Ted Kennedy on The Huffington Post

Arianna Huffington: The Senate Health Care Bill: Leave No Special Interest Behind

2009-12-21T19:15:37Z

With Monday morning's 1 a.m. 60-40 vote, the Senate's health care bill took another step towards passage, prompting a fresh round of public celebrations. "I think it's very exciting," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told HuffPost. "It's a big day."

Even many of those with serious reservations about the bill were slipping on their party hats. "Make no mistake about it," said SEIU president Andy Stern, "for working Americans, this vote signals progress."

And Paul Krugman, while calling the legislation "a seriously flawed bill we'll spend years if not decades fixing," applauded it as "an awesome achievement."

This typifies the current thinking of the "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" crowd. Unfortunately, there are three faulty premises at work in this line of reasoning. First, that those who oppose the bill do so because it's not perfect (as opposed to because it's a hot health care mess). Second, that the bill is, well, good (as opposed to a total victory for Pharma and the insurance industry -- witness the spectacular spike in health care stocks following Monday's vote).

Third is the premise that this is as good a bill as we can get right now, and we can always go back and improve it later.

It doesn't work that way. We heard the same kinds of sentiments about No Child Left Behind when it passed in 2001. Backers on both sides of the aisle had problems with it, but both sides celebrated it as a major step forward -- and promised to make it better in the future.

"The agreement we reached reflects the best thinking of both sides," said Sen. Joe Lieberman.

"This was a reform bill. We can't have reform without resources, and that will be the next step," said Sen. Tom Daschle.

"This is a good bill... And there are going to be many additional steps that will be necessary along the way, but all of us are committed to following in those steps," said Sen. Ted Kennedy, the primary Democratic co-sponsor of the bill.

But despite the widespread commitment to taking the "many additional steps" needed, the steps were never taken, the resources were never allocated, the bill was never improved, and, indeed, is now generally regarded as a disaster (or, as Bill Clinton put it last year, "a train wreck").

In an ominous sign of things to come, Vicki Reggie Kennedy, Sen. Kennedy's widow, made many of the same arguments that were used in support of No Child Left Behind in her Washington Post op-ed promoting passage of the current health care bill.

It's a moving piece of writing -- and nobody doubts her late husband's heartfelt dedication to health care reform. But nobody doubted his dedication to education reform, either.

If the miserable Senate health care bill becomes the law of the land, it's only going to encourage the preservation of a hideously broken system. Just how broken the system is is summed up in the fate of Byron Dorgan's drug re-importation amendment.

This is an idea that Obama co-sponsored when he was in the Senate and unequivocally championed on the campaign trail: "We'll allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada."

But when Dorgan introduced an amendment that would do just that, the White House, sticking to the deal it made with the pharmaceutical industry, lobbied against it -- and the commissioner of the supposedly non-political FDA just happened to release a letter citing "significant safety concerns" about all those dangerous drugs from Canada. Big Pharma's many congressional lackeys trumpeted the letter and the amendment was killed.

But that didn't stop David Axelrod from insisting in an interview with John King this weekend that "the president supports safe re-importation of drugs into this country. There's no reason why Americans should pay a premium for the pharmaceuticals that people in other countries pay less for."

No reason other than our broken system surrendering to the special interests.

From start to finish, the insurance and drug industries -- and their army of lobbyists -- had control over the process that resulted in a bill that is reform in name only. The postmortems of how they pulled it off have already begun. On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune published an exhaustive front-page analysis by Northwestern University's Medill News Service and the Center for Responsive Politics of how it was done. The main culprit: "a revolving door between Capitol Hill staffers and lobbying jobs for companies with a stake in health care legislation."

The study found that 13 former congressmen and 166 congressional staffers were actively engaged in lobbying their former colleagues on the bill. The companies they were working for -- some 338 of them -- spent $635 million on lobbying. It was money extremely well spent -- delivering a bill that, by forcing people to buy a shoddy product in a market with no real competition, enshrines into law the public subsidy of private profit.

As we approach the end of Obama's first year in office, this public subsidizing of private profit is becoming something of a habit. It is, after all, exactly what the White House did with the banks. Just as he did with insurance companies, Obama talked tough to the bankers in public but, when push came to shove, he ended up shoving public money onto their privately-held balance sheets.

This is not just bad policy, it's bad politics.

Sharp-eyed opponents are already seizing on the opportunity to rebrand Obama and the Democrats as the party beholden to special interests.

Sunday night, just before the post-midnight vote was taken, John McCain took to the Senate floor and, hearkening back to his days as a crusader for campaign finance reform, lambasted Obama and the Democrats' "negotiations with the special interests," adding: "We should have set up a tent out in front and put Persian rugs in front of it. That's the way that this has been conducted. So the special interests were taken care of, then we had to take care of special senators."

This kind of populist rhetoric resonates with voters across the board, including independents. If Democrats cede this turf by celebrating a bill that is a victory for special interests and special senators, look for a lot more of this kind of rhetoric in the run-up to 2010.

President Bush brought us preemptive war. President Obama's specialty seems to be preemptive compromise. He gave the farm away to Pharma, and then had to keep on giving when Lieberman, Nelson, and the other industry-backed Senators came calling.

There are many reasons for hoping the current Senate bill doesn't become law. But the biggest reason of all is the desperate need for a DC pattern interrupt. The desperate need to draw a line in the sand against the continued domination of our democracy -- and the continued undermining of the public interest -- by special interests.

Victoria Reggie Kennedy's Op-Ed: What Ted Kennedy Would Say About Health Care Bill

2009-12-18T22:39:20Z

My late husband, Ted Kennedy, was passionate about health-care reform. It was the cause of his life. He believed that health care for all our citizens was a fundamental right, not a privilege, and that this year the stars -- and competing interests -- were finally aligned to allow our nation to move forward with fundamental reform. He believed that health-care reform was essential to the financial stability of our nation's working families and of our economy as a whole.

Jeff Blattner: Senator Kennedy: Missing "The Closer" on Health Care Reform

2009-12-17T15:15:05Z

In this holiday season, there are lots of people in Washington thinking about Senator Kennedy -- not just because of the legendary Christmas parties featuring the Senator's hilarious performances as Fawn Hall, Elvis, Batman, and the Beast (with Vicki as the Beauty, of course) to name a few - but because his passing has made the final stages of passing health care reform legislation so much more difficult. By virtue of his many decades fighting on behalf of liberal causes, the Senator had the unique ability to compromise with his moderate and conservative colleagues and to persuade his liberal allies that the compromise deserved their support.

Here's but one of many examples: In the early 1990s, there was a bitter fight over civil rights legislation to overrule a series of Supreme Court decisions and extend protections for women who had been the victims of harassment on the job. President George H.W. Bush had labeled the measure a "quota bill" and vetoed it in 1990. Senator Kennedy (and Senator Jack Danforth (R-Mo)) tried again in 1991, and eventually forced the Bush Administration to the bargaining table. In a late-night session in Senator Bob Dole's office, Kennedy and Danforth negotiated a few modest compromises with Dole and then-White House Chief of Staff John Sununu in exchange for President Bush's grudging support.

As soon as the final compromise was agreed to, Senator Kennedy got on the phone late in the evening -- to Senate colleagues, the House Democratic leadership, and key civil rights leaders -- to explain the compromise and head off liberal opposition. The next morning, he met with civil rights leaders shortly after dawn and then walked to the House side of the Capitol and met with civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga) and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus to personally take them through the compromise and secure their support. Despite some grumbling among more liberal members, he succeeded, securing key civil rights protections that remain in place to this day.

Today, there is a revolt brewing on the Democratic Left to the impending compromise on health care legislation, a compromise compelled by the Senate's rules and the differing politics of Red and Blue State Democrats. In Senator Kennedy's absence, there is no one with his credibility, experience, and stature to make the last compromise and persuade his liberal allies not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

That's one reason why I imagine that his former colleagues in the Senate, and one former Senate colleague now living in the White House, are lamenting Senator Kennedy's absence yet again.

Rep. Capuano Tells Fellow Dems: 'You're Screwed'

2009-12-15T12:03:05Z

When House Democrats gathered on Friday for their end-of-the week caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol, caucus chairman John Larson (D-Conn.) told the group he wanted them to hear first from Rep. Michael Capuano, who'd just returned from a primary campaign for the Senate seat in Massachusetts vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy.

Larson asked Capuano, who finished in second place, to share the wisdom he learned on the campaign trail.

Capuano took to the microphone, looked out at his colleagues and condensed what he'd learned into two words. "You're screwed," he told his friends in the House, according to one attendee. The room's silence was broken only by soft, nervous laughter.

Capuano confirmed the gist of the message -- "I'm not sure of the exact wording," he told HuffPost, chuckling -- and said that he doubted his wisdom was anything they didn't already know.

"I think I was just confirming stuff they already knew," he said. "I focused on two things: the war in Afghanistan and jobs."

Everywhere Capuano went in his state, he said, he was bombarded with demands that the government do more to create jobs. He was also greeted by deep skepticism about Obama's escalation of the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Capuano said he told the caucus that opponents of the war need to be given a chance to vote against funding for it on the House floor.

"If we do anything [on the war], we need to have a separate vote on it. People who can vote for it, can vote for it. But those of us who want to vote against it, [should] be given that opportunity, too," he said. "But I focused mostly on jobs. People are tired of the promises of jobs. They need them now."

He said voters were less interested in tax credits than they were in direct money for jobs. He asked one crowd if it thought that a town could start hiring people within a month if it was given a million dollars on the condition it begin employing people -- the crowd was certain it could.

After the event, a top finance official from the town approached him. "Not only could I do it in 30 days, I could do it in a week," she said.

Democratic leadership in the House is still working on a jobs bill. Larson told a handful of reporters on Monday that it would likely include roughly $70 billion and focus on infrastructure, aid to state and local governments, and extending unemployment and COBRA health insurance subsidies for the jobless.

The bill, however, is likely to be tied to a defense appropriations bill that is scheduled to be taken up before year's end. "That's the last train leaving Clarksville" said Larson, reasoning that attaching it to money for war was the only way to get it done before the end of the year.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, told reporters Tuesday that short-term extensions of unemployment and COBRA will be attached to the defense bill.

In effect, that requires members of Congress to back a war they oppose in order to get funding for jobs, a bargain many are loath to make, but one they've made over and over since Democrats rook control of Congress following the 2006 midterm elections -- which were decided largely by voters fed up with the war in Iraq.

Miller said that the larger jobs package will be decoupled from the war bill and voted on before the House recesses on Wednesday. No figure for the total spending has been finalized, he said. It'll then be sent to the Senate. "Obviously, we believe it has to be addressed. It'll be there. They can take it up. I hope they will," he said. "Speculating on the Senate is a very bad profession."

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), in an interview with two reporters in his office late last week, argued that Democrats were better prepared to withstand a Republican wave than they were in 1994, because they see this one coming.

"Unlike '94, nobody's having anything sneak up on them. Nobody in this House believes this next election is a slam dunk, which means they're out raising money, they're out in their districts -- working hard, communicating on jobs and getting the economy moving," he said. "And all of that, in my opinion, augurs well for a Democratic Party."

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Carly Simon: Khazei, Karzai and My Lost Leaves

2009-12-10T16:57:41Z

Who took my leaves?

Really, while I was in NY, who took my leaves?

I can't believe it. Someone took them and they didn't leave even a note to tell me. The things people don't tell you.

For example, I was in the voting booth Tuesday night in Vineyard Haven, Mass., and no one had told me that I couldn't go to vote with my blustery dog in tow. No one had told me I shouldn't ever go to the polls with masses of ignorance leading me to the open area where I was to draw those first grade perfect lines between the candidate and the Party that he or she is representing.

I hadn't been prepared for no one telling me what to do.

Usually I have managers and agents, mothers and politicos, newspapers and governesses telling me, "don't forget to vote today," followed by corner-group discussions evaluating the details of what would appear on the ballot.

