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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Thursday, August 27, 2009

The Politics Of A Giant's Passing 

...aside from the fact that this particular Politico story fails at the fundamental analysis level on the subject of why Norm Coleman ended up being the Junior Senator of Minnesota for one term, there are interesting nuggets to chew on with regard to the never-right wings response to the passing of Edward Kennedy...

Wingers are in a tight spot right at this moment. They rightfully feel they are on the right side of the media narrative in their efforts to kill health care reform, but they are now faced with the passing of one of the most aggressively passionate liberal voices of the Senate and a new, respectful impetus for his decades-long push for the sorts of reforms to the health care/insurance situation in this country that would leave your average Blue Dog Democrat flailing around on his hands and knees like a feed-lot steer...

So the political war game is on, with the first salvos fired by the right wing punditocracy. They are already saying that it would somehow defame the legacy of Edward Kennedy to do the very sort of thing that he advocated doing for over four decades. They are already saying that tying Ted Kennedy's name to any sort of meaningful health care reform that would be found unsuitable to their corporate masters is somehow a blasphemy to his name and legacy, even though the most casual evaluation of Kennedy's efforts demonstrate that the current discussion of health care options falls far short of the place he wanted to be. In their desperate effort to disconnect Kennedy's efforts and his passing from the current health care debate, the wingers have finally tipped their hand and demostrated that 'fail' is their desired outconme....

Ted Kennedy's passing is just about the worst thing that could happen to the Republican opponents to health care reform. His battle against brain cancer humanized the whole debate in a way that they have been trying to downplay for a couple of decades. The Republican party leadership (that would be the talking heads, since there is no leadership in the elected cohort of the Republican party) is doing its best to invoke the wrong-headed and misguided image of the failed reporting of the Wellstone memorial for no better reason than the fact that they think the same sort of commentary worked to win the day back in 2002...

These are different days. Jesse Ventura isn't Governor: Norm Coleman isn't lurking in the wings; and there isn't any question about the incumbent Senator's views on the subject that is stimulating all the discussion about naming rights or legacy. It's a bit ironic, I suppose, that the same people who want to pretend that Ronald Reagan is still alive are so quick to dismiss a far more accomplished public figure from the other side of the fence...but that's what the politics of a Giant's passing looks like anymore...
Posted by: Jack K. / 8:25 PM 0 comments

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