"Text of Kennedy's letter to Obama"

AP:

May 12, 2009

Dear Mr. President,

I wanted to write a few final words to you to express my gratitude for your repeated personal kindnesses to me — and one last time, to salute your leadership in giving our country back its future and its truth.

On a personal level, you and Michelle reached out to Vicki, to our family and me in so many different ways. You helped to make these difficult months a happy time in my life.

You also made it a time of hope for me and for our country.

When I thought of all the years, all the battles, and all the memories of my long public life, I felt confident in these closing days that while I will not be there when it happens, you will be the president who at long last signs into law the health care reform that is the great unfinished business of our society. For me, this cause stretched across decades; it has been disappointed, but never finally defeated. It was the cause of my life. And in the past year, the prospect of victory sustained me — and the work of achieving it summoned my energy and determination.

There will be struggles — there always have been — and they are already under way again. But as we moved forward in these months, I learned that you will not yield to calls to retreat — that you will stay with the cause until it is won. I saw your conviction that the time is now and witnessed your unwavering commitment and understanding that health care is a decisive issue for our future prosperity. But you have also reminded all of us that it concerns more than material things; that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country.

And so because of your vision and resolve, I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, in an America where the state of a family's health will never again depend on the amount of a family's wealth. And while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will — yes, we will — fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.

In closing, let me say again how proud I was to be part of your campaign — and proud as well to play a part in the early months of a new era of high purpose and achievement. I entered public life with a young president who inspired a generation and the world. It gives me great hope that as I leave, another young president inspires another generation and once more on America's behalf inspires the entire world.

So, I wrote this to thank you one last time as a friend — and to stand with you one last time for change and the America we can become.

At the Denver Convention where you were nominated, I said the dream lives on.

And I finished this letter with unshakable faith that the dream will be fulfilled for this generation, and preserved and enlarged for generations to come.

With deep respect and abiding affection,

(Ted)

Andrew Sullivan on Teddy: "Tainted, flawed and the maker of a president"

Andrew Sullivan

IF THE Kennedy funeral looked a little like a royal one, we should not have been surprised. Three living former presidents attended the rites. The tributes have been pouring in across the political spectrum. Orrin Hatch, the arch-conservative Utah senator, even composed a little song and sang it on YouTube. Among the memorably awful lyrics: “Just honour him/ Honour him/ And every fear/ Will be a thing of the past.”

The iconography of Kennedy’s passing was laden with memories of the Kennedy past: the death in the famous compound at Hyannisport, the family mass in the little room that overlooks Nantucket Sound, the tour through Boston (across the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway), the burial at Arlington next to his two brothers. It felt like a national day of mourning, rather than a 77-year-old pol’s passing.

This is unusual because Edward Kennedy dies not a martyr as Bobby and Jack did, nor as a war hero, like his oldest brother. He died a mere senator, whose career was so long, as George Will noted, that it comprised more than one-fifth of the entire existence of the US constitution.

It is, perhaps, a young country and it holds tight to its legendary families, even in less than glamorous hands. Kennedy, after all, was a failed presidential candidate, a philanderer and drunk, and his most cherished legislative goal – health insurance for all Americans – remained elusive to his dying days (if closer than ever before).

His passionate left-liberalism (far more orthodox than his brothers’) endured through the conservative era of the last quarter century to the fluid ideological wreckage of today.

But he never rose past the position of majority whip, a post he held for only two years, in part because he was also clearly complicit in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a woman he left dying in a car he crashed, and whose fate he first ducked rather than reported.

And his memorably vicious attack on Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court remains as much in the minds of Republicans as his stirring 1980 “The dream shall never die” speech at the Democratic convention resonates with Democrats. This is a mixed legacy, if a thoroughly human one.

So why all the fuss? The answer, of course, is dynasty, one of democratic America’s greatest and most endearing self-contradictions. The country that began by throwing off a monarchy more than two centuries ago immediately plunged into a democratic form of dynasticism. The Adams family produced two presidents in short order and, later, the Roosevelts and Bushes managed two as well.