I hadn't been a part of one of these discussions and without warning, after Christmas shopping in town for three hours, my dear friend, Tamara W. said, "I'm going to vote on my way home, but I'm so tired."

"YOU'RE tired?????? What about me? I've just spent more than I can afford to spend, and I am exhausted and I had no idea it was election day." I had returned to the Vineyard in time to see a few signs along my country road, most of them spelling out the name of the President of Afghanistan. I didn't question it. I thought it was the same strangeness behind the force that took my leaves. Karzai was going to live on that piece of land that the sign was stuck into the ground upon. Not to worry. Back to trying to find the classical music station on the radio.

"You have to vote for Khazei," said my friend emphatically. Yes, certainly, she had it wrong too. I told her he was the President of Afghanistan and she just laughed. I told her he was going to live on my road and she and I both laughed. Laughed, but she didn't tell me I was wrong and that it wasn't Karzai, it was Alan Khazei, from Massachusetts. He was a politician who was running for the seat that Kennedy had unwittingly vacated when he died. She just assumed I was kidding. I was sure SHE was having me on.

Of course Karzai was running and now I knew for certain. Why not? (Only now do I remember the Martha Coakley signs. Real Estate agent?) But all these signs were not enough to bring me down to Earth from the tiny little space in my brain that was so challenged by the tiny little details of my overly detailed life. Who took my leaves?

The trees are nearly denuded.

So, with another friend, Judy B., who stood right next to me and talked me through a series of mind boggling local fire station issues in our town, I voted. She also reassured me when I questioned her, that of course we were voting for the President of Afghanistan! Judy B. has never not had a sense of humor and a general preference for the ridiculous. It was inspiring!

I read in the paper today that Martha Coakley won. That's good. That would have been fine all along. Either would have been fine, what with the cards I was playing with... and still worrying over the leaves.

Coakley Wins Democratic Race For Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat

2009-12-08T20:57:32Z

BOSTON — The relatively quiet campaign to fill the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat was matched by equally light turnout Tuesday as voters picked two state politicians to face off in next month's general election.

Attorney General Martha Coakley won a four-way race for the Democratic nomination, while state Sen. Scott Brown bested a perennial candidate to win the Republican nomination.

SLIDESHOW: Kennedy Wisdom In Esquire

2009-12-08T19:28:12Z

Marking the end of a 70-year dynasty: wisdom and advice from JFK, RFK, and Ted, much of it recently uncovered, surprising, and as you've rarely heard them before

Massachusetts Senate Primary: The Democratic, Republican Contenders To Replace Ted Kennedy

2009-12-08T13:45:53Z

(AP/Huffington Post) -- Massachusetts voters on Tuesday began the process of selecting a replacement for the man who represented them in the U.S. Senate for nearly half a century.

Four Democrats, from political insiders to newcomers, and two Republicans were competing in their party primaries for the opportunity to fill the seat held by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who died of brain cancer in August at age 77, since 1962. The winners will face off in a Jan. 19 general election.

Kennedy's widow, Vicki, called each of the Democratic candidates early Tuesday to wish them well, an aide said. His family has been careful not to endorse any one candidate.

Because the Massachusetts electorate is heavily Democratic, the winner of today's Democratic primary is considered to be the substantial favorite in the general election set for January 2010.

Below, take a look at the candidates and vote on who you'd like to fill Kennedy's seat.

Attorney General Martha Coakley, who led in preprimary public opinion polls, started her day by voting at a school near her Medford home. U.S Rep. Michael Capuano voted at the Somerville Department of Public Works garage. City Year co-founder Alan Khazei voted in Brookline, and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca voted at a Weston school.

State Sen. Scott Brown, the leading Republican candidate, voted in his hometown of Wrentham, then hit the phones to call supporters. The other Republican in the race, Jack E. Robinson, voted by absentee ballot two weeks ago and started his day by greeting commuters at North and South stations in Boston, an aide said.

Voters were doing something they had not done in Massachusetts since 1984: vote in a U.S. Senate race with no incumbent.

Not since Paul Tsongas decided to step down after a cancer diagnosis have they had the chance to fill a Senate seat with a newcomer. John Kerry, who went on to be the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nominee, won that race and every re-election since.

Kennedy's seat has been held on an interim basis by Paul G. Kirk Jr., a Kennedy friend and the former Democratic National Committee chairman. He will step down when his replacement is sworn in.

The campaign was notable for its lack of drama.

"I think the candidates have acquitted themselves well," said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University. "In a very short period of time, they have offered intelligent and reasoned campaign stands, and they've competed vigorously."

Coakley, 56, targeted women and abortion rights supporters. Her last-minute pitch included prerecorded robocalls from former President Bill Clinton, who said, "You can trust her to get results in the Senate just as she has as your attorney general."

Brown, 50, is an attorney, lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard and triathlete who has carved out a decidedly more conservative record. While Coakley opposes sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, Brown supports President Barack Obama's buildup. He also gained some notoriety as the father of an "American Idol" contestant and for his nude centerfold in Cosmo when he was in college.

Capuano, 57, is a six-term congressman who targeted the relatively small crowd of party loyalists by highlighting his votes against the USA Patriot Act and the war in Iraq.
Khazei, 48, is a political newcomer who started the youth activism program City Year and other civic engagement programs.

Pagliuca, 54, also is a first-time political candidate. He made a fortune estimated at $400 million by working at the private equity and venture capital firms that enriched 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

The 49-year-old Robinson has become a perennial candidate after unsuccessful Senate, House and secretary of state campaigns.

A Boston Globe survey last month found Coakley leading Capuano 43 percent to 22 percent among likely voters, but it also found that only about a quarter of respondents said they had definitely settled on a candidate. Another quarter said they were leaning toward a candidate, while half described themselves as uncertain.

A Suffolk University poll last month found Brown leading Robinson 45 percent to 7 percent, with 47 percent undecided.

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John R. Bohrer: Would Mike Huckabee Find Mike Huckabee Disgusting?

2009-12-01T15:06:01Z

There ought to be sympathy for Mike Huckabee.

He was vested with the power to free convicted criminals, and one of them appears to have committed a crime so despicable it's almost surreal: gunning down four uniformed police officers simultaneously. What an awful thing to happen -- and surely Mike Huckabee will be haunted by regret and sorrow for his decision to release the suspected shooter in 2001.

But for now, Huckabee is disgusted by some in the pundit business -- many on the right -- who are attacking his clemency decision. "It is disgusting," he told Joe Scarborough, "but people use anything as a political weapon."

Agreed. It is disgusting. But the attacks of late aren't the only things mucking up the political arena.

There was that time in August, when Ted Kennedy had been dead for only about 48 hours, when Huckabee wondered aloud on his radio show that if Democrats had their way on health care reform, whether someone with Kennedy's brain cancer would have been told to "give up on life and go home to take pain pills and die?"

Huckabee was fishing for his great rhetorical extremity in the Republicans' silly season of August. He succeeded in drawing attention and rebuffed those who cried foul on his weekly Fox News show: "I pointed out that when Senator Kennedy was diagnosed with terminal cancer he chose to fight with all that was within him and to do that for life, instead of choosing the pain pill that President Obama spoke of."

That was a lie -- one that insinuated that the sick and elderly might be put to death or forced to suffer under his Democratic opponents' plan. Would Huckabee consider that kind of fear-mongering to be "disgusting?"

No. Because Huckabee has not admitted to his lie about Democrats and the safety of your family members. In fact, he marched right on with them. If you tuned into his Fox News program three weeks later, you'd see him plucking at his bass guitar, playing backup for a woman singing a song about the looming health care reforms.

"No surgeries for you, just pain pills because you're old."... "If I live to be 95, will they say I should be euthanized?"

Watching a top contender for the presidency of the United States bopping along to this cutesy bile was, in a word, 'disgusting.'

So there ought to be sympathy for Mike Huckabee, but one has to wonder whether Mike Huckabee would find Mike Huckabee disgusting?

Senate Votes To Debate Health Care Reform Bill

2009-11-21T20:23:53Z

WASHINGTON (AP)-- Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

Watch Sens. Reid, Dodd, Harkin Discuss Today's Vote:

Watch the vote:

Angie Paccione: Michael Bennet Is Securing Our Future

2009-11-10T16:17:22Z

As a former educator, I know firsthand how important it is to Colorado's future to recruit the highest quality teachers in the world.

So I'm proud that our Senator, Michael Bennet, has gone to bat for our veterans and our children by co-sponsoring the "Troops to Teachers Enhancement Act." This legislation will expand an innovative program that encourages our veterans to become teachers.

Senator Bennet is proving every day that he has the legislative skills Colorado and our country need. He has the unique ability to become a national leader in strengthening our country's education system. His leadership on the Troops for Teachers Enhancement Act proves that truly innovative solutions aren't necessarily partisan ones.

With your signature, we can stand with Senator Bennet and show the Senate how much Coloradans value innovative ideas to improve our education system.

After my amazing political journey in 2006, I took on a new role, working with the company Pathways to Leadership. I've traveled the world, working to inspire innovations in leadership and creating personal and organizational greatness. I've learned a lot about leadership during the journeys I've taken.

That's why I admire Michael's ability as a leader to improve and reform our country's education system. Senator Bennet is proving every day he has what it takes to lead, both here at home, and on our behalf in the United States Senate.

As Senator Ted Kennedy's replacement on the vitally important Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, Michael is in a unique position to be a partner with President Obama to bring change.

I'm proud to join President Obama in supporting Michael's election. From standing up for victims of hate crimes, to months of campaigning across Colorado for a public option health care reform plan, Michael Bennet has been an effective voice for Colorado Democrats.

It's crucial we keep Michael in the Senate to continue fighting for important legislation like Troops for Teachers. I hope that you will join me in supporting him on this critical piece of legislation .

Rep. Anna Eshoo: Setting the Record Straight on Our Health Care Legislation

2009-10-30T12:24:12Z

Like millions of Americans, I was thrilled by today's unveiling by Speaker Pelosi of the House health care reform bill, the Affordable Health Care for America Act. I was proud to stand with the Speaker and my Democratic colleagues in support of this historic legislation. Since coming to Congress more than 16 years ago, nothing has been more important to me than achieving comprehensive health care reform and as a member of one of the primary committees responsible for drafting the bill, few members worked harder than I did in bringing it to the House Floor.

Ms. Jane Hamsher related some heartbreaking stories on HuffPost about breast cancer survivors and their struggles to overcome this devastating disease. I've heard dozens of similar stories and each one has moved me to do everything I possibly could throughout my public service to help breast cancer victims, and I have been a leader in the House of Representatives in promoting women's breast health. The National Breast Cancer Coalition, a group representing hundreds of organizations and millions of women who dedicate their lives to curing breast cancer has honored me with their prestigious 'Perfect Voting Record' honor. I've fought tirelessly to make it a federal crime for insurance companies to kick women out of their hospital beds right after they've had a mastectomy (the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act). I fought for increased access to breast cancer screening so millions of women can catch the cancer before its too late (MRI and Mammogram Availability Act).

In 1997, I successfully authored and saw into law the Reconstructive Breast Surgery Benefits Act, which banned the practice of private insurers treating breast reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy as cosmetic surgery. In 2000, I was a leading sponsor of the Breast Cancer and Cervical Treatment Act, which allows states to use Medicaid dollars to provide health treatment coverage for low-income women diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer. I also serve as Chair of the Cancer Care Working Group, a coalition of members in the House who are dedicated to improving the care and treatment of cancer patients.

I'm exceedingly proud to have legislation I authored many years ago which prohibits lifetime health insurance caps included in the House health care reform bill. This cap affects many breast cancer victims, such as the woman mentioned in Jane Hamsher's HuffPost column, "House Health Care Bill: A Death Sentence for My Fellow Breast Cancer Survivors," effectively cutting off their insurance when they need it most. My legislation outlaws this practice.

