Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said Monday that Americans shouldn't be "guilted" into passing health care reform because of the death of Sen. Ted...
The trial balloon launched yesterday by Kennedy friends Chris Dodd and Orrin Hatch isn't going anywhere. A solid source assures me that Vicki Kennedy won't...
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee doubled down Sunday on controversial remarks he made last week, in which he declared that Ted Kennedy would have been...
WASHINGTON — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was laid to rest Saturday night alongside slain brothers John and Robert on hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery,...
BOSTON — President Barack Obama has arrived in Boston to deliver the eulogy at Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's funeral. The president and first lady Michelle...
Ted Kennedy devoted his lifetime to protecting those most in need, and tens of millions of Americans have been the beneficiaries. His absence from the Senate leaves an enormous void.
Bob Collier is about the best example of an "everyman" you can find in this country. There's just one problem: He and his wife have voted Republican consistently since 1980.
If Kennedy gets his wish -- that Massachusetts alters its succession law to allow an appointee to serve until the special election -- his wife Vicki is the only logical choice, cries of nepotism be damned.
No one in all of America's great history got more tangible things that mattered accomplished for the American people. On issue after issue, Ted Kennedy was at the center of the debate.
It does seem like the August doldrums are renewing the progressive appetite for pushing Obama -- even the House Progressive Caucus is starting to channel its inner Evan Bayh and actually threaten to withhold votes.
Typically, you could tell that Kennedy was coming down the hall because he was grumbling at someone or talking to his large dog, a Portuguese Water Dog named Splash.
Kennedy's role in ending the Vietnam War should be honored and remembered as a unique contribution he made to serving his country in a very difficult and polarized time.
When I left Kennedy's service, I had a theory of why he kept those photographs of his family so prominently displayed in his office. So many people came and went in his life, and Ted was the constant.
From the outside, he appeared to be one of the most liberal and partisan Democrats in the Senate. From the inside, he was one of the most bipartisan and constructive members.
It's not primarily Senator Kennedy's words that make him one of the great defenders of modern liberalism. His life itself is living proof of the central liberal idea that government can help make people's lives better.
Senator Ted Kennedy loved to sing. And so it seems only fitting to make a playlist in memory of this singular American icon who did so much for so long to help so many.
If they're going to name the final healthcare reform bill after Senator Kennedy, we ought to be making legislative demands with voices as powerful and booming as the late senator's.
There are a lot of folks in the conventional wisdom, establishment-oriented Democratic circles who are trying the sell the argument that reform without a public option is still big, transformational health care reform.
Against his family history Senator Ted Kennedy never wavered from his profound commitment to public service, of his consuming desire to serve America and the public interest.
Like millions of Americans across the country mourning the death of Senator Ted Kennedy with his family and friends, I feel the loss of an icon and can't imagine American public life without him.
Obama praised Ted for modeling how to struggle intensely against your opponents, but never stooping to demonize or denounce them. Be loud. Be Raucous. Be militant. But be civil.
This is not news nor a headline. This is reality. And for the past 10 years (ages 14 to 24), I have faced the loss of young children and young adults after their own battles with cancer. Many of these individuals were very close to me.
If Obama pivots towards taxes on health care benefits, he'll find himself alone on the court with a bunch of blue dogs and bankers as teammates, while his working class fans walk away in disgust.
Most Americans will never know how many things Ted Kennedy did to make their lives better, how many things he prevented that would have hurt them, and how tenaciously he fought on their behalf.
Sen. Robert Byrd: Ted Kennedy, My Friend and Colleague: Neither years of age nor years of political combat, nor his illness, diminished the idealism and...
I will remember Ted Kennedy, not only for what he has given to our nation, but what, in the most trying of times, he gave to me -- a restored sense of belonging.
Senator Kennedy's political franchise had no rival in the legislative branch of government, and the younger brother of the Kennedy political trio may very well have been the very best "Executive Legislator" this country has ever seen.
In 2004, I had the honor of introducing Senator Kennedy as a keynote speaker at the Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference. He was warm, gracious and generous.
Research shows that Americans, when they have a chance to work through the choices in health care reform, are far more willing to make tradeoffs than town hall meetings would suggest.
Senator Kennedy's personal connection was his boundless humanity, and his recognition of ours. Already he is becoming history. Now the job of making history is in our hands.
May the memory of Kennedy's passionate and reasoned voice for health care as a right and not a privilege be the basis for extending and improving our health care system.
For Ted's decades-long fight, and the daily struggle of people like Lennie, a woman who sees her struggle over health care as more horrific than a machete attack, we must pass a "Kennedy Option."
Ted Kennedy's legacy will live on through the millions of friends he made and nurtured over the years, both in and out of politics, both in and out of the United States, and among all races, religions and nationalities.
For over four decades, Kennedy gave voice to the voiceless, refusing to let us forget about their plight. As our economic crisis threatens to turn the American Dream into a living nightmare for millions of our citizens, there is a newfound urgency to Kennedy's message. READ MORE
Lessons in Leadership: Why Obama Needs to Brush Up on His FDR President Obama, though a dedicated student of history, has failed to learn the lesson of our nation's most significant political confrontations: they've required single-minded determination and the willingness to battle entrenched opponents until the fight was won. READ MORE
You don't have to be a lover of history as Kennedy was to learn, as he did, that your own history is worth study. To not know it is to assure repetition of its less admirable parts.
