A Liberal Lion, RIP Teddy.

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

UPDATED: I SUGGEST WE NAME THE SINGLE-PAYER BILL STILL FLOATING OUT THERE AFTER TEDDY!!!!!

Name HR 676 “Kennedy Expanded Medicare Bill”

Its a cold rain falling.

Ted Kennedy passed overnight.

A 2002 tribute in The Nation seems so very poignant and fitting, I offer the link and a quote from it.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/2…

Now, forty years later, Ted Kennedy looks like the best and most effective senator of the past hundred years. He has followed the counsel of his first Senate tutor, Phil Hart of Michigan, who told him you can accomplish anything in Washington if you give others the credit. Kennedy has drafted and shaped more landmark legislation than liberal giants like Robert Wagner, Hubert Humphrey, Estes Kefauver and Herbert Lehmann. He has survived tragedy and scandal, endured presidential defeat, right-wing demonization, ridicule by TV comics. Now, at 70, he has evolved into a joyous Job.

Universal Health Care was one of his biggest dreams, and God, how I wish he was here and well enough to fight those fights, call in those chips and rekindle the alliances that could make that happen.

This was a man who lived in shadows, the shadows of familial tragedy that I understand so well, the deaths, the canonization of ‘perfected’ siblings, the living can never quite live up to…

..and yet he found it in himself, to just do the JOB, fight the fight for liberal causes, giving up Presidential Hopes to do so at ground level. He found his joy in allowing others to take the limelight and credit for his ideas.

I am equally certain we will hear a renewed round of Chappaquiddick judgmental criticisms. I have this to say about that: Unless you have lived through anything remotely involving life or death and been in actual SHOCK, you have no idea what you yourself would do. I have seen sane and logical people make illogical choices and barely remember them after. This strange biological flight instinct when action is called for is heightened when people have the disease of alcoholism, another battle he won. It was horrific, yes, but not intentional. Worse yet, he knew damn well the right was trying to kill him, and he ran. I forgive this man, as I have forgiven others around me.

Teddy, I honor thee.

You were an Ordinary Hero, beyond your brothers, for enduring the uglier spotlight their brief lives created for you, and yet you persevered. A lesser man would have gone to the retreat of a private life, not chosen to serve, serve, serve anyway.

God bless and god speed.