Having put so much into these critical issues, I'm quite frankly outraged by the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Ms. Hamsher's column.

My amendment to create a new pathway for approval of 'follow-on' versions of innovative biotechnology products, or 'biosimilars,' will not deny patients access to these miraculous treatments. In fact, my legislation, sponsored by the late Senator Edward Kennedy, will create for the first time in our country's history an FDA approval process for biosimilars to compete with innovative biologics.

Today, no expedited pathway for approval of a follow-on version of a biologic product exists. There are only generic versions of traditional, small-molecule drugs. For biologics, any prospective competitor to a brand-name product would have to go through the same lengthy and expensive approval process and clinical trials as the original manufacturer. As a result, there is very little economic incentive to develop a competitive version of a successful biologic.

Under the legislation that Senator Kennedy and I championed, prospective biosimilar manufacturers would be permitted to use an accelerated approval process and utilize the clinical trials and laboratory data of the innovative product to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of their product. Biotechnology products are highly complex and, unlike traditional chemical drugs, they cannot be precisely duplicated by a second manufacturer. Our amendment would allow these follow-on manufacturers to say, in essence, "my product is close enough to the original product, and the FDA can rely on the innovator's safety and efficacy data to approve my product."

Biotechnology products cost billions of dollars to develop, test and bring to market, and in order to ensure that competitors aren't immediately allowed to free-ride on the costly safety and efficacy data produced by innovators, some period of 'data exclusivity' is necessary to allow some period of time to recoup the investment in developing the drug. Without such a 'data exclusivity' period, there would be no reason to invest in new biologics. We would see the flow of research funds going to traditional pharmaceuticals, medical devices, semiconductors, green technology or other more promising innovations.

The House and Senate health care bills include a data exclusivity period of 12 years, which is the same amount of time that all drugs enjoy on the market under patent protection, which prevents any competition. I believe the 12-year data exclusivity period preserves the existing incentives for investment in these life-saving products.

It's important to note that today there is absolutely no restriction on data exclusivity -- it's effectively infinite. Competitors are never permitted to use the data produced by a brand-name biologic manufacturer. The Kennedy-Eshoo legislation brings this exclusivity down from forever to 12 years, in essence laying the groundwork for the creation of the biosimilar industry, new competition for the biotechnology industry, and reduced prices for patients.

Let me individually address the patently false statements in Ms. Hamsher's post.

"...thanks to Representatives Anna Eshoo and Joe Barton, there will be no generic versions of these drugs. At least not for 12 years..."

The 12-year data exclusivity period in the Kennedy-Eshoo legislation begins from the time of FDA approval. Since the vast majority of the most popular biologics treatments were approved at least 12 years ago, this means that they would have virtually no data exclusivity protection. The important cancer and anemia treatments that millions of patients rely on will be subject to biosimilar competition as quickly as the FDA can process the follow-on manufacturers' applications. (For example, under my amendment Herceptin's data exclusivity period will expire in September 2010.)

"And because of an 'evergreening' clause that grants drug companies a continued monopoly if they make slight changes to the drug (like creating a once-a-day dose where the original product was three times per day), they will never become generics."

There is no 'evergreening' clause in my legislation. There is in fact an 'anti-evergreening' clause which explicitly provides no new exclusivity period would be granted for "a change (not including a modification to the structure of the biological product) that results in a new indication, route of administration, dosing schedule, dosage form, delivery system, delivery device, or strength." My amendment prohibits by its plain language exactly what Ms. Hamsher alleges it would encourage.

Finally, Ms. Hamsher seems to be describing an alternative outcome which is pure fiction. She rightly complains about the high cost of many biologic treatments which can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per year, but she seems to indicate that these products would be readily affordable for patients, if only we would subscribe to the proposals of generic drug manufacturers and the insurance companies.

The cornerstone of the Kennedy-Eshoo legislation is to bring down the costs of today's biologics by bringing them into an era of biosimilars, just as Congress moved pharmaceutical drugs to generic drugs.

The House health care reform legislation thankfully and finally allows the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to directly negotiate the costs of drugs and biologics for Medicare recipients.

I want to highlight a point on which Ms. Hamsher and I are in complete agreement:

"If an AIDS vaccine is found, it too will be a biologic."

She's absolutely correct -- if we develop an AIDS vaccine, a cure for cancer or diabetes, or an effective treatment for Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's or countless other of our most horrific diseases, it will come through biotechnology. Each of these research pathways is difficult and costly, and will require billions of dollars in investment. If we undercut the incentives for this research, who exactly will invest in these life-saving biologics? Will we see companies shifting their resources to developing the next great erectile disfunction drug or cure for baldness?

I'm proud that the legislation that Senator Kennedy and I have worked on for over three years is included in the healthcare reform bills inn both legislative bodies. I'm proud to have this legislation endorsed by: The AIDS Institute, ALS Association, Alliance for Aging Research, American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, Association of American Universities, Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation, former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, M.D., Immune Deficiency Foundation, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and many other patient advocacy groups.

Our amendment passed by large bipartisan majorities in the House Energy & Commerce Committee (47 to 11) and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee (16 to 7). It is supported by ten governors who have written to the bipartisan congressional leadership supporting the amendment.

Ms. Hamsher attributes nefarious motives to this effort and the legislation. I fiercely disagree. It was carefully shaped and guided by Senator Kennedy and myself with the highest purposes of bringing life-saving biologics to include biosimilars, to save lives and to bring down the costs to every human being in our country who needs them.

Maria Shriver, Elizabeth Edwards, Lisa Niemi Discuss Grief

2009-10-28T18:58:38Z

It was an emotional afternoon, Tuesday, at The Women's Conference in California, as a group of prominent women gathered for a special panel on grief -- including Patrick Swayze's wife Lisa Niemi, who spoke publicly for the first time since her husband's death.

Kerry Becomes Global Adviser To Obama

2009-10-21T20:30:49Z

WASHINGTON — He's not president, a Cabinet member or ambassador, but Sen. John Kerry has ascended to the unofficial role of President Barack Obama's global adviser on key issues that could reshape the nation's image around the world.

Mediating Afghanistan's presidential election vaulted Kerry from the already prominent chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into the most exclusive circle around a new president who is juggling but has not resolved a variety of domestic and foreign policy matters. Beyond policy, Kerry knows how Washington works.

Dr. Cara Barker: 'Breaking Free: The Really Good News That's Not in the News'

2009-10-21T09:33:33Z

Each of us has deep and equal value. No surprise here. It's when we lose connection to this reality, however, that the trouble starts. Add to that, the mistrust. Think about it. If you do not know that you are more than enough, 'as is,' the need for posturing is not far away. Witness the proliferation of hoaxes abounding these days. We've got a few of these stories this week: the 'balloon boy' caper, alongside the un-tethered bonuses proposed for the bail-out Wall Street crew, including Citibank, Bank of America, and others. Tone-deaf to the impact of their hoaxes, they go on their merry way unscathed.

What's really going on? Play-acting begins the moment we doubt our worth and connection. When authenticity and interconnection gets dismissed, we end up feeling depleted and don't know why. It's as if we meet behind screens, our innermost merit, masked over. All involved are left 'hoodwinked,' upset, discouraged, resentful. We don't like getting involved in hidden theatrical production. As individuals, and global citizens, we lose our way.

The Good News Those Points to Another Way. Witness the international "Women on the Edge of Evolution" teleconference held this past Saturday, with upwards of 6000 listeners (enrollment is free, 13 weeks remaining). The emphasis is our awakening, a stark contrast to the other news.

Many know how natural it is to go ballistic when we realize we've been duped. When we lose our way, it is all too easy to place hopes for happiness onto the outer world, for fame, money, things. But, underneath our anger, the personally honest realize that we, too, can relate, even if we've kept the whole affair pretty hush-hush. This comes with human nature. In the recently released Red Book, Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, put the findings from his own Dark Night:

"...time and again, I lost the path and found it again where I would not have foreseen it. You upheld belief when I was alone and near despair. At every decisive moment you let me believe in myself...there is knowledge of the heart that gives deeper insight. The knowledge of the heart is in no book, and is not found in the mouth of any teacher, but grows out of you like the green seed from the dark earth...But how can I attain the knowledge of the heart? You can attain this knowledge only by living your life to the full..."

The fact of the matter is that we are content creators. We get to choose whether what we create in the world inspires or destroys not only our own private lives, but our way of relating to one another. Our choice: to honor the best in our heart, or let it die?

One HP reader knows the truth of this: "I am 49, nearly 50. When I was 3 I was given a book on archaeology and from then on forward I have been fascinated by the topic. I was dissuaded from this as a career path by my parents, who said that they would not pay for college if I majored in it because they didn't think I could find work; I wound up dropping out of college. At this point, I'm able to go back but have to start again as a freshman; I'm willing to, and am still fascinated by archaeology, but the problem is that I now have kidney failure and that sort of prevents me from doing things like much fieldwork, which would be required. I am not sure of what to do. It is my first love and still one of my greatest."

How many of us have known this dilemma? I am reminded that the body speaks a truth so much deeper than our monkey mind's chatter. The body does not lie. The real question is: are we willing to do whatever we must to bring forward what is deepest in those 'green seeds,' which are, more often than not, what saves us from a worsened plight.

How do we find our way to living life to the full? Senator Ted Kennedy, in his memoir, called it the "true compass." Barbara Marx Hubbard, now in her 80's, calls it our "compass of joy." Said Hubbard: "...The greatest joy is to find those who want what you have to give." Clearly, both Kennedy and Hubbard have known such a joy. What about us?

Many HP know the imperative of such a compass, as well as the price-tag.
"D." writes: "What I ditched was only my own need to try to fit in. Turns out that's not good enough to be everybody's darling either. It strikes back: even before you find you might be lonely..."

A. added: "To thine own self be true."

Neither I nor most of my family fit the "mold." We have lived outside the box our entire lives. I have read various media accounts of what life must be like for those who are black and poor. Nothing in any of those scripts describes my life, growing up as a black and poor schoolgirl. Even the lives of my slave ancestors don't conform to the usual script for the life of a slave. None of the "cookie-cutter "descriptions of things are accurate for me personally, whether the person attempting to describe things is black or white. There are blacks who have indicated to me that I have not lived the "black experience" (whatever that is). I simply point out that I have lived MY black experience, not someone else's, but consider it equally valid.... Such are the hazards of "pigeonholing" people instead of viewing them as individuals. I've always insisted on being who I really am and pursuing things that interest me."

Readers find comfort in the process of following their own compass.

Whether we find our own joy compass or not, gets down to choice. Are we willing to shift our way of thinking? On October 17th, journalistic reporter Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field, and The Intention Experiment, calls this nothing short of a paradigm shift "...from separation to inner connectedness." This may well turn out to be the long range solution to what ails us as a people. Says Hubbard: "...It's clear that out of crisis an emergence of humanity comes...What's arising in us is the evolving potential."

Interesting timing. Failing to find the means of awakening is at root for the recently reported unhappiness in women. It's also the source of theft, trickery. When we believe we lack sufficient value, the temptation is to seize it from others. McTaggart points the way: "being all connected means getting beyond life as competition and struggle." Interconnection does not mean giving up individuality, but, rather, honing it to a powerfully exciting level. Such tending of this 'green seed in the dark earth' cannot help but bring a global garden. What's within is a life force so powerful; it can completely reorganize itself and emerge in higher form.

Consider this:
1) Enroll in the above mentioned course online, expanding your thinking.
2) Play the game: "What if my heart's desire is my compass? Pretend that you receive lavish resources and time to contribute what's deepest in your heart to those who want to receive your gift. What could you co-create with others?
3) Look for evidence that there's lavish permission for you to break free from thinking that keeps you too separate, and life too stale, or small.