But the Kennedy dynasty was the first in the modern era to combine tradition with glamour. Dynasties summon up images of fusty old clans with large rural estates, servants and coats of arms. That’s certainly how the sprawling Roosevelt clan appeared and how the Bush clan, summering in Kennebunkport under the auspices of a matriarch just as stern as Rose, still come off.

The Kennedys were different. They gave the world a dashing, witty, young president, a charismatic, assassinated attorney-general, the breathless stylishness of Jackie and the vistas of Hyannisport in the summer and children playing under the desk in the Oval Office. If this was a kind of dynasty, it was more in line with Diana Spencer than with Charles Windsor. It was a dynasty forged as much in Hollywood as in the politics of Boston. And when Hollywood dynasty is linked to actual power, its electoral aphrodisiac intensifies.

This is what the Kennedys meant and what this weekend of mourning really pays tribute to. They were and are a deeply flawed triumvirate – Jack, Bobby and Ted – but they managed to harness a sense of history with destiny, wrapped up in a robust liberalism.

Viewed dispassionately, of course, the Kennedy presidency is not exactly a triumph. It began with the disaster of the Bay of Pigs and careened through the Cuban missile crisis, beset all the while with staggering private misbehaviour in the White House, ties to mafia thugs and an ongoing war of nerves with J Edgar Hoover. Bobby Kennedy began his public career as a pursuer of communists in the government and ended it in that remarkable moral transformation of the 1968 campaign.

Ted Kennedy got his Senate seat after a Kennedy stooge kept it warm for him for a few months (until he was old enough), and lived through Chappaquiddick, a broken, alcoholic marriage and the deaths of two nephews.

And yet the Kennedys’ wit and rhetoric and intelligence and obvious passion – seen through the retroactive prism of tragedy – came to the surface and never really disappeared. They managed that great patrician feat – of seeming to be in touch with the common man because of their privilege, rather than despite it.

Ted pushed the boundaries of this. He offended the white working classes of Boston by his support for bussing African-American schoolchildren into white neighbourhoods.

His old nemesis, The Boston Herald’s Howie Carr, put the point well last week: “Whether it was court-ordered bussing in Boston in the 1970s, or the affirmative-action policies that stymied the careers of so many of his family’s traditional voters, Kennedy never grasped the depth of the blue-collar frustration as he veered left. What infuriated them even more was that so many of them had grown up in homes where on one side of the mantel was a faded photo of the martyred JFK, and on the other, the Pope, with a dried-up Palm Sunday frond between them.”

Yes, that sounds familiar. But, no, it wasn’t the whole truth. The Irish and Italian Catholics of Boston felt much closer to Ted than to many others more conservative than he – their former governor, Mitt Romney, for example, or their current one, Deval Patrick. Kennedy’s travails with the bottle and the boobs won them over; his tragedies brought people closer to him; and his long arduous career proved his mettle.

For Ted achieved what neither Bobby nor Jack did: he worked in the legislative branch tirelessly over a long period of time, doing the dull stuff of politics that changes lives.

His office was legendary for its constituent outreach. You can’t go far on Cape Cod, for example, without bumping into one of his projects. A call from Kennedy’s office had more frisson than anyone else’s and more clout.

He also worked across the aisle, helping George W Bush to pass his No Child Left Behind Act to improve school standards, joining with John McCain to forge a humane immigration reform.

He was a senator able to be fiercely ideological and also fiercely pragmatic, able to develop friendships beyond politics – friendships that are the grease that makes the Senate work. He was a master of parliamentary procedures and the helm of a ship of highly skilled staffers.

He was also, of course, a politician. Despite being a proponent of green energy, he single-handedly prevented the construction of a wind farm off Cape Cod because it might obstruct his sea view. In 2004 he fought hard to remove Romney’s right to appoint a temporary senator if John Kerry were to win the presidency. And yet in the week before his death he urged a return to the appointment of a temporary senator – in order to keep a Democratic vote for healthcare reform intact. He could be partisan and hypocritical, as well as bipartisan and principled.

He was also, I can personally attest, the de facto father of the orphaned children of Jack and Bobby. This was no easy role. One of my oldest friends is one of Bobby Kennedy’s sons, Max.

I saw in Max’s life, in his own successful battle against addiction, the guiding hand of his Uncle Teddy.

