to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and the Massachusetts Congressional leaders requesting that provisions be made for his successor.

Literally generations of politically active American citizens have been motivated to study and participate in the political process by the men--and women--of the Kennedy family (I am one). Since the tragedies of the 60s however, the Old Lion of the family, and, indeed, the US Senate (and Democratic politics as a whole), has been Edward M. Kennedy. The sturm and drang of the current health care fight? That has been his battle cry for decades. Barack Obama? Likely still a Senator if Ted Kennedy had endorsed Hillary Clinton instead. Name an important piece of social legislation passed in the last four plus decades and his fingerprints are on it.

So the question of "what if" about his health is an unpleasant, emotional and difficult one. But recent events have made the question undeniably germane. Senator Kennedy wasn't present for the Judiciary Committee consideration of Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination; you knew he wanted to be there, but his absence was understandable. When he also was absent from the Senate floor for the historic confirmation vote for Sotomayor, the first Hispanic American elevated to the Court, you had a feeling he was seriously ill. A week later, when he could not attend the presentation when he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by Barack Obama, a man he likens to his brother John, you knew it was bad. And then he was absent from the funeral for his sister Eunice. Ted Kennedy always gave the eulogies for Kennedy family members; he always had to, and he was always there. Always. Until now.

snip//

The extraordinary action Senator Kennedy requests is necessary because under a 2004 law passed in Massachusetts to prevent the potential that Mitt Romney would get to name a successor to John Kerry if Kerry had been elected President, voters would select Kennedy's successor in a special election to be held within five months of the vacancy. But the 2004 law makes no provisions for an interim replacement.



And, lastly, there was this:



Ted Kennedy is still a lion representing the interests of Massachusetts and the country, and still doing so selflessly and honorably by laying contingency plans for his own succession and drawing the sting from everybody else in addressing the subject head on. When the wind comes for the Lion he wants to insure we are ready. And that there is a vote for healthcare.

:cry:

Healthcare reform could be his legacy. That would make him happy.

(There's got to be a secret but implicit "don't let Teddy get this" meme going among some of those bastards).

wow.

:grouphug:

...this made my cry like crazy. :cry:

for a statesman?

...to write a letter about one's replacement. That is something ~~ to put one's feelings and concerns aside, accept pending death, and to think of one's obligations first. What a wonderful man ~~ a true statesman.

:cry:

He wants to make sure that his being away from the senate doesn't affect the vote on health care.

I remember Jack...I remember Bobby....I'll always remember Ted.:cry:

Tough to think about....

I was hoping against hope that he would be able attend the vote in the Senate that passes health care.

:cry:

God how I hate that term. I hate that term almost as much as anything else a person might say. You know, two years ago next month I sat in a hospital room and watched my mother die. I said "hey," she said "hey," I said "Its okay." And then she died. She was sixty five years old. She was not a man. She was brave. Being brave does not require being a man. Facing the inevitable or even one's responsibilities does not require being a man. At all.

Sorry for the rant. Its a great piece, really. I just don't like the idea that one need be a man to face death or do their job.

Thanks for the reminder.

Of Mice and Men - Teddy Kennedy is a man.

I could count the politicians I truly respect on one hand (minus the thumb). kennedy is one of them.

Soldiering on:

40 years on the U.S. Senate floor

BOSTON -- Labor leader Robert Haynes sat in his office for a half hour rattling off initiatives U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy has pushed to improve the lives of workers.

He talked about minimum wage increases, unemployment benefits, a safe work environment, worker training, pay equity, education and health care.

Haynes finally gave up, knowing that it would be nearly impossible to recall all the major issues Kennedy has taken on in his 40-year career -- civil rights, the Northern Ireland peace process, gun control and clean water, to name just a few. Haynes said it would be far easier to list what the state's senior senator hasn't done than to keep up with his accomplishments.

"It's really overwhelming," said Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. "I don't know what he doesn't do. Everything he's done helps somebody, somewhere, sometime, somehow." Haynes is convinced that Kennedy has touched the lives of every single person in the state, if not the nation.

Whether he's helping workers hold on to health care, advocating for student loans, joining the picket lines with nurses, helping children read, getting meals to senior citizens or fighting to protect a woman's right to choose, Kennedy has stood up for the rich, poor, men, women, Democrats and Republicans, Haynes said.

http://extras.berkshireeagle.com/NeBe/kennedy/default.asp?filename=soldier&adfile=ads2