What compass would you like to follow? Which ones have worked the best, which, the worst? What questions are you asking about yours, our country's, and our world's? Thanks for taking the time to read, respond, and pass it along. I wish you beautiful news! Cara

Small Group Now Leads Closed-Door Health Care Reform Negotiations

2009-10-17T23:55:38Z

Three senators are working on the bill behind closed doors.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sits at the head of a wooden table at his office as he and Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) work to merge two competing versions of health-care legislation into one bill. The three men will be joined by top aides as well as by members of President Obama's health-care team, led by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. The sessions started on Wednesday and could be completed this week.

Chris Weigant: Halftime At The Healthcare Reform Superbowl

2009-10-14T19:07:19Z

[The scene: a football locker room. Hundreds of Democrats are sitting on benches, to hear Coach's halftime pep talk, in the Health Care Reform Superbowl. Some appear exhausted, some appear battered. Enter Coach, downstage.]

OK, people, that was a good half. We made some mistakes, we took some hits, but at the end of the half, we put five field goals up on the board. That's good enough for a first half, but we've got to score some touchdowns in the second half, or we're just not going to win this thing.

First up, we're going to review the basics. [Crowd groans.] Don't give me that! When you score some touchdowns, then you can complain! [Silence falls.] That's better.

Can we get that basic play up on the screen... OK, thanks. Now this is what we've got left to do. Here are the obstacles left in our way. Repeat after me: House floor vote... Senate floor vote... conference committee... OVAL OFFICE!

[Note: The Washington Post has conveniently published the slide the Coach is referring to, if you'd like to review the situation as well.]

That's what we've got to do. We've got to move the ball, keep moving the ball, and never give up until we cross that goal line. You got all that?

Now, let's talk a bit about the first half. We had way too many fumbles, but in the end we got lucky. The first four field goals were pretty straightforward -- everyone give a hand to the three House committee chairs, and the Senate committee chair who scored in what I would call a timely manner. [Cheering and clapping.] That's right -- they deserve applause. Good job, guys!

But then we began the drive for Baucus' field goal. Where's Baucus? I don't see Max out there... What's that? What? Speak up! You say that Baucus is outside counting his campaign contributions from the health care industry?!? That son of a... OK, I want the entire defensive line to go out there and drag him back in here. That's right, guys... don't be gentle, either.

[Baucus is dragged in, trailing hundred-dollar bills in his wake, and unceremoniously dumped on the floor in front of the Coach.]

Max, I have to say you are a disappointment to the team. I know, I know, you finally got your field goal five seconds before the half ended. But it took you a quarter and a half to get the ball thirty yards down the field! You really think we have time to waste like that? You got such a big ego that you think you deserved more time in the lights than everyone else combined?? No, don't slink away, I want you front and center for what I have to say next.

[Coach glares at Max one last time, then addresses the whole team]

OK, for the rest of you, we did put some points up... even if Baucus took forever to do it. We have put more points up than any other Democratic team in the Health Care Reform Superbowl in 100 years. That is something to be proud of.

But the fight is not over! We have not won the game yet! We've got a bruising second half in front of us, and we have to keep fighting if we want to pull this thing off!

We need two touchdowns right away in the third quarter. We need a successful drive by the House squad, and a successful drive by the Senate squad. And the key to both is teamwork. We've got to get everyone together moving down the field in the same direction. The Republican defense is going to be brutal in the second half. You think it was bad before? You think the folks in the town hall section of the stands were yelling loud before? You ain't seen nothing yet, I promise you that. The closer we get to winning this game, the more savage and ferocious it's going to get out there. You've got to be ready, and you've got to stop bumping into members of your own team -- you're just doing the Republicans' work for them by doing so! So cut it out!

OK, since Max Baucus is down front here, let's deal with the Senate first. Reid! Dodd! Front and center! Baucus, you stand up there with them.

I want the rest of the team to take a good look at these guys. They're the ones who can either bring us to victory or send us crashing into defeat. Take a good look, because this is the team that has got to score a touchdown in the third quarter for us.

Reid and Dodd, I know you're wondering if you're going to be on the team next year. You face some tough post-season elections, and your hometown voters may not send you back. But you know what? Nothing breeds success like success. If you go home as winners -- if you go home with Democrats across the country cheering for you because you won the big game -- then it's going to be a lot easier for you to get re-elected and keep your places on the team next year. If you are the reason we lose this game, I can pretty much guarantee you that you will be fired next year. You got that? You can win big, or you can go home. Winning some incrementalist piece of garbage that changes nothing is not going to cut it, either. So think about the speech you can give during the campaign that says "We got it done. We won the Health Care Reform Superbowl by scoring a touchdown when it counted the most, and when a field goal would not have won." Or think about the apologizing you're going to have to try to run on instead. Let that motivate you to score big time.

Now, I know it's going to be tough to score your touchdown with the team you've got. There's all kinds of corporate whores wearing our jersey who would be happy to see the whole thing fail. Explain to them that failure means not getting re-elected. Maybe they'll come on board when they see it that way.

Reid -- step forward!

I've heard rumors that you're trying to plan out your drive down the field by asking Olympia Snowe into your huddle. That is just not going to fly. Instead of giving Snowe a veto over the whole thing, why don't you use the offensive weapons we've given you? You certainly talked about this enough to the reporters before the game. So I want you to make me a promise -- every bill that you prepare and every plan you consider should be done in two ways. Prepare a 60-vote draft, and a 50-vote draft of each iteration of the bill. Budget reconciliation may be the only way to go, and it may be the better way to go. We could ignore some of the corporate whores this way, and get an even better bill passed. So, Harry, USE THIS AS A CLUB! Let the threat of using budget reconciliation be a major part of the discussion. Set deadlines, and draw some lines in the sand. Get a strong bill out. Because that crowd out there isn't going to care if we throw a 50-yard pass or a 60-yard pass, as long as we put the points on the board.

You've simply got to toughen up, Reid. Where's the rookie? Grayson? Stand up, Grayson! I want you to take a look at Alan Grayson, Harry, because he's right. He is there to teach you how to grow a spine. When you're talking with Baucus and Dodd, the best thing you could do is ask: "What would Grayson do?" And the first answer to that question is: "Don't let Olympia Snowe in on your talks with Dodd and Baucus." You got that, Harry?

OK, enough of that. Let's talk about the second touchdown we need -- where's Pelosi? Pelosi, get up here.

In the first half, you did a good job, Nancy, I have to give you that. You were much more coordinated than the Senate folks, and you produced some key points in a timely manner. But now I hear you're kind of goldbricking. I hear that you're basically saying that Reid should go first, and produce his touchdown before you're going to start your drive. That is unacceptable. That is not giving 110 percent!

Because you, Nancy, and your House squad, are our strongest offense. Sorry, Harry, but it's true. Pelosi here has shown more fighting spirit than you, it's just a fact. But that is no excuse for Pelosi's squad to take a nap. This is the Health Care Reform Superbowl folks, there's no time for anyone to be napping.

Think I'm being too tough, Pelosi? Well, what exactly has the House done for the past two and a half months? Hmm? That's what I thought -- nothing. OK, we were all waiting for Max to get his act together, but that didn't stop you from getting ready for your touchdown drive! Where's Steny Hoyer? Stand up, Hoyer, so we can all take a look. Pelosi -- did you send him out to the press to say he expects to have a House floor vote by Christmas, but is making no guarantees?!? What the... what... what kind of horse manure is that? Pelosi, you cannot continue to drag your feet and let Reid take all the political heat, so that you can conveniently hold your floor vote afterwards.

That's not what you're supposed to be doing!!

You, Pelosi, are supposed to be out front taking some heat. We all know that whatever gets through the House is going to be stronger and better than what Harry can manage. This is how we have to twist Harry's arm! Show him what a strong bill should look like! Regain the offensive momentum! Take the fight to the other guys! Show us how it's done!

Where's the White House folks? What? They're outside, sitting on the sidelines? Figures -- that's where they've been the whole first half. That cheerleader they've got did have a few good cheers for us, but it's looking like we're going to have to do this ourselves, folks.

I've got one final word to say here, and then we're due back out on the field. When we get into the fourth quarter, I want to see two touchdowns on our side of the board. I want a floor vote in the House and a floor vote in the Senate. And I want whatever comes out of the Senate to be strong -- not some nonsense Olympia Snowe wrote. But in the fourth quarter, you're going to all have to work together! We're going to have to have a conference huddle. That huddle had better not run out the clock... you hear me? I am not joking. I know that conference huddles are sometimes the place were games go to die. That is not going to happen this time! I don't care if we work through Thanksgiving and Christmas -- we are not going to lose this game in the final seconds because we couldn't get out of the huddle. Are we all crystal clear on that? Good.

OK, we've only got a minute left. So I want you all to bow your heads. We all remember Teddy Kennedy. Ted was never more happy than when he was sailing his boat. And I firmly believe that he's happily sailing somewhere today, wherever he is. But what you don't know is the last thing Teddy said to me, when he knew the Health Care Reform Superbowl might possibly be won by Democrats this year.

"Coach," he said, "sometime, when the team is up against it, and the breaks are beating the team -- tell them to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Skipper..."

Well? What are you waiting for?!?

[Team breaks into an enthusiastic roar, jumps up from the benches, and runs out toward the field.]

[Note: To give credit where credit is due -- the concept for this article and the photo came from a commenter on Democratic Underground, writing in response to an earlier column of mine.]

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

Denise Brodey: MOVING ON: What Will People Be Reading When the Recession Really Ends?

2009-10-13T07:13:10Z

One of my favorite topics of conversation is what I call Oddball Signs of the Recession. A colleague at Good Housekeeping recently told me that dentists see flossing rates drop in a recession, and my 97-year-old grandmother isn't the only one whose noticed the long line at the local library checkout counter. According to a National Public Radio report, Americans smoke and drink less when money gets tight.

How will the recession morph readers? What are the uncommon indicators of the recession -- or recovery from it -- that seem to go unnoticed? The online journal Retail Bulletin has an interesting take on selling in general, arguing that "consumers will move through the recession in three states, not dissimilar to the way individuals cope with grief. Stage One is Acute Distress. Stage Two: Acceptance. Three is Moving On. Where are we on the coping scale now? In September, you could argue from my informal survey of subway readers that at least half of us are still in Acute Distress. Why? Because at least half of all commuters on the subway are reading The Bible or some other form of religious material. I'm serious. (Even my kids have noticed, although I had to explain to my daughter that the man next to me wasn't davening, the subway was simply shaking a bit too much that morning.) Recently, the book selection on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 trains indicates were are moving through the tunnel of acceptance to Stage 3. My uncommon indicator: The number of women reading self-help books. There are a lot of classics like Siblings Without Rivalry and The Path Not Taken; and tons of business book converts, pouring over Big is the New Small and Good to Great.

When consumer behavior morphs, when and how does it return to 'normal'? For the media, there is no normal -- there is only the now and the new. And that, my friends, is called Moving On. One small, happy hints at recovery: Attendees at the September National Book Festival, held in Washington, D.C., hit a record high. Seventy high-profile authors and 130,000 book lovers came to the tented event, despite the rain. (See the full report here.) Yes, big book chains are seeing a decline in foot traffic (anywhere from 6 percent at Barnes & Noble to double digits at Borders, according to Newsweek), but online and electronic sales hold a lot of promise for the holidays. This week, Sarah Plain's Going Rogue hit number one as people who, love her or loathe her, pre-ordered her memoir, due out November 17. Is that a sign that we are at Stage 3: Moving On? Personally, I'm waiting to exhale. We need a few dozen more 'big books' to get us over the hump. For more on that topic, check out The Big Money. Maybe I'll breathe easier when the Ted Kennedy biopic becomes available on in e-book form (although there still is no date). Let's all say a prayer we're still interested in it then.