WorldNetDaily has long had a symbiotic relationship with Orly Taitz, the California attorney/dentist/real estate agent who has been a lead filer of lawsuits against President Obama regarding his birth certificate.
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.
As it seemed for both my late husband, as well as the late Senator Kennedy, life with a terminal diagnosis can be infused with love, caring and gratitude for the opportunity to celebrate a full life.
Teddy never did endorse Senator Dodd for president, and I can't imagine how that may have hurt him. If it did, he never showed it to his staff -- and so people like me who worked for Dodd briefly bore a grudge that our boss would not.
Kennedy was hard-wired to care for the ordinary man. His ability to make people think about why core democratic principles matter is now gone, and it is up to others to carry it on.
Who will be the kind of leader who would stand up for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) concerns like Kennedy did? We lost a loyal friend and a powerful advocate.
Tonight Kennedy will be quietly remembered and honored in thousands of tents, huts and homes of refugees around the world who owe their lives and the lives of their children to his generous devotion to their safety and security.
Ted Kennedy survived the family curse long enough to see the birth of a new era, one that promises the kind of hope and change his brothers only dreamed of. And our country is better for it.
You knew what to expect from Teddy. Personally, his life was often a mess, but politically, he was rock solid. He stood for something. As MSNBC put it, he was the last unreconstructed liberal in the Senate.
Despite their grossest and most callow foibles and failings, among the three younger Kennedy brothers there was a deep, moral -- and literal -- concern for the nation's health.
It's a shame that our political exchange has come to this, but the GOP is preparing to pigeonhole any reference to health care at Sen. Kennedy's upcoming funeral as playing politics.
There is much talk now about carrying out the legacy of Ted Kennedy. President Obama is well positioned to fulfill Kennedy's dream of equal rights regardless of sexual orientation.
Freed from his own presidential aspirations after the 1980 primaries, Ted Kennedy was able to concentrate on taking the fight directly to Congress. In doing so, he made liberalism a legislative reality.
What I saw on a little cruise with Ted Kennedy in 1992 cannot be bought by advertising. It's the enthusiasm regular, working people feel for someone they know has their interests at heart.
Only a few have noted what Senator Kennedy himself said was the most important vote he ever cast in the U.S. Senate: his vote against the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Someone who had been receiving Social Security in 1996 would be getting about 13 percent less in their monthly check today. Senator Kennedy protected the financial security of millions.
Laura Ingraham says she sure hopes no one politicizes the memory of Ted Kennedy, after his 47 years in politics. The end of a man's life is no time for his friends to talk about his ideas.
It is important that those close--immediately close--to a person that has given up the ghost have an opportunity to engage in a baggage-releasing grief process, so that life can go on as the great spirit intended.
It is also important that all those people--immediate and distant--also participate in an appropriate and congruent time to process real grief as well.
It is equally as important that everybody is not held hostage, cloyed into a loop of endless sentimentalities because a few, working from a personal shaky scaffold, demand that the process is for them too precious to be relinquished.
Think of clinging as interruption of process.
This is perhaps the phenomenon of the Irish wake.
A misconstruing of the wake process depicts getting drunk as the grief process--releasing inhibitions during the service process, but this is really not the process. Without grieving, getting drunk arrests and prohibits letting go. Getting drunk AFTER shared ritualistic grieving is the proper process, a general sweeping up, and the getting drunk--the releasing of inhibitions--addresses many of the odds and bits of individual inhibition, heretofore referred to as baggage.
I think of how Ted would have laughed at the cartoons, where others are too encumbered with those personal things that would prohibit themselves from doing so.
Ted, we loved you. We grieve your loss, but, after embracing our sadness and pain at your passing, will let you proceed, as we must.
Fare well, Ted.
Farewell.
Jay_Lewis: It is important that those close--immediately close--to a person that
I would be insulted if people didn't laugh at my funeral - life is hard enough to not laugh at it - if after a long and fulfilling life my firends can't have a good laugh over my coffin then the whole thing would have been a waste. Never too soon to laugh at a funeral.
Octoberluna: I would be insulted if people didn't laugh at my
I know this is supposed to be funny, but it doesn't work for me. Maybe I've been to too many funerals lately, but I read some of these people as honestly sad in the same way that I am when a friend dies.
pammiethekid: I know this is supposed to be funny, but it
RT @sophiabush A step in the right direction. Nice. RT @HuffingtonPost: Target launches gay pride t-shirt line to benefit LGBT group http://t.co/rx8jaenw
It is also important that all those people--immediate and distant--also participate in an appropriate and congruent time to process real grief as well.
It is equally as important that everybody is not held hostage, cloyed into a loop of endless sentimentalities because a few, working from a personal shaky scaffold, demand that the process is for them too precious to be relinquished.
Think of clinging as interruption of process.
This is perhaps the phenomenon of the Irish wake.
A misconstruing of the wake process depicts getting drunk as the grief process--releasing inhibitions during the service process, but this is really not the process. Without grieving, getting drunk arrests and prohibits letting go. Getting drunk AFTER shared ritualistic grieving is the proper process, a general sweeping up, and the getting drunk--the releasing of inhibitions--addresses many of the odds and bits of individual inhibition, heretofore referred to as baggage.
I think of how Ted would have laughed at the cartoons, where others are too encumbered with those personal things that would prohibit themselves from doing so.
Ted, we loved you. We grieve your loss, but, after embracing our sadness and pain at your passing, will let you proceed, as we must.
Fare well, Ted.
Farewell.
Life's way too important to take seriously, death is less important