Ted couldn’t rescue all of them – David Kennedy, Max’s brother, died of a drug overdose. But he understood the disease of alcoholism that coursed through the family, sensed the danger of fatherlessness among his nieces and nephews and his own struggles against addiction fortified the others. And at every tragedy – Michael’s death while skiing, David’s in a lonely hotel room, John F Kennedy Jr’s plane crash – Ted was the rampart of the clan. He was a father figure in many ways.

His final son was Barack Obama. Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama early in the campaign, his virtual anointing of him with the Kennedy mantle, was a pivotal point in the defeat of that other burgeoning dynasty, the Clintons. Obama was moved to tears by the gesture and he isn’t moved too often. And he was touched in part because of the liberalism that Kennedy unfashionably held to: a firm belief that government must be at hand to help the poor, the marginalised or the needy.

Kennedy’s insistence on what he saw as racial justice and his deepest passion, universal healthcare, framed his legacy. There wasn’t a gay rights bill this compulsive heterosexual didn’t champion. Even if you disagreed with him on some issues, as I did, there was nothing subtle or contrived about his liberalism.

It was a big-hearted sort of politics, an expansively righteous sense of duty and, as such, an integral part of what makes Anglo-American politics work. Conservatism needs a Reagan and Thatcher; liberalism needs its Kennedys. Because we all need myth and we all need royalty – even if it is strained through the sieve of democratic rule.

Enoch Powell once remarked that all political careers end in failure. The strange thing about Kennedy is that his own might end posthumously in success. His anointed son Obama and a Democratic Congress will almost certainly pass a bill this autumn that will expand access to healthcare to all Americans. He fought for this for 40 years; and despite extreme resistance, peaking now, it seems clear that the Democrats have the votes to pass universal insurance, paid by government subsidy, for private healthcare.

It will cost $1 trillion (£614 billion) over the next decade, less than the Iraq war, if more than the United States can afford right now. But the passing of Kennedy will doubtless stiffen liberal spines to see it through.

Republicans believe they are doing to Obama what they did to Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994. But Obama won a clear majority while Clinton got only 43% of the vote; and this time, business needs reform because of soaring costs as much as the needy; and the insurance and drug companies are eager for all those new clients.

Clinton, moreover, failed to get his bill, rendering him bloodied; Obama will not fail to get his. There is a poignancy in this, whatever you think of the details of the bill. And Kennedy’s passing is a clarion call to finish the dream he worked for for so long.

As The New York Times elegantly put it, Kennedy “was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy”.

Maybe it’s my Irish blood or my love for some of his family – but even as I recognise that his vision of politics was different from my own, I am glad he lived and lived long.

He was in the end more than a Kennedy. He was a senator. He worked the hard way, in often unglamorous circumstances, mostly in the minority, but he worked.

Some in dynasties rise high and fall far. Others provide the drop-shadow of their siblings’ drama: the prosaic work of legislating that endures even after the dream has died.

Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and "The Legacy" (with video)

"At funeral Mass, Obama hails Kennedy as ‘a kind and tender hero’" (Boston Globe), with video (15:14):

Presidents and porters, dignitaries and dishwashers bade final farewell yesterday to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who was memorialized inside a grand church on a crowded street in a city for which he had a boundless love. He was the “soul of the Democratic Party,’’ in the words of Barack Obama, and “my best friend,’’ in those of his namesake son.

The funeral brought the city to a standstill and the 1,500 mourners inside the steamy basilica to hearty laughter and tears. Rain-soaked onlookers lined the procession routes to wave goodbye as the cortege made its way to the church and, later, to Hanscom Air Force Base, for a flight to Washington and his burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

An array of the nation’s most powerful politicians, Kennedy family members, and diverse celebrities crammed into pews at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Mission Hill for a two-hour service that was steeped in family lore and Catholic ritual. It began late but simply, with a procession of priests bearing incense and military officers carrying the casket down the center aisle of a silent church to the barely audible commands of “Hup. Hup. Hup.’’

Edward M. Kennedy Jr. left the mourners spellbound when he described a snowy day shortly after he lost a leg to bone cancer when he was 12 years old. His father urged him to coast down a hill in front of their house, but the son, frustrated because he could not climb the icy driveway with one leg, declared he was giving up.

