Ted Kennedy’s Instant Legacy
posted at 4:47 pm on August 26, 2009 by Howard Portnoy
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As one who normally would avoid going after a even the most calculating politician within hours of his death, I wrote — and then thought better of and trashed — an unflattering post on Ted Kennedy, who lost his battle last night to brain cancer. Then I started reading “Best of the Web Today,” as is my wont, and there, as the opener, was an item on the very topic I had discarded. If a potential topic passes James Taranto’s smell test, then it passes mine. So here, freshly reconstructed from my memory, is my post on Kennedy, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
* * *
Exactly one week ago today, the Boston Globe featured an article that begins as follows:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a poignant acknowledgment of his mortality at a critical time in the national health care debate, has privately asked the governor and legislative leaders to change the succession law to guarantee that Massachusetts will not lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant.
In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Kennedy asks that Patrick be given authority to appoint someone to the seat temporarily before voters choose a new senator in a special election.
The “special election” the article refers was written into Massachusetts state law in 2004. The law took the authority to choose a successor to either of the Bay State’s U.S. Senators out of the hands of the Governor and into those of the state’s electorate. At the time the law was written, the governor of Massachusetts was Mitt Romney, a Republican, and one of the two Senators, John Kerry, was running for president. The law was specifically designed to prevent Romney from choosing a Republican to fill Kerry’s seat in the event Kerry was elected.
Guess who was one of the authors of this law that Ted Kennedy was so eager, in his last days of life, to see changed? You got it: None other than Ted Kennedy.
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I was thinking the same thing earlier.
Sen. Edward Kennedy’s legacy is likely to be a demonstration of the truth that Democrats are not willing to play by the same rules (or laws) they demand Republicans follow.
malclave on August 26, 2009 at 5:20 PM
I vote that they just say the hell with it, appoint Princess Caroline to Uncle Teddy’s seat, and not even bother with the special election. For that matter, just do away with the regular elections altogether and make it a lifetime appointment.
The sad thing is, I’ll bet a LOT of Mass. voters would happily go along with that.
Gator Country on August 26, 2009 at 7:29 PM
Dedicated to Big Ted Kennedy:
Big Ted’s dead , he was a great old pig
He’d eat most anything, never wore a wig
Now he’s gone like snow on the water, good bye
He was getting old so the farmer said
“Sold him to the butcher just to make a little bread”
Now he’s gone like snow on the water, don’t cry
Ted may be a moo cow next time around
Giving sweet milk to the people in the town
He’ll be whatever he will choose on air or sea or ground
The sows are busy with the piglets fine
I’d put them in the forest now if they were mine
cause I know they like acorns and I don’t like bacon
Boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy
Squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly
Boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy
Sham sham sharoo, oh sham sham sharoo
Big Ted’s sold and gone
He came into the kitchen while we were away
He took all the rice and he forgot to pay
He´s gone like snow on the water, good bye
He never cared to do the boogaloo dance
All he ever thought about was food and romance
And he’s gone like snow on the water, good bye
Ted may be a moo cow next time around
Giving sweet milk to the people in the town
He’ll be whatever he will choose on air or sea or ground
The sows are busy with the piglets fine
I’d put them in the forest now if they were mine
cause I know they like acorns and I don’t like bacon
Boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy
Squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly, squidly
Boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy, boochy
Sham sham sharoo, oh sham sham sharoo
Big Ted’s sold and gone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxuH0dwalEg
Daggett on August 26, 2009 at 7:59 PM
Good bye, Ted.
I’ll miss your drunken singing at DemCon.
I’ll miss nothing else.
To borrow from Rush, if Teddy was the lion of the senate, the we’re the gazelles…
Mew
acat on August 26, 2009 at 8:42 PM