Ali A. Rizvi: The Real Reason Obama Deserves the Nobel Win

2009-10-09T12:50:56Z

In the next 200 years, wars will come and go, the economy will recover and crash and recover again, and the geopolitical landscape will morph repeatedly, as it always has. But people will still remember Barack Obama as a legendary historical figure worldwide, centuries from now, because of his single most revolutionary accomplishment: being elected.

Not only is Obama the first black president elected in a white majority country -- a massive accomplishment in itself -- he is also a black man who was elected with a last name that rhymes with Osama and the middle name Hussein. With less than two years as a junior US senator, Barack Obama went up against virtually impossible odds when he decided to run for president: he ran against the royal establishment of the Democratic party, the Clintons -- not just one, but two of them, one being a wildly popular ex-president. He earned the endorsements of both the brother and the daughter of President John F. Kennedy along the way. Then, after defeating the Clintons, he ran against an a celebrated American war hero, John McCain -- and won again.

Obama is the only son of a first-generation immigrant to be elected to the presidency in modern history. He is the product of an interracial marriage, which was illegal in many states until he was six years old. He is the first anti-war candidate to be elected at a time of war.

His election also reflected unprecedented changes in the socio-politics of the country. Richmond, Virginia was the most permanent capital of the Confederacy. Virginia hadn't voted for a Democrat since 1964, when Obama was three years old. Neither had Indiana. For the first time in 44 years, it was Obama -- a black northern liberal Democrat -- who turned both of those states blue, not Carter or Clinton. Although Obama is the first northern-state liberal to be elected to the presidency since Kennedy, he is, unlike Kennedy, an almost entirely self-made man who did not come from a wealthy, politically well-connected family.

The impact of Obama's election stretches far beyond even what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the "fierce urgency of now." It goes beyond race and beyond policy issues. It's about overcoming improbable odds and going against the grain, shattering that "real world" myth, and redefining -- or de-defining -- reality.

Even if he turns out to be an average president, Obama will be remembered worldwide hundreds of years from now as a man who changed the way the world looked and thought, simply by being elected against a set of seemingly insurmountable odds that had statistically and historically been stacked against him.

And even if the Nobel Peace Prize is premature -- which it probably is -- it is also very prescient.

Maxwell Kennedy: I'm for Khazei

2009-10-08T11:10:26Z

I never asked Senator Kennedy whom he would like to serve in his seat when he was gone. For most of my life, I, like so many others, thought he would always be there. It seemed difficult to imagine life without him.

We have had a glimpse now of what the Senate is like in his absence. Sixty Democratic Senators, a Super Majority for the first time since I was a child, have been unable to pass the health care reform that we Democrats demand.

In many ways, this Senate election will be the most important in a generation. Senators from Massachusetts tend to serve long. When Senator Kennedy was first elected, many of his oldest constituents could remember General Custer. Whom we choose now, may well represent our great grandchildren in the Congress. During the next few years Congress must end two wars, solve an economic crisis, change the way health care and education are handed out and bring fairness to the workplace.

I am traveling across Massachusetts now with my friend Alan Khazei because I am certain he will be the finest Senator. I have known Alan for more than twenty years, and I know that no one cares more about education, jobs and health care than Alan Khazei. I stand with Alan because he shares the moral and political values that I grew up with, and because he has the competence, and joy in life that I want my representatives to share.

When my wife Vicki moved to Boston in 1987, so we could be together, she passed by a City Year sign in a Cambridge storefront window announcing its search for volunteers. Intrigued, Vicki walked in and met Alan Khazei who, fresh out of law school, was building a domestic peace corps from scratch. Vicki signed on and was among the very first volunteers. Soon, the volunteers flooded in and more than twenty years later, City Year has grown across the country and inspired AmeriCorps. All told, Alan Khazei played a central role in creating the infrastructure for 575,000 Americans to contribute 700 million hours of service educating our children, conserving our environment, comforting our seniors, and fighting poverty.

I do not know whom Senator Kennedy would have liked to have his seat. But I know that no one will work harder to fight for the values that I grew up with -- to force the Senate to enact meaningful health care, to improve education across this state and across this country, to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to allow everyone to share in the bounty this nation produces when we are at our best. Alan will challenge all of us to do more, to be better citizens and better neighbors. He will lead us and our children to build a better, stronger, more just America. And he will do all of this with joy in his heart, trudging the road by our side and taking us and our children into this new century united in our will to keep our nation great and our desire to leave a better life for our children. I hope you will join us, to change America.

www.alanforsenate.com

Johann Hari: Obama Is "Incompetent" and the U.S. Is a "Madhouse": An Exclusive Interview With Gore Vidal

2009-10-06T19:11:58Z

In Russian, the phrase 'gore vidal' means "he has seen grief." As Gore Vidal is wheeled towards me across an empty London hotel lobby, it seems for the first time like an apt translation. In the eight years since I saw him last, he has lost his partner of fifty years, most of his friends, most of his enemies, and the use of his legs. The man I met then - bristling with his own brilliance, scattering witticisms around like confetti - has withered. His skin is like parchment, but the famous cheekbones are still sharp beneath the crags. "It is so cold in here," he says, by way of introduction. "So fucking cold."

Gore Vidal is not only grieving for his own dead circle and his own fading life, but for his country. At 83, he has lived through one third of the lifespan of the United States. If anyone incarnates the American century that has ended, it is him. He was America's greatest essayist, one of its best-selling novelists, and the wit at every party. He holidayed with the Kennedys, cruised for men with Tennessee Williams, was urged to run for Congress by Eleanor Roosevelt, co-wrote some of the most iconic Hollywood films, damned US foreign policy from within, sued Truman Capote, got felated by Jack Kerouac, watched his cousin Al Gore get elected President and still lose the White House, and - finally, bizarrely - befriended and championed the Oklahoma bomber, Timothy McVeigh.

Yet now, he says, it is clear the American experiment has been "a failure." It was all for nothing. Soon the country will be ranked "somewhere between Brazil and Argentina, where it belongs." The Empire will collapse militarily in Afghanistan; the nation will collapse internally when Obama is broken "by the madhouse" and the Chinese call in the country's debts. A ruined United States will then be "the Yellow Man's Burden," and "they'll have us running the coolie cars, or whatever it is they have in the way of transport."

A Scotch is fetched for him as he is wheeled into the corner of the bar.

I was like everyone else when Obama was elected - optimistic. Everything we had been saying about racial integration was vindicated, but he's incompetent. He will be defeated for re-election. It's a pity because he's the first intellectual president we've had in many years, but he can't hack it. He's not up to it. He's overwhelmed. And who wouldn't be? The United States is a madhouse. The country should be put away - and we're being told to go away. Nothing makes any sense.

The President "wants to be liked by everybody, and he thought all he had to do was talk reason. But remember - the Republican Party is not a political party. It's a mindset, like Hitler Youth. It's full of hatred. You're not going to get them aboard. Don't even try. The only way to handle them is to terrify them. He's too delicate for that."

When he compares Obama to his old friend Jack Kennedy, he shakes his head:

He's twice the intellectual that Jack was, but Jack knew the great world. Remember he spent a long time in the navy, losing ships. This kid [Obama] has never heard a gun fired in anger. He's absolutely bowled over by generals, who tell him lies and he believes them. He hasn't done anything. If you were faced with great problems in chemistry - to find the perfect gas, to gas a population - you won't know for a long time whether it works. You have to go by what people tell you. He's like that. He's not ready for prime time and he's getting a lot of prime time on his plate at once.

Is there any hope? "Every sign I see is doom. But then people say" - he adopts a whiny, nasal voice - "'Oh Mr Vidal, you're so negative, can't you say something nice about America? It's a wonderful country, everybody wants to live here.' Oh yes? When was the last time you saw a Norwegian with a green card who wanted to come here because of the health service? I'll pay you if you can find one."

But there is, he says with sudden perkiness, some "good news. Afghanistan will be terminal for the American empire, yes. Which is a happy way of looking at it. We'll be out of the empire game, rapidly. But it's too late for the country and the constitution." He raises his drink, and smiles ironically. "To a better republic," he says, and drinks in one long gulp.

I. The Death of America

The current spasming death of America was foretold at its birth, Vidal says, and it can only be understood by whirling back there. It has been his mission to explain the past to the "United States of Amnesia," through his novels and essays. When he speaks, he sweeps over two millennia of history - from Caesar to Obama - as if he was there, forever spraying one-liners from the back row. Today, he was stopped time in Philadelphia, at the birth of the republic. "Benjamin Franklin saw all this coming," he says. "I quote him because most Americans don't even know who he was now. You'll have to explain to your readers." Franklin was a polymathic writer, scientist and soldier who became one of the founding fathers of the United States.

In Philadelphia in 1781, when the constitution was being put together, he was an observer. He didn't want to have any part of it, and as he was leaving the Constitution Hall in Philadelphia a couple of old ladies said, 'Ah, Mr Franklin, what is going to happen?' He told them: 'Well, you're going to get a Republic, if you can keep it. But every constitution of this sort has failed since the beginning of time due to the corruption of the people.'

So the American people are corrupt? Americans weren't good enough for America? "Precisely. They were only good enough to be a restive colonial power - or the dregs of one."

Vidal's politics began here - almost. He was born at the United States Military Academy in West Point to a wealthy family at the apex of American power. His grandfather was Thomas Pryor Gore, the Senator for Oklahoma. He was blind, so from the age of five, little Gore was reading letters and books for big Gore and guiding him discreetly through Washington D.C. parties. The Senator was a populist, fighting to rally the people against the concentrated power of Wall Street and Big Finance. He represented the cotton farmers who emerged battered from the Civil War, only to be destroyed by Wall Street financiers playing roulette with the global cotton price. Yet there was always a strange contradiction to his life: "My grandfather couldn't stand his constituents," Vidal says. "And they loved him for it. Figure that one out."

He was a populist with no faith in the populace - precisely what his grandson has turned into. Gore Vidal shares the populist belief that the people are being shafted by the rich - but he thinks the population is too cretinous and drugged by television and fast food to figure it out.

It is always to be hoped that the people will mysteriously be educated, somehow. Well, that's the link. But the people don't know anything. As soon as we became an empire, we stopped teaching geography in the schools, so nobody would know where anything is. It's not the people's fault - they have been perverted them into imperial ways of thinking so that they would be docile workers and loyal consumers. That was the dream and it has come true.

As a child, Vidal loved spending time with his Senator-grandfather, not least because it meant he could escape for a time from his alcoholic mother Nina. When I raise the topic, he adopts the whiny nasal voice of a mock-interviewer again and says: "'Oh Mr. Vidal, your poor mother can't have been as awful as you say [in your memoirs].' She was a lot worse. I don't go after other people's mothers, but my own was quite enough to attack."

She was constantly drunk, and when she wasn't savaging him or threatening suicide, she would tell her son the full details of her life in an obsessive angry blather. When he was ten, "she told me that rage made her orgasmic. I didn't think to ask her if sex did the same." When he appeared on the cover of Time magazine years later, she wrote a long letter to the magazine denouncing him. The magazine headlined it: "A Mother's Love." Vidal seems to have inherited his bitter wit from her. Asked why she didn't marry for a fourth time, she said: "My first husband had three balls, my second two, my third one. Even I know enough not to press my luck." Does he think of her often? "No." He gives me an icy stare. After all these years, can he feel any compassion for her? "No." The ice becomes a glacier.

Does he think, at least, that she shaped his personality? His old friend Kenneth Tynan, the theatre critic, wrote in his diaries: "What superb and seamless armour he wears, as befits one for whom life is a permanent battle for (social and intellectual) supremacy. ... Gore could never surrender (i.e. expose) himself to anyone." Could his mother's cruelty explain his life-long sweeping dismissal of everything around him - the constant goring by Gore? As soon as I ask this, I realize how Vidal has changed since I last saw him. Then, he would have responded with a witty put-down, or reasserted his supremacy with an obscure classical reference, quoted in the original Greek. Now he looks a little hurt - his eyes flicker sadly - and he says: "Well, it's the last thing I'd like to think about." Then he is silent. I suddenly feel rude, and cruel.

