“While the deep concern of a woman bearing an unwanted child merits consideration and sympathy, it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life. Wanted or unwanted, I believe that human life, even at its earliest stages, has certain rights which much be recognized--the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old…When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception.”
Ted Kennedy, August 3, 1971
I am not from Massachusetts and never bought into the Kennedy mystique. He was, at the end of the day, a politician – and one who, like the example above shows, flip flopped as much as any other. He cared about the environment, but opposed putting a wind farm off Nantucket Sound. When his fellow Massachusetts senator John Kerry was close to winning the presidency in 2004, he got his home state to change the law to make sure the then-Republican governor couldn’t appoint anyone to the position, but on his deathbed tried to change the very law he championed when a Democrat was governor. His drinking and sexual indulgences lasted into his 50s. And you could argue that Kennedy’s crusade against Robert Bork in 1987 set the stage for the hyperpartisan gnashing and voting that greets any Supreme Court nominee today.
Why then, will I miss Ted Kennedy? Well, first as a selfish Massachusetts resident Kennedy certainly had the chops to bring both the pork and bacon home to his constituents. But most importantly – and unlike his late brothers – Kennedy spent his career in the Senate and understood the art of compromise and the importance of deal-making in order to get things accomplished. The best advice I ever heard on negotiating was if someone offers you at least 51% of what you want, take it. Kennedy grasped this, and was unafraid to cross the aisles to work with Republicans to get him at least more than halfway to his eventual goal. I would divide Kennedy’s life in half. The first is pre-1980, when he literally got away with murder, was more known for boozing than legislating and embarked on a truly misguided presidential campaign and one of the most liberal convention speeches in history that gave Reagan the election on a silver platter.
But afterward, Kennedy became the new Henry Clay. He never renounced his liberalism but always strove to get things accomplished. Instead of going for the Hail Mary touchdown pass of liberalism he described in his convention speech, perhaps the 1980 campaign and election seemed to awaken the understanding that going yard by yard was a better way to get things done. Much has been written about how universal health care was his lifelong goal. That was never achieved – and it seems increasingly unlikely it will be achieved again this year. But look at Kennedy’s incremental health care accomplishments – Americans with Disabilities Act, SCHIP, COBRA, the National Institute of Health and the National Cancer Institute. Those are impressive accomplishments that not only extend the liberal notion of health care access but are causes that nobody could refute.
And if you look not only at those accomplishments, but also at Kennedy’s more recent achievements like No Child Left Behind and the immigration bill that did not become law, you notice they were all bipartisan. Most were also achieved with people like John McCain, Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum – Republicans who also understood the art of the deal and the importance of compromise.
It’s a sad comparison to the state of Congress today, where both parties are headed by rabid hyperpartisans unversed in dealmaking and wanting an all-or-nothing approach. Much has been said that if Kennedy were still able to attend Senate hearings the last few months, a health care bill would have been passed. I would say that if Kennedy were still around, he’d be working on a compromise with Republican colleagues that would ensure something effective would be passed. It would probably not be everything the president wants, but it would be at least 51% of it.
More Info: Some people have said Kennedy is burning in hell. I haven’t seen such blind partisan hatred for the departed since, well, since liberals hoped Jerry Falwell was burning in hell.
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