“He said: ‘I know you’ll do it; there is nothing you can’t do. We’re going to climb that hill together, even if it takes us all day,’ ’’ his son recalled from the pulpit, removing his glasses to rub away tears. “Sure enough, he held me around my waist, and we slowly made it to the top. And, you know, at age 12, losing a leg pretty much seems like the end of the world, but as I climbed onto his back and we flew down the hill that day, I knew he was right. I knew I was going to be OK.’’

The funeral was the centerpiece of a solemn day of remembrance that began in the early morning at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dorchester and ended on a grassy hillside after dusk in Arlington National Cemetery, where Kennedy was laid to rest in a grave next to his two brothers. Just before that, hordes of congressional staff members and everyday Washingtonians had filled the Capitol steps and lined the streets of Washington in a farewell of their own.

In Boston, in the soaring basilica known as Mission Church, President Obama and his wife, Michelle, sat in the first row next to Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. In the next pew, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sat beside former president George W. Bush and her husband, the former president. Nearby sat another former president, Jimmy Carter.

“He was given a gift of time that his brothers were not,’’ Obama said in the eulogy. “And he used that time to touch as many lives and right as many wrongs as the years would allow.’’

“We do not weep for him today because of the prestige attached to his name or his office,’’ Obama said. “We weep because we loved this kind and tender hero who persevered through pain and tragedy, not for the sake of ambition or vanity, not for wealth or power, but only for the people and the country he loved.’’

After the eulogy, Obama hugged Kennedy’s tearful widow, Victoria, with one of his hands resting on the casket.

Prior to the service, Obama had walked in drizzling rain from his hotel, the Westin Copley Place, to meet privately with her for about 10 minutes at the Fairmont Copley Plaza.

The funeral capped three days of public mourning and celebrations of Kennedy’s 77 years of living and 47 years as a United States senator.

The funeral service was marked by an extraordinary collection of celebrities from Boston, Washington, and beyond, including singer Tony Bennett, actor Jack Nicholson, Celtics legend Bill Russell, and the ownership trio of Kennedy’s beloved Boston Red Sox. The crowd also included a healthy dose of his current and former staff members, legendary in Washington circles for their legislative prowess, and the kinds of everyday people whom Kennedy befriended through his politics and policies.

As the drizzle became a downpour outside, the church was brightly lighted, and sounds from some of the world’s most renowned musicians rose toward the arched, soaring ceilings and echoed off the marble walls.

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma played a mournful “Sarabande’’ from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6. The melancholy voice of tenor Placido Domingo filled the sanctuary as he sang “Panis Angelicus.’’ And mezzo-soprano Susan Graham held the congregation entranced with Shubert’s “Ave Maria.’’

At the end, after Kennedy was commended to God by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the congregation sang “America the Beautiful,’’ accompanied by a 3,200-pipe organ, as the casket was wheeled back down the center aisle, guided by some of the senator’s nephews and nieces.

The church, stuffy from the capacity congregation and the gathering storm outside, featured the odd sight of men in earpieces lining the walls and gleaming motorcades parked next to the weathered buildings outside. The church grew quiet when the Kennedy family began streaming down the center aisle.

“A few scant miles from here, the city on the hill stands less tall against the morning sky,’’ said Rev. J. Donald Monan, former president of Boston College and a Kennedy family friend. “And the sea out toward . . . Nantucket is a bit more forlorn at the loss of one of its most ardent lovers.’’

In the homily, the Rev. Mark R. Hession recalled the significance that the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help held for the senator.

“When critical illness threatened his own daughter, he came to this place daily to pray,’’ Hession said, referring to Kara Kennedy’s successful battle against cancer. “He came here, like generations before him, seeking the healing hand of God. We’re reminded that the most public personalities also live a very personal existence. This church was the place of private prayer for a public man.’’

Kennedy’s grandchildren, grandnieces, grandnephews, nieces, and nephews delivered intercessions that relied on words that Kennedy once uttered: That the nation should stand against violence, hate, and war; that people from all walks of life should be respected; that health care should be a right for all Americans; and, as he famously said at last year’s Democratic National Convention, “The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.’’

