Dear Senator Kennedy

Please do the honorable thing, and step down now, and let the citizens of Massachusetts elect your replacement.

Really, you should have done this earlier this year, when you could not be there for voting on the stimulus package and Senator Sherrod Brown had to fly from his mother's wake to provide the needed vote. Had you done this then, by now your replacement would have been seated.

You, Senator Byrd and Senator Specter need to step down. It seems that the Senate is now a place of blood sport, not of a gentlemanly debating chamber and we need senators with long hard stamina.

Yes, I know. For all three of you, this is your life. You will die without your Senate office. But, you see, this is the problem. It is not about you; it is about our country.

Our President need strong, vigorous Senators who can stand to Grassley and the rest of these hypocrites.

I do not support term limits; I have seen the damage that it has done to California. But your health should be the deciding factor. If this country is important to you, it is time for you to step down. Now.

And if your replacements will be Republicans, then we clearly are having problems with our message.

OK, start flaming.

The last one even has its own resident defender for the OP's grim glibbness.

I'm glad neither one is a relative of mine. I'd be on an ice floe.

If Kennedy stepped down today, there is no mechanism to replace him except in special election 5 months away from the date he left office. Senator Kennedy, knowing this and thinking about the people of MA, today wrote the MA legislature asking them to amend the statutes to allow for the governor to name a place-holder Senator in that event, until a special election can occur.

Kennedy is not the selfish one here.

...the health care legislation will happen before that.


Your OP is misguided.

Yes, I did post about here on DU, got the same reactions. That it should be up to him.

Just my opinion.

but the entire tone of the OP is just .... wrong.

have you posted anything here about Al Franken?

Yes, I know, different things. Still, there were hundreds of posts here about him and about Coleman.

He is your senator, but his inability to vote on important issues like the stimulus package and perhaps the health reform bill - if we ever get there - affects all of us.

At least, I thought that Kennedy himself always presented himself as serving the country as a whole, not just the people of MA.

He admitted what a conservative state he lived in and what a fight to relection, so we can't have that for Senator Grassley, now can we.?

I hope they are planning as Kennedy advised. He inspires and will continue to keep inspiring. It's the way the entire family has been, tragedy after tragedy.

Grassley's re-election actually means more to him than stepping up and taking part in what would be the most revered political move in history, and therefore his legacy.

But Grassley is consumed with what too many of these sons of bitches are consumed with. POWER. Oh, he can't... or he won't... because he lives in fucking conservative Iowa, and there's nothing worse than a Republican from Iowa.

Well, isn't that too fucking bad? We're supposed to understand that Grassley's re-election trumps every other God-forsaken person who can't get health care or goes bankrupt getting it?

Grassley should be taken out and be horse whipped in a public fashion. I can't believe THIS is what we're fighting against, and what Obama is reacting to for crying out fucking loud.

Sorry. What possessed you to write such a horrible thing and attach you reputation to it?

No flaming here.

Just curiosity.

Why did you write this? What motivated you?

--DZ

how our president is still counting on Grassley; when I hear how we cave into them because we want so much "bi partisanship;" when we keep hearing about changing this and changing that and, it appears, many have no idea what's in the bill.

Many asked here: why don't we have our own in these town hall meetings? Well, we cannot defend the bill because we don't really know what's in there. All we can do is stand up and tell our personal stories of being denied coverage, of being forced into bankruptcies even with our own insurance.

We need every vote in the Senate. Now, and I don't think that anyone here believes that we will ever see Senator Kennedy at the Senate chambers again. For all I know, his absence has been part of the Republicans game plan.

He has been in the seat for half a century. Should not that be where it ends?