His grandfather became increasingly furious that Franklin Roosevelt was - he believed - dragging the United States into an unnecessary war against Germany and Japan. He was opposed to all foreign wars, which he believed were drummed up by Big Business to serve their interests. "He thought that no foreign war was worth the life of any American," Vidal says, with a smile of pride. But this - combined with his opposition to the New Deal - meant he was voted out of office. As a little act of revenge, Vidal says he has never visited Oklahoma.

He joined the army at the age of seventeen, glad to escape his mother. He spent the war posted in Italy and, for three years, Alaska. He is not surprised that this "frozen hell" has produced Sarah Palin, "the latest idol in America's long cult of stupidity." Alaska was, he says, "The place where all the crooks in America went to hide. And they produced her."

He says he realizes now that he was part of an army sent to build a global Empire by "America's Augustus, Roosevelt." The old America was replaced by a military octopus with a metal arm on every continent, and the old constitution was replaced by a "National Security State. I wouldn't have enlisted if I knew where it was going to lead," he says. "But there it was, and we ended [the war as] an empire and slammed the door behind us. Then we fucked it up."

He left the army with no money. "My father and grandfather, as self-made men, were not going to make any other man. I knew that," he says. So he sat down and wrote a novel about the war called Williwaw. At the age of twenty, he was suddenly a hard-boiled realist best-seller. He was lauded as a tough young soldier, and his grandfather talked of setting him up with a Congressional seat - but Vidal wanted to write another, bolder novel, based on the only person he had ever loved. It pulled any hope of a political career down behind him - but made him a defining figure in American life.

II. An Interrupted Love Story

When Vidal was fourteen, a boy called Jimmy Trimble moved into Vidal's dorm at his Washington boarding school. He was a blond, built jock; Vidal was a bookish intellectual. "His sweat smelled of honey, like that of Alexander the Great," he wrote years later in his memoir, 'Palimpsest.' They fell in lust and perhaps in love, and had sex in the forest at the edge of the school grounds. "It was the first human happiness I had ever encountered," Vidal wrote. He saw Trimble as his other half, the person who finally made him complete. Then Trimble was, at the age of nineteen, blown up by a hand grenade on the beaches of Iwo Jima.

For years, thoughts of Trimble still made Vidal tremble. I think they still do: his eyes turn distant and a little watery when we talk about him. So he wrote a novel - The City and The Pillar - imagining what would have happened if they had met again after the war. It's a dark, bitter book: the sex is a failure, and one kills the other. But in 1950s America, to show two all-American boys - manly, self-assured - having sex was wildly bold. He was subject to a blackout in the "respectable" press and any hope of elected office died, but the book became a best-seller.

Vidal resolved that he would never again find what he had lost with Jimmy: "It would be greedy to expect a repetition. I was aware of my once-perfect luck, and left it at that." He says he had sex with more than a thousand "anonymous youths" by the age of 25. He never saw them twice; he never pretended there was any affection there. He was what they labeled "trade" - he did nothing (deliberately, at least) to please them. He was pleasured; that was all. "When I got too old, I paid for it gladly." After the death of Trimble, he seems to have emotionally cauterised himself. Even his closest friends have said there is an isolation at the core of his character. He once said: "I have known so many people, but it seems I have known nobody at all."

Strangely, though, Vidal has always resisted the idea that he is a "gay" champion. "I never said I was gay, because I don't think anyone is." He says he finds "these restrictions tiresome. In the centuries of Rome's great military and political success, there was no differentiation between same-sexers and other-sexers; there was also a lot of crossing back and forth. Of the first twelve Roman emperors, only one was exclusively heterosexual." The US today is, for all the fussing, full of sodomy, he says.

Did you see [Colonel] Gaddafi [at the UN] complaining that American soldiers have been sodomizing Arab boys? I thought, well that's been the case since the very beginning of the republic. They blamed the sodomy on those great forests out there which they said made them horny. There was nothing else to do but bugger boys, they said.

So homosexuality and heterosexuality are fictions? "Yes, of course." He adopts a camp faggy voice and adds: "But it makes a lot of girls happy." Why do so many people believe it to be true about themselves if it's false? "They believe in Jesus, and that's a much bigger fiction, with more money spent on it. Prettier clothes too."

When he was 25, Vidal met a younger man called Howard Austen, and they settled down together, on one condition - they agreed to never have sex, nor be romantic in any way. He and Austen were together for fifty years. He died last year, in a hospital in the Hollywood Hills. "He had lung cancer and he wouldn't stop smoking and then it went to his brain and he had brain cancer. That's... that's what happened," he says. Once, in an essay, he quoted the critic Edmund Wilson, who said of his dead wife: "After she was dead, I loved her." Can he say that of Howard? He affects not to hear. "Now I'm a gimp. I can't walk. I need hospitals. You know I have a knee made out of titanium." He taps his knee. "So you see, I need hospitals." And he looks away, a little absently, as if thinking of something else.

III. Isolation

By his mid-twenties, Vidal was a best-selling author, and rich. He rented a property in Guatemala - far from his mother - and settled down to write his next novel. But in that small tropical central American country, he found he was going to have to dramatically reassess the country he had just fought for - and pull his grandfather's abandoned philosophy from the gutter of history.

Just before Vidal arrived, the poverty-wreathed Guatemalan people had elected a left-wing President called Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán. They wanted him to introduce a minimum wage and start taxing the US mega-corporation the United Fruit Company that dominated the country's only industry, banana-growing. The outraged United Fruit Company acted to preserve its profits - by getting Washington to topple Arbenz and install a dictator. The phrase 'banana republic' entered the language.

"I was astonished," Vidal says. "I had known vaguely about our numerous past interventions in Central America. But that was the past." He discovered that Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was leading the charge, and, "I didn't believe it. Lodge was a family friend; as a boy I had discussed poetry with him." He says he realized then he had been fighting "for an Empire, not a republic." His grandfather, he resolved, had been right all along: wars only serve elites.

He rapidly became the leading left-wing critic of American foreign policy. He warned against every war from Vietnam to Iraq, often with extraordinary prescience. At the height of George Bush's post-9/11 popularity, he said: "Mark my words - he will leave office the most unpopular President in history." His essays on this subject are often great flares of truth and anger. His horror at US foreign policy can be summarized in one little scene. In the 1980s, the Sistine Chapel was being restored, and some VIPs were invited to view it on an elevated platform. He spotted that old serial killer Henry Kissinger inspecting the section depicting Hell, and said: "Look, he's apartment hunting."

Vidal started preaching his grandfather's gospel of isolationism. "I am a patriot of the old republic that has slowly vanished during the expansionist years and disappeared completely in 1950 when the National Security State replaced it," he says. "I want us to go from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy, and restore the constitution. We should leave the world alone, before they make us."

The US is only menaced, he says, because it menaces others. "In geopolitics as in physics, there is no action without reaction." He stirs his Scotch and says: "There was no 9/11. I mean - our policies were such that we were going to have a lot of crazy people out there in the Arab world who were going to try to blow us up, because of crimes they feel we committed against them. Any fool could see it coming. And I'm sufficiently a fool to have seen it."

He sees his job as expressing "the unacceptable obvious," and says he is always ready to "turn the other fist." I tell him that while I agree with many of his criticisms of US foreign policy, it seems that to keep his isolationism pristine and pure, he has to go further than the truth. He has to imply every attack on the United States' power was provoked, and therefore justified - when some were not. He looks coldly at me. "Okay - name one." Pearl Harbor, I say. If the US can be an expansionist empire, so can other countries. The Japanese empire attacked the US, just as the US expansionists attacked Guatemala, Vietnam and others. It was unprovoked aggression.

His face tightens into a scowl. "Roosevelt saw to it that we got that war!" he snaps.

He taunted the Japanese so they would have to hit us, at Pearl Harbor, and they did. ... We have conveniently forgotten because we don't teach American history to anybody, but he sent an ultimatum to the Japanese telling them to get out of China, which they'd been trying to conquer for years. He was laying down the law to them, [saying they had to] surrender their rather proud nation's empire. And they said fuck you. And the next thing we knew the fleet was moving towards Pearl Harbor.

That's not how most historians read it - but I move on to an even more contested example. He says the Soviet Empire was "purely reactive" to American power, and only committed atrocities and invasions because the US "goaded them." Can that be true? Couldn't they be independently cruel, just as the US sometimes was? "They had a whole continent to play with, they didn't need any more space," he says, and changes the subject, rather oddly, to talk about the Dutch.

I try to pull him back. Yes, it's clearly the case that 9/11 was in part a blow-back response to US crimes in the Middle East, but he goes much further, and says the Bush administration was "probably" in on it. Where is the evidence for this huge claim?

It would certainly fit them to a tee, so you can't blame the rest of us for starting to think on slightly conspiratorial grounds. They did steal the great election of the year 2000 and they somehow fixed the Supreme Court of the United States, that sacred place and got them to go along with it, with the selection, not the election, the selection of George W Bush as president. He wasn't voted for, people didn't want him. And were somewhat mystified that he ended up with it.

But there was an earlier attack on America that he wants to discuss now - one he says was carried out by a "sane" and "noble" man.

IV. A Noble Boy

On April 19, 1995, a former US soldier called Timothy McVeigh planted a massive truck bomb outside a government building in Oklahoma City, at the heart of Vidal's grandfather's old constituency. Some 168 people died, including a kindergarten full of children. McVeigh wrote to Vidal, saying he had been motivated, in part, by studying his work. He said he believed the US Constitution had been usurped by a National Security State that had to be defeated by force. Vidal wrote back - and they became friends. He started mounting passionate defenses of the bomber in public. He says now he was not crazy, but "too sane for his place and time."

"He was a dedicated student of the American way, of the Constitution itself," he says.

You should read his writings - they're very good. Particularly on the Posse Comitatus Act of 1876, which forbids the Federal government ever to use its troops against the American people - but which they proceeded to do at Waco [at a compound used by a religious cult that was attacked by federal troops in 1993]. They killed more people than he managed to kill when he blew up that building in Oklahoma City. He was a noble boy.

Noble? The man who consorted with far right militia groups and blew up all those children? Vidal scowls again, and almost hisses:

He didn't kill them deliberately! But the American government killed all those people at Waco, men, women and children deliberately! It was his gesture against the government he loathed. You know, he swore to me he had no idea there were children there. He said - 'How would I know? I walked by the place once and I knew that there was some kind of dining room, families might be there, or they might not be there,' and he wasn't counting, he wasn't out for a big count. But he was trying to tell the government - look, you have done this arbitrarily, contrary to the Posse Comitatus Act, contrary to American law, you've killed American citizens. Remember he was an army boy, and he loved it, and he was longing to get back in the army and the army was longing to get him back, he was the best sharpshooter they'd seen in years. But it was not meant to be.

But he knew he would kill hundreds of innocent people: that was the point. Doesn't that show a callous disrespect for human life? "So did Patton, so did Eisenhower!" he says angrily.

Everybody's rather careless about it once you start getting involved in wars. He saw this as a war to preserve the Constitution! You know what he said? But you don't, so I'm going to tell you. The judge [at his trial] quite liked him, and he was intrigued by the fact that this rather talkative kid who wrote tons of pieces for the press had not defended himself. So he said - Mr McVeigh, could we hear more from you? [McVeigh] said, 'Well, your honour, I will base my case on Justice Brandeis, one of our most brilliant jurists, in his opinion in Olmstead. There, he writes that when government ceases to lead by example and actually provides a bad example, anything can happen. Government is the last teacher. Everything I did, I learned from my government.