“Lord, hear our prayer,’’ the congregation said after each petition.

The most memorable tributes came from Kennedy’s sons.

Ted Jr. recalled how his father was a storyteller, lover of costume parties, accomplished painter, and loved “everything French - cheese, wine, and women.’’

“He was a mountain climber, navigator, skipper, tactician, airplane pilot, rodeo rider, ski jumper, dog lover, and all around adventurer,’’ his son said. “Our family vacations left us all injured and exhausted.’’

He told of how his father would leave money on the sink for hotel staff who made his bed. He mentioned how his father was recruited by the Green Bay Packers out of college, but chose law school instead. He confided that his father was “a dinner table debater and devil’s advocate.’’

“He even taught me some of life’s harder lessons,’’ Kennedy said, “such as how to love Republicans.’’

Kennedy’s other son, Patrick, a congressman from Rhode Island, spoke of being a young boy who suffered from chronic asthma attacks and throbbing headaches after using his medications every night. On family vacations, a special nonallergenic, nonsmoking room had to be reserved for him. His father would hold a cold, wet towel to his forehead until he could go to sleep.

“Having asthma was like hitting the jackpot for a child who craved his father’s love and attention,’’ he said. “When his light shined on me alone, there was no better feeling in all of the world.’’

He also spoke of the great joy he took in joining his father in the US Congress.

Kennedy was the chubby-faced baby of the family who became a patriarch for a clan that most Americans have seen so often on television that they feel they are part of the family, too.

As Obama said, Kennedy lost two siblings by the age of 16, and saw two more assassinated. His sister, Eunice, died two weeks before he did, he buried three nephews, and he saw two of his own children battle cancer. In one of the few references to his personal foibles, Obama added that Kennedy “experienced personal failings and setbacks in the most public way possible.’’

“It’s a string of events that would have broken a lesser man,’’ Obama said. “And it would have been easy for Ted to let himself become bitter and hardened, to surrender to self-pity and regret, to retreat from public life and live out his years in peaceful quiet. No one would have blamed him for that. But that was not Ted Kennedy.’’

Obama concluded with a final, stirring picture of Kennedy: “The image of a man on a boat, white mane tousled, smiling broadly as he sails into the wind, ready for whatever storms may come, carrying on toward some new and wondrous place just beyond the horizon.

“May God bless Ted Kennedy,’’ he added. “And may he rest in eternal peace.’’

Howie P.S.: Here are two more stories on this theme, "President Obama inherits ‘Legacy’" (Boston Herald) and "For Obama, a sea of inspiration for Kennedy eulogy" (Chicago Tribune). Video (04:21) of guests arriving at the funeral here.

Professor Sorensen gives a Ted Kennedy history lesson (video)

MSNBC-Hardball, video (08:03).

Howie P.S.: In a Hardball 'first,' Tweety promises not to interrupt his guest.

Howard Dean on Ted Kennedy

Howard Dean (TPMCafe):

We will miss Senator Ted Kennedy as a nation, and I will miss him as a human being. Over the next few months, as we debate his life's passion, which was Universal Health Care, we will feel his presence everywhere. He will be in the Senate Chamber, in the committee rooms, in the White House, and in the minds of most of the reporters old enough to have witnessed the trajectory of this extraordinary generation of America's First Family from it's beginning. Much has been written about Ted Kennedy already. He was indeed extraordinary. My mother, who was a solid Upper East Side Republican until 2004, once happened to sit next to him at a wedding of a mutual friend. She had never met him before. I'm sure the exchange was lively, and being a Dean, I doubt my mother gave him much quarter. A week later, a beautiful, kind, and very personal handwritten letter arrived from Ted Kennedy. My mother, like so many other Americans, was hooked by the Kennedy charm and grace.

Ted Kennedy was a man with a long career of determination as well as charm. When President Obama signs a Health Care Reform bill late this year, Ted Kennedy may not be standing there next to him, but his presence will be deeply apparent in the Oval Office as the President's pen moves across the page.

