Kennedy's Death and the Push for Legislation

From the moment that Sen. Edward Kennedy passed away, we’ve been told by conservative blogs and talk radio to watch out for any sign of Democrats “inappropriately” using Kennedy’s death as a call to arms to get the health care bill he worked on for the last year of his life passed. Of course, “we shouldn’t play politics with this” is itself the oldest political trick in the book. In this case, however, it’s also as dumb a statement as one can make. Ted spent most of the last year of his life focusing on one cause and one cause only – universal health care. Remembering Ted Kennedy and not mentioning health care is like remembering Michael Jackson and omitting that he was a musician.

Having watched Sen. Kennedy’s funeral, the one moment that could possibly be interpreted as advocacy for health care reform this year was also one of the least political moments – the reading of his letter before his death to Pope Benedict XVI. Ted’s own personal, intimate words to the head of his faith were as follows: “I also want you to know that even though I am ill, I'm committed to do everything I can to achieve access to health care for everyone in my country. This has been the political cause of his life.” Likewise, you can peruse Ted’s public writings from this year, and discover they’re all on health care – from his op-ed “Health bill would fix what’s broken” in the Boston Globe to his front-page editorial for Newsweek, “The Cause of My Life.” Moreover, all of the decisions Ted made for what was sadly his final year in the Senate were entirely focused on health care – from resigning his seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee (missing entirely the confirmation hearings for Justice Sonia Sotomayor) to the closed-door sessions with all stakeholders in the health care industry that began last year, to his too, too few public appearances being the confirmation hearings for Tom Daschle as Secretary of HHS and the White House Summit on Health Reform.

The man was only working on one issue and one bill in the final year of his life, one he described as, “It is a cause that knows no boundary of party, region, or philosophy. It is a cause that can and should unite us all as Americans.” To mention the cause of his life is to politicize his death?

Hearing this false concern spring up, I couldn’t help but think of the death of one of Ted’s older brothers – John F. Kennedy. When new President Lyndon Johnson addressed both houses of Congress on November 27, 1963, there was no attempt to discuss the life of JFK in a neutral way, as if to pretend the battles he had fought all year were unimportant:

First, no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law…

In short, this is no time for delay. It is a time for action--strong, forward-looking action on the pending education bills to help bring the light of learning to every home and hamlet in America--strong, forward-looking action on youth employment opportunities; strong, forward-looking action on the pending foreign aid bill, making clear that we are not forfeiting our responsibilities to this hemisphere or to the world, nor erasing Executive flexibility in the conduct of our foreign affairs--and strong, prompt, and forward-looking action on the remaining appropriation bills.

And you know what? That’s exactly what we did. It was not at all inappropriate, and it served as the fitting legacy of a great man. For men and women who have devoted their life to a cause like public service, it only diminishes their accomplishments to pretend the cause of their career is but inconsequential politics.

History is silent on the "appropriateness" of Johnson's speech.  All it remembers is how a great injustice finally began to be solved.

(Photo credit:  thesmuggler on Flickr.)