I don’t really have much to say. I would like to note the passing of the Lion of the Senate, however. Ted Kennedy is dead. As Drudge writes, Camelot has ended:
U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party who took the helm of one of America’s most fabled political families after two older brothers were assassinated, died at age 77, his family said.
Kennedy had brain cancer, which was diagnosed in May 2008. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, near this graves of his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy.
He was one of the most influential and longest-serving senators in U.S. history, a liberal standard-bearer who recovered politically from a string of personal scandals to become known as a consummate congressional dealmaker.
Kennedy’s death marked the twilight of a political dynasty and dealt a blow to Democrats who lost their chief champion of President Barack Obama’s call for an overhaul of the healthcare system.
Is that what it will come down to? A funeral that turns into a political rally, a renewed call for socialized medicine? For those that remember the Wellstone funeral, you know it isn’t below the Democrats to turn a memorial into something more than a memorial.
Pelosi is already using it:
vowed Wednesday to push through embattled health reform legislation this year following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, who called the effort “the cause of my life”.
“Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Sen. Robert Byrd is also politicizing the death, calling for the heath care reform bill to be named after Kennedy:
In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.
Never let a crisis to go waste…or the death of a political legend, liberal icon and colleague.
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