John Nichols: "Let Limbaugh Hate, Let Kennedy Have the Last Laugh"

John Nichols (The Nation):

Richard Nixon, when asked his opinion of an up-and-coming Texan named George Herbert Walker Bush, famously replied with casual disinterest, observing that Bush was alright as ambitious young pols went.

Then, Nixon lit up at the thought of Bush's wife, Barbara.

"Now," he declared, gleefully, "there's a woman who knows how to hate."

In the circles of contemporary Republicanism, the ability to hate is the most highly valued of skills.

That is main reason why, in the party's time of current peril, radio host Rush Limbaugh has emerged as the Grand Old Party's dominant figure.

Limbaugh knows how to hate.

He spews verbal venom at President Obama, Congressman James Clyburn, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Limbaugh even disdains Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele.

Despite his "Operation Chaos" hijinks during last year's Democratic presidential primary season, Limbaugh has heaped hate on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the better part of two decades, and on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Senator Barbara Boxer and the National Organization for Women.

But no individual or group has suffered the scorn of Limbaugh for so long, and with such intensity, as Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy.

So it should come as a shock to no one that, even as Kennedy battles brain cancer, Limbaugh is still taking shots at the distinguished senator.

Forget about the fact that Kennedy long ago earned a reputation as a legislative craftsman of the highest order, winning the praise and friendship even of conservatives such as Utah Senator Orrin Hatch.

Limbaugh still uses Kennedy as a punching bag.

Thus, Limbaugh finished his week of infamy with a rant against healthcare reform that was meant to pick on the president but could not resist taking a shot at the senator whose name is most closely and consistently linked with the struggle to reform a broken system. "So he's [Obama has] moved on to health care," the host rambled. "This is highly visible, it's news leading, gets a great focus, plus it has the great liberal lion Teddy Kennedy pushing it. Before it's all over it will be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill."

Playing the prospect of a senior senator's death for laughs is creepy. And it drew the predictable rebukes. ("Even for someone with a long, sordid history of spewing sexist, racist, and disgusting rhetoric, Rush Limbaugh has really outdone himself this time with this wildly uncalled for and tasteless remark about ailing Senator Ted Kennedy," complained Jeremy Funk of Americans United for Change. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee DCCC executive director Brian Wolff declared: "Rush Limbaugh's reprehensible remark that, ' before it's all over, it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill' is truly outrageous. Leader Limbaugh minimizes the struggle of hardworking Americans without access to affordable health care and demonizes a patriotic Senator who has spent his life fighting so that every person has the opportunity to live the American dream. Leader Limbaugh crossed the line. National Republicans must stand up to their leader, Rush Limbaugh, and tell him that enough is enough.")

But there is only one appropriate rebuke for the likes of Limbaugh.

That is to reject the ridicule and embrace the object of the hatred.

The national health care legislation that America so surely needs should be named for Kennedy.

Ideally, the designation would celebrate the senator's triumph in his fight with cancer.

But there is simply no question that Kennedy has battled longer and harder than anyone else in Washington to expand access to health care for all Americans.

So, yes, make it the Edward Kennedy National Health Care Bill.

Let Limbaugh have his hate.

Let Ted Kennedy -- and the humane and responsible advocates for reform battled at the side of the liberal lion -- have the last laugh.

"Sen. Teddy Kennedy ~ Democratic National Convention 08/25/08" (video)

alapoet (Steve Elliott), video (10:09):

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), gives his extraordinary speech to the Democratic National Convention, Monday, August 25, 2008.

Howie P.S.: I didn't want to look at anybody from ABC News, but that's where the video originated. To keep events in perspective, watch "Chuck Todd: Media Overplaying Obama vs. Clinton Rift" (video,01:31) via Jed Lewison. On the other hand, "State Clinton backers say it's Obama's move" comes from this morning's Seattle P-I and draws on comments from Washington state Hillary supporters.

Barack Obama

"Kennedy Revels in Limelight as He Stumps for Obama"

NY Times:

SANTA FE, N.M. — “Are you glad to see me, Santa Fe?” Edward M. Kennedy roared.