When did this happen to Gore Vidal? When did he go from righteous - and right - opposition to atrocities carried out by his own government, to justifying any atrocity against it, no matter how extreme? When I ask him, his scowl turns to a sneer, and he says I am ignorant and clearly haven't read anything. I decide to try a different approach. I ask him - if there were more people like McVeigh, would that be a good thing? There is a crack in his hauteur, and he says: "It strikes me as a perfect nightmare. Of course I don't want more people like McVeigh. Since Americans refuse to think about anything, being incapable I suspect of thought, then they're not going to come to any conclusions except mistaken ones."

I don't understand. I try again and again to tug him back and get him to say whether this means he thinks McVeigh was wrong to plant the bomb. He won't. Finally, he jeers: "You are trying my patience," and defies me - with a long stare - to change the subject.

V. Pale Moonlight

Vidal is one of the last of his generation of American intellectuals standing (or, at least, sitting). I ask him about some of his rivals, who have died recently - John Updike, William Buckley, Norman Mailer - and he interrupts. "Updike was nothing. Buckley was nothing with a flair for publicity. Mailer was a flawed publicist, too, but at least there were signs every now and then of a working brain." Then he smiles to himself: "You know, he used the word 'existential' all the time, to the end of his life, and never even learned what it meant. I heard Iris Murdoch once at dinner explain to Norman what existential meant, philosophically. He was stunned."

There is a vulnerability to Vidal now that didn't exist eight years ago. Before, I felt like I was shouting questions up Mount Olympus: he conducted the interview from above and beyond me, impervious to anything I said. Now, when I laugh at his jokes, he looks pleased, and laughs too. When we argue, he looks genuinely thrown, and hurt, and angry. He seems keen to return to the calmer waters of his memories, and we paddle together in his Kennedy anecdotes. Jackie was really secretly in love with Bobby, he says. He used to call Jack the President-erect. Jack once had sex with an actress friend of his in a bath, and suddenly rammed her head underwater, so she would have a vaginal spasm, and he would have an orgasm. "She hates him still," he says. But when I ask him what he made of the late Teddy Kennedy as a person, he snaps: "Who cares what they were like as people? That's just show business."

He has had to abandon his second home in the high hills of Italy, and says he misses it. "Italy is such a civilized country. Unlike America." But is the gap so great? Is Silvio Berlusconi better than Barack Obama? He snaps again: "Who cares? This is showbiz you're worried about. I don't care who's on television telling jokes on the Late Show."

Vidal seems exhausted and alone, living out his days in the Hollywood Hills. After an amazingly full life - "I have tried everything but incest and folk-dancing", he says - he has no more books gestating. He has traveled to London to receive applause on stage for providing the recorded narration for the new production of Mother Courage at the National Theatre, but all his old London friends - Tynan, Tom Driberg, Princess Margaret - are dead. I ask what it's like to be here, and he says: "This isn't a country, it's an American aircraft carrier." He starts to talk about his old friends again. He is swimming with ghosts now - from Jimmy Trimble to Jack Kennedy to his drunken, scolding mother. As he declines, he announces that everything around him is declining - America, literacy, humanity itself.

In one essay, Vidal said the author William Dean Howells at 84 "lived far too long." He quoted a line Howells wrote to Henry James: "I am comparatively a dead cult with my statues cut down and the grass growing over me in pale moonlight." Does he feel this about himself? I stare at him and don't have the heart to ask. He tells me he is unafraid of death. "I'm the least primitive American you're going to meet, and you have to be pretty primitive to believe in hell. To me hell is the United States of today."

After two hours, his carer - a beautiful long-haired French boy who has been reading Celine in the corner of the hotel bar - indicates that our time is up. I tell Vidal I hope I will interview him in another eight years' time. "Another eight years? Oh, the monotony!" he exclaims, and begins to be wheeled away. The last thing I hear him say - as he vanishes across the marble lobby - is a curse to his carer: "It's still so fucking cold in here!"

You can follow Johann Hari on Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/johannhari101

He is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here . You can email him at johann -at- johannhari.com

To read an archive of interviews by Johann Hari -- with everyone from Hugo Chavez to Salman Rushdie to Dolly Parton -- click here.

Gore Vidal is the narrator for Mother Courage, which is part of the Travelex £10 season at the National Theatre and continues in the repertoire until 8 December. For tickets go to www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Going Rogue And Other Cheesy Political Book Covers (PHOTOS)

2009-10-02T17:14:56Z

The cover of Sarah Palin's forthcoming book Going Rogue was made public today. In honor of the inspirational photograph of the ex-governor, here are some other milestones in contrived political book jackets.

Chris Weigant: Friday Talking Points [95] -- A Call To Action

2009-09-25T20:30:32Z

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party."

Of course, this really should be (in today's inclusive society): "Now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party." But what it really should say is something more like: "Now is the time for all good men and women to pick up the phone and give their party representative an earful about what it actually means to be a member of that party, and that we actually expect them to stand up and vote for what the party not only believes in at its core but also what we were promised in the last election, and (by the way) why we gave you such overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress to play around with -- but the time for playing is over, and it's time for you to now either stand tall with the people in your party, or admit you're just a corporate whore at heart." But that's a little hard to type, so maybe not. We'll get to this ranting and raving in the Talking Points part of the program, after a quick trip down Memory Lane.

But before we get to our Memory Lane voyage, we have to take a detour on the Cool Historic Trivia Bypass, just because it's Friday and because I managed to work a segue into that last paragraph on the subject of typing. Because while most everyone knows the phrase "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," few know where it comes from. Many (myself included, until about five minutes ago) assumed it was a quote from some heavy thinker, or (alternatively) some rabble-rousing politician. It's origins, however, are much humbler than that. Or, perhaps, more corporate. The phrase was used to sell typewriters. Or, to be even more accurate, to sell the idea of a particular typewriter. It was reportedly typed out by an early typewriter inventor, to demonstrate his new machine. It then entered a race which took place throughout the 20th century to be the sample sentence of choice for typing teachers (which it eventually lost to the all-alphabetically-inclusive "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"). Which leads me to remember my favorite typewriter-sales story, which I heard as a rumor and have not even bothered to investigate -- because it's so much more fun to believe the conspiracy-theory nature of it: part of the reason we have such a crazy "QWERTY" keyboard design is the fact that the typewriter salesmen did not know how to type. So, to make things easier for them, they put all the letters in the word "typewriter" in the top row (try typing it!). This made it easier for the salesmen to demonstrate the usefulness of the machine. As I said, I don't even care if this story is true or not, because it's so plausible, and I love a good conspiracy theory.

But we have to yank the steering wheel of this column back from this rambling bypass to our first detour from today's topic (sorry, as I said, it's Friday, y'know?).

For this one, we have to get a little serious.

Because the world is a poorer place this week -- Mary Travers is in it no more. This is a stunning event to anyone of a particular age who grew up in liberal households. Because Peter, Paul and Mary were about as common in such homes as peanut butter and jelly.

I was pretty much was weaned on Peter, Paul and Mary. The first song I knew the words to well enough to teach others was "I'm Leavin' On A Jet Plane" (yes, I know now that John Denver wrote it, but Peter, Paul and Mary made a hit out of it). This was in kindergarten, I should add. It's got a great rhythm to it, if you happen to be on a swingset (Don't believe me? Try it. Go out and swing, and sing it at the top of your voice. At least when the guys in white coats come to take you away after you've terrified your neighbors, you'll know that I'm right). Ahem.

I have a copy of their first eponymously-titled album which has been signed by all three of them, and personally made out to my parents. My father, when he was a college student, wandered by his university's library and saw music equipment being set up. When he realized who was going to appear, he tore down the street to get my mother, and they both wound up watching Peter, Paul and Mary perform for free (assumably they were doing a tour of big universities to promote the album). They rushed down the street to get a copy of their debut album, and waited in line to get it signed.

So, as I said, I was pretty heavily indoctrinated with the group at an astoundingly early age. There were other folk albums in my parents' record collection from other folk artists, but the Peter, Paul and Mary one was the one I swiped when I went off to college myself (I still have it, Dad, sorry about that). Ahem.

I met Mary and Paul inadvertently myself, as well. I was down on the Mall in D.C. for some demonstration or another (probably anti-nuke, this was the late 70s or early 80s), and got my own chance to see the group perform for free. I've since seen them at places like Wolf Trap (the original one, before it burned down), the Kennedy Center, and elsewhere -- but it's always more fun to see music for free, especially in the carnival atmosphere of a political rally. In any case, I was walking around a perimeter fence to rejoin my group at one point, and realized with a start that I was strolling about three feet from Mary and Paul. The little temporary chicken-wire fence I was walking along evidently fenced off the "backstage" area. Anyway, for the first time in my life I felt that "I don't know what to say" feeling we all feel when meeting a celebrity. I think I told them I enjoyed their set, but I could easily have stood there and said "gah... urgh... feh..." (memories are tricky things, I have to admit). After a few seconds, Mary walked away to greet someone else. I do remember that Paul was nice enough to throw away a soda can I had been lugging around (looking for a trash can -- this was before the Era Of Recycling had taken hold). Somehow, it was easier to talk to Paul than Mary. Perhaps being a teenage boy had something to do with it. Anything's possible.

In any case, this story isn't going anywhere, it's just a side excursion down Memory Lane to see all the lemon trees there.

As I said, the world's a poorer place now that it doesn't have Mary Travers in it. That's really my only point.

But enough schmaltz -- let's get back to politics!

It has been a mostly-impressive week for Democrats all around. Which made it hard to single out the most impressive from the pack this week. So before we get the actual Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award (the coveted "Golden Backbone"), we first must tip our column's metaphorical hat to a few who, in a normal week, probably would have won their own MIDOTW, but this week will have to settle for an Honorable Mention.

First up is Senator Paul G. Kirk Jr., who is now the junior senator from Massachusetts by dint of a brand-new law passed because of the tragic death of Senator Ted Kennedy. Kirk comes pre-approved by the Kennedy family, which is not hard to understand because he was a Kennedy staffer. His job is to warm the seat for five months, not run for the special election to really replace Kennedy, and vote a strict party line in the meantime. He is most likely qualified for all three of these requirements. In any case, we welcome the newest Democratic senator to Washington, which incidentally puts the Democrats back up to an effective (OK, sometimes not so effective) 60-vote majority once again.

Next up is a group award for the House Progressives. The caucus is (gasp!) actually holding together in unity for the public option, and the Blue Dogs are reportedly in disarray and confusion -- and fear of being kicked out of office next year. Nancy Pelosi has been adequately standing behind the Progressives, and whip counts seem to indicate that the strength is there to get a public option out of the House. So for holding the line, instead of scattering in the wind (as they have been known to do in the past), we have to honor the House Progressives here. Of course, the true test is the actual votes, but so far the group looks pretty united, which is good news.

And now two surprise Honorable Mentions. The first goes to none other than Majority Leader Harry Reid in the Senate. Reid, earlier this week, sounded pretty resolved to use budget reconciliation to get healthcare reform done with only 50 votes, if Republicans succeed in blocking all other avenues to get it passed. He also strongly indicated that he was going to take a week of vacation away from all senators, unless healthcare reform is actually done. Most people don't even get Columbus Day off, so it's pretty hard to argue that the Senate deserves an entire week off for the holiday, meaning Reid could use this to his advantage in a direct appeal to The People.

Of course, Reid's talked a good game before and then wimped out when it came time to act, so we'll see, we'll see. But at least he's saying the right things, for once.

The second surprise Honorable Mention goes to Senator Max Baucus. While he has been mostly a disappointment (to put it mildly) in the healthcare debate so far, he had a fairly good week. He smacked down the healthcare giant Humana after he discovered they were sending scare-tactic letters out to seniors warning them they were essentially going to be left to die in a forest if the Democrats passed healthcare reform. Baucus gently reminded Humana that they took lots of federal dough and that they weren't allowed to use it for political reasons, which predictably enraged Republicans. Baucus has also been moving the debate along in his committee, while they ponder over 560 amendments. In doing so, he has (once again) enraged Republicans, who know at this point that their only hope of derailing healthcare reform is endless stalling and delaying tactics -- which Baucus has been smacking down repeatedly.