“Yes!” Santa Fe roared back. There were whoops and “Viva Kennedy” chants from the overflow crowd at a community college. A man in the back held an “Obama 2008, Kennedy 2016” sign. “Estoy muy contento estar aquí en Santa Fe con usted,” Mr. Kennedy said in perfectly accented Spanish — that is, perfectly Boston-accented Spanish. (“I am very happy to be here in Santa Fe with you, ” he was trying to say, somewhat imperfectly.)

But Mr. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, is ever game for trying, and the crowd ate it up. The white-haired liberal legend with a bad back, halting speech and worn brown shoes has been called a “lion in winter” so many times that he has the political cliché version of frostbite.

Yet Mr. Kennedy, 75, is hot, hot, hot on the trail, stumping for Senator Barack Obama, who was 15 months old when Mr. Kennedy began his Senate career in 1962. He is drawing raucous crowds, invoking the family legacy, working the lunch crowd at the Flying Tortilla in Santa Fe and getting the kitchen staff together for a photo.

Arriving at a rally in East Los Angeles on Friday, Mr. Kennedy was swarmed by a couple of dozen reporters and the like, a big, fuzzy boom mike hovering over his head, autograph hounds and cellphone-camera paparazzi at the perimeter.

“It’s like when Tony Bennett suddenly became hip again after the kids discovered him,” observed Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist and former Kennedy aide who attended the rally. “It’s the same thing with Kennedy. He’s MTV now. And instead of jazz clubs, he’s doing the Hollywood Bowl.”

It all started on Monday when Mr. Kennedy endorsed Mr. Obama — a decent and perhaps surprising political story, given Mr. Kennedy’s ties to the Clintons. It also had symbolic consequence (elder statesman anoints up-and-comer).

Then Mr. Kennedy appeared with Mr. Obama Monday at American University in Washington and drew screeches from the college students whose notion of “Kennedy” growing up was more apt to have been the MTV V.J. rather than the political dynasty. He has always had a knack for transcending generations, but this was different, bigger.

“There seems to be a special kind of feeling this time,” Mr. Kennedy said.

The clamor continued around the senator as he took his act solo to New Mexico (Thursday) and California (Friday), hitting largely Hispanic sites, seemingly having the time of his life. He sang in Spanish (“Jalisco”) on a Latino radio show in Los Angeles. He challenged Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California (a nephew-in-law) to arm-wrestle on the air for the presidency (the senator for Obama, the Governator for Senator John McCain).

Between rallies, Mr. Kennedy indulged in a fancy dinner in Beverly Hills on Thursday night with his wife, Victoria, an aide and two reporters. The maître d’ came over and told a slightly off-color story about Ronald Reagan, who used to sit with Nancy, in the very same booth. (Blasphemy alert: Ted Kennedy is sitting in Reagan’s booth!) Steve Martin and Diane Keaton were at the next table and the senator labored over to pay respects.

On the way out, Mr. Martin stopped by and said, “This dinner is compliments of the Republican Party,” whatever that meant, and Mr. Kennedy belly-laughed politely before returning to his veal.

On the stump, Mr. Kennedy began his set with a surefire applause line: One year from now, George W. Bush will be out of the White House.

He rarely mentioned Hillary Rodham Clinton by name, but veiled shots were unmistakable. He praised Mr. Obama’s experience, resisting the big-money law firm jobs out of law school to work as a community organizer.

“Now that’s the kind of experience I want,” Mr. Kennedy said, a clear reference to Mrs. Clinton’s mantra about her “35-years of experience.” He praised Mr. Obama’s willingness to play a visible role in the debate over immigration (implying Mrs. Clinton did not) and opposing the Iraq war from the beginning (ditto).

Per senatorial — and, in this case, family — birthright, Mr. Kennedy has had presidential notions of his own in the past. He lost to President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 Democratic primaries, then returned to the Senate, immersed himself in legislative life and liberal interests. Only two senators in history — Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia — have served longer.

But Mr. Kennedy has hardly been cleansed of the presidential germ, at least on behalf of others. He has endorsed Democrats in past primaries, including his Massachusetts colleague, Senator John Kerry, for whom he campaigned tirelessly in 2004.

But friends and family members say there is a different feeling this time, a level of intensity that seems deeper, even sentimental.