But the first of two MIDOTW awards goes to Representative Alan Grayson of Florida, who has been pointing out that in the extraordinary attempts to de-fund ACORN, Congress is writing laws which will demand that the biggest 10 military contractors are also de-funded. Here he is in an interview with Salon's Glenn Greenwald:

"...it is true that 10 out of the 10 biggest defense contractors have been convicted of fraud at one time or another in the past few years, and ACORN hasn't, it's difficult to frame any bill, whatever one's intent, to punish ACORN and keep ACORN from being funded by fed contracts, without a lot of what the Republicans would consider to be collateral damage, and that's exactly what we saw in this bill. This bill, taken literally, at its words, actually forbids and prohibits fed funding of virtually every large defense contractor in America. And that's a result that comes from the fact that virtually every large defense contractor in America is crooked, and has been found guilty of fraud at one time or another."

Read the whole interview for more. Or read Greenwald's whole column, where he highlights a different quote from the interview with Congressman Grayson:

"The amount of money that ACORN has received in the past 20 years altogether is roughly equal to what the taxpayer paid to Halliburton each day during the war in Iraq."

But if you really want to get in on the fun, go to the page Grayson has set up so you can enter your own fraud and corruption which you think would disqualify a company from getting federal funds. Fun for the whole family!

Our second MIDOTW award goes to Senator Al Franken, who (thanks to Senator Kirk) is now only the 99th Senator on the seniority list! But seriously, Franken made my whole week by beating a hapless Justice Department employee over the head with the Constitution of the United States of America. In specific, the Fourth Amendment.

The Washington Independent had an article this week which pointed out what a swell job Franken is doing in Paul Wellstone's old seat. Franken read the amendment in question in full to the Assistant Attorney General, and then asked how he could square that with the PATRIOT ACT. The guy's response was classic:

[A.A.G. David] Kris looked flustered and mumbled that "this is surreal," apparently referring to having to respond to Franken's question.

Um, no, it should not be "surreal" to square what you are saying with the Constitution, sir. It should be a major part of your job description. It is the entire reason you are employed.

For helpfully exposing this surreal attitude over at the Justice Department, Senator Franken has more than earned his Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award.

[Congratulate Senator Al Franken via his Senate email info@franken.senate.gov, and Representative Alan Grayson on his House contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

You have to wonder whether President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is the true loose cannon in the administration (the media usually focuses on Biden's slips of the tongue, but Rahm's seem more frequent to me). You also have to wonder how much of what Rahm says is his own agenda, as opposed to Obama's, at times. Rahm has been arguing on the side of: "Let's compromise! Let's water the healthcare bill down even further! Let's give the Republicans everything they want, even if they won't vote for it!" -- pretty much since the battle on healthcare reform legislation began. This is disappointing because he was sold (when he was named to his powerful position) as a "kick-Capitol-Hill-ass and take names" type of guy, who would do the heavy arm-twisting required to pass actual legislation up on the Hill. Instead, it seems to be Rahm's arm that always gets twisted, and the only fiery language I've heard from him is how we can't possibly manage to do anything good with legislation.

In other words, he's been a major disappointment in general.

In particular, though, Rahm was echoing the mainstream media's "the public option doesn't stand a chance, it's dead as a doornail" attitude in an interview this week. Way to quit the fight before it's even begun, Rahm! Nothing like announcing to the world that the Democrats are going to fail, right at the crucial moment when the fight is about to commence! Senator Sherrod Brown responded by smacking Rahm's idea down forcefully, and baldly stating that he thinks the public option has at least 50 votes in the Senate.

For his performance this week -- a performance that is becoming way too common, by the way -- our Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week is none other than Rahm Emanuel.

[Contact the White House on their official contact page to let them know what you think of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's actions.]

Volume 95 (9/25/09)

I don't usually punt in such a fashion, but today we're going to re-run the talking points from Friday Talking Points [85], which is well worth re-reading in its entirety if you happen to be an Emerson, Lake and Palmer fan. What is it about three-named music groups this week?

Sorry, we don't need any more digressions, as we've already more than used up our quota. Won't happen again, I promise.

The reason for this week's reprint is that now is the time to contact your representatives and senators in Congress. This has been a long, hard slog, and the months and months of dashed expectations and wobbling Democratic Congresscritters have taken their toll among those who support strong healthcare reform (as opposed to some watered-down bill which won't fix the underlying problem). Many have already phoned or written or emailed their congressional Democrats, and may feel that the job's all done.

It is not. Because next week is going to be the start of the real battle, in both the House and the Senate. The real battle is between Democrats. This is when the "Public option or bust!" Progressives and the "We love corporate money!" Blue Dogs are going to have a showdown. And it is going to culminate not in statements to the press (or the lack thereof), not in some whispered whip count, but rather in a very public vote. So now is the time to strengthen their resolve by calling up their office and making your voice heard.

Here's a hint that wasn't in the earlier talking points: mention the word "donations." Democrats, at least on the national party level, are always terrified that donors will at some point simply stop sending in money to the party.

So, be loud and clear -- if the Democratic Party (and in particular, the senator or representative who represents you) does not deliver, then the money flow to them will end. And not only that, but the voters they're expecting next fall will stay home. Because we sent them to Washington for a reason. If they don't deliver, then we will wash our hands of them. Period.

Which leads us right into this week's talking points, provided in a topsy-turvy way as talking points to use when you contact your representative or senator. Now is the time. Look up your own representatives' contact info. Then pick up the phone, and give them a call. Do it today, or at the latest, Monday morning. They are waiting to hear from you.

Now is, indeed, the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party -- to strengthen our elected party officials' resolve for the upcoming fray.

This year. No excuses.

"Healthcare reform has got to pass this year, or we know you'll be too busy campaigning next year to tackle it. So, no excuses -- healthcare reform must happen this year. We haven't been electing Democrats to Congress in droves just for the sake of having a lot of Democrats in Congress. The magic number of 60 in the Senate is not a goal unto itself. This is not Sesame Street, with 'The Count' telling us what a wonderful number 60 is. We elected you folks to Congress to get something done, and if that doesn't happen then we are not going to help you keep your jobs the next time around. 'We tried, but couldn't manage to get it done' is no longer good enough. You can either do the job we sent you and Obama to Washington to do, or you will not have that job much longer. This is the year. Get it done. No excuses."

Anything less than a strong public option is not good enough

"You started this process by bringing everyone to the table with one glaring exception -- the single-payer supporters. So you started off by compromising. And all that talk of 'everyone gets a seat at the table' was sheer and unadulterated bunkum. Let's just admit that fact up front, shall we? Since you started with a compromise, further compromise is not acceptable. We don't care if Republicans vote for it. Can you name how many Republicans voted for Medicare? I didn't think so! Because NO ONE CARES today! In forty or fifty years, do you think history will care what the vote count was? No! History will care whether you fixed the problem or not. So let's keep our eyes on the ball, mmm-kay? It's just about time to kick the Republican obstructionists away from the table (just like you kicked the single-payer people to the curb), and get something good actually passed by the majority party. And that something had better include a strong public option, or it will be nothing more than window-dressing. And we, the American public, will know the difference this time around. So get it done right. Stop compromising, stop fantasizing about a bipartisan bill, and pass the public option."

Sorry, Rahm, a "trigger" is not good enough

"You know what the word 'trigger' says to me? It says that you want to kill something. So, for you trigger-happy healthcare reformers, I have to say: 'nice job choosing a metaphor, guys!' We do not need to wait to know that healthcare is broken in this country. The evidence is all around us. Talk to a few million of your constituents, why don't you, and they will tell you all their heath insurance horror stories. Each and every one. The only reason we would need a 'trigger' is if we somehow weren't sure that there was a problem. Here's a news flash: there is a problem! Passing a law that says 'well, if the problem gets a whole lot worse, maybe we'll fix it' is not good enough. Somebody needs to pull the trigger and kill the 'trigger' idea, because, honestly guys, you're not fooling anybody. Sorry, Rahm."

A co-op is not good enough

"Likewise, this idea of tiny little state co-ops is not acceptable. Maybe California could get a big enough pool to buy into it, but what about Vermont? Or Wyoming? I tell you what -- why not keep the co-op idea, and add it to a strong public plan? The more ideas in the marketplace the better! Give people as many choices as possible, but do not limit their choices by trying to substitute co-ops for a strong public option. Because co-ops are simply not good enough."

We're watching you

"Democrats who have not come out in support of the public option should be put on notice -- we know who you are. We know what your position is, we can find out how much money you've taken from the healthcare industry, and we will fund ads that explain this relationship to your constituents. Talk to a few of the Senate Democrats who have already felt this wrath, they'll tell you. And sorry, Mister President, but we're going to go right on funding these ads -- to save you from yourselves. Most of the time, on most of the issues, we let you get away with the stinking, fetid pile of fiction that 'campaign contributions don't influence my vote,' but this time we are not going to. This is fair warning, especially those of you who live in media markets where television ads are cheap. If you attempt to sell out your constituents, we are going to point it out. Again, and again, and again."

What is worth more to you -- healthcare campaign donations, or getting re-elected?

"You may think that those millions of dollars you've taken from the healthcare industry will be enough to get you re-elected. You should think twice about that. Because we are going to make it clear in no uncertain terms if you vote with the Republican obstructionists this time that everyone knows exactly what you've done. We are going to make it our mission to see that you get defeated, hopefully in a Democratic primary. We are quite serious about this, and we think the public will be receptive to the message that you were responsible for denying them choice in healthcare because you were so busy suckling at the healthcare industry lobbyist teat. So, given the choice, would you keep the gravy train from the healthcare industry rolling if you knew it wouldn't help you keep your job? That, indeed, it might cost you your job? Because that is the choice we are presenting."

We will actively support removing you from office if you do not deliver

"We are not going to just be disappointed if you kill true healthcare reform. We are going to actively support just about anyone who runs against you. We will encourage a nasty and expensive primary fight with a candidate of your own (purported) party. And if that leaves you too weak to defeat your Republican opponent next year, so be it! Because having you in your seat with a 'D' next to your name is completely worthless to us if you are going to vote with the Republicans anyway. It is time to make the choice, and do what is right. If you do, we will support your re-election loudly and strongly. If you don't, beware the whirlwind you will reap.

Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com

NEW! All-time award winners by rank!

Full archives of FTP columns: FridayTalkingPoints.com

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground

Paul Kirk: Massachusetts GOP Seeks To Block Kennedy Interim Successor

2009-09-25T07:47:29Z

WASHINGTON — Former Democratic Party chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. stepped in Friday as the temporary replacement in the Senate for his longtime friend, the late Edward Kennedy.

Kirk said taking over the Massachusetts seat left him with mixed emotions, particularly because he was still feeling the "profound absence" of his old pal.

Carol Felsenthal: Robert Byrd Should Resign From the Senate -- Today

2009-09-23T14:09:01Z

So much strategizing and lobbying, in the wake of Ted Kennedy's death, to change the law in Massachusetts to make certain the 60th Democratic vote is there for the health care bill.

Why so little attention to West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, 91, who is more often than not absent from the Senate and who is currently hospitalized after falling at home? He apparently broke no bones, but doctors found an elevated white blood cell count and so they're keeping him.
If the governor of West Virginia were a Republican one could understand Byrd's reluctance to resign, but the state's governor, Joe Manchin III, is a Democrat with the power to appoint an interim senator.

Elected to his ninth term in 2006, Byrd is the longest serving member of the Senate in history. He has nothing left to prove on that count. On September 10 he shed tears when he delivered a floor-speech tribute to his friend Ted Kennedy. That was one of the increasingly rare days he was able to make it to work.

A statement issued by his spokesman noted Byrd's "disappointment that he was unable to join all his Senate colleagues this afternoon for the biennial Senate photo."

What happens if health care comes up for a vote and Byrd is simply too sick to be wheeled in?