“This involvement seems more personal to him somehow,” said Representative Patrick J. Kennedy, Democrat of Rhode Island and Mr. Kennedy’s son. “It’s like an opportunity for him to connect with the touchstone of his brothers’ legacy.”

Indeed, the comparisons of Mr. Obama to John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy may be slightly overstated, except that Mr. Kennedy himself is also making them, at least implicitly. “Fifty years ago, another young senator changed history,” he said at a rally in Albuquerque. He mentioned past visits he made to New Mexico for his brothers’ campaigns.

“Well, I think my brothers are on a pedestal unto themselves,” Mr. Kennedy said in a brief interview after the Santa Fe rally. “But Barack is a very inspiring figure to me.”

On the trail, Mr. Kennedy does not so much walk as lumber. His back is perpetually hunched, his face in a grimace, as if he is weighed down by so much baggage, burden, legacy.

But he is quick on his feet, too. While he was being introduced Thursday in Albuquerque, a fire alarm started wailing and a computerized voice urged everyone to evacuate. No one knew what to do. “I can’t think of a nicer crowd to go with,” Mr. Kennedy exclaimed, popping out of his seat. Everyone laughed, the fire alarm stopped, and all was good.

Later, Mr. Kennedy was at the airport, heading toward a Learjet leased for him by the Obama campaign. He and his wife clasped hands for the benefit of a photographer back-pedaling on the tarmac.

“Pretend we’re lovebirds,” Mrs. Kennedy said to her husband, playing to the camera.

“Yes, love birds, love birds,” he agreed.

“We’re heading onto the big bird,” she said.

And the Liberal Lion was actually giggling.

Barack Obama

"Bigger Than Limbaugh"

Political Punch (ABC News political blog):

Over at Ruralvotes.com, Al Giardano notes a significant radio moment most of us gringos missed yesterday.

On the El Piolín radio show, the most popular radio show in the U.S. , Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., called in to host Eddie Sotelo with a big love note to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, which Sotelo translated for his Spanish-speaking listeners.

“Only two senators marched for immigrant rights on May 1, 2006," Kennedy said, "one in Washington and the other in Chicago. I marched in Washington and Barack Obama marched in Chicago. He was not afraid to stand up when others wouldn’t.”

Kos considers this a pretty big moment.

Interestingly, even though she was in LA, Clinton last night continued to sound more moderate on the subject of illegal immigration. "You know, I was in Atlanta last night, and an African-American man said to me, 'I used to have a lot of construction jobs, and now it just seems like the only people who get them anymore are people who are here without documentation.'" she recalled. "So, I know that what we have to do is to bring our country together to have a comprehensive immigration reform solution."

After the debate, on MSNBC, Air America's Rachel Madow lambasted Clinton for those remarks, while Pat Buchanan praised her.

Barack Obama

"Obama, Clinton and the War"

Robert Scheer (Truthdig):

It should mean a great deal to progressives that in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Ted Kennedy favors Sen. Barack Obama over two other colleagues he has worked with in the Senate. No one in the history of that institution has been a more consistent and effective fighter than Kennedy for an enlightened agenda, be it civil rights and liberty, gender equality, labor and immigrant justice, environmental protection, educational opportunity or opposing military adventures.

Kennedy was a rare sane voice among the Democrats in strongly opposing the Iraq war, and it is no small tribute when he states: “We know the record of Barack Obama. There is the courage he showed when so many others were silent or simply went along. From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth.”

But that is precisely the truth that Sen. Hillary Clinton has shamelessly sought to obscure. Her supporters have accepted Clinton’s refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it. It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members—five more on Monday—and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn’t end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden.

Clinton’s apologists include Gloria Steinem and too many other feminists, who should know better than to betray the women’s movement’s commitment to peace in favor of simplistic gender politics. It is disturbing, not because they conclude that Clinton is the best candidate, but because they refuse to challenge their candidate to be better. Does it not matter that Clinton’s key foreign policy advisers are drawn heavily from the ranks of the neoliberals, who cheered as loudly for President Bush’s war as did the neoconservatives? Are they not concerned that Richard Holbrooke, who exploited his experience and access to secret information during the Clinton presidency to back Bush’s Iraq invasion, is a likely contender for secretary of state should she win?

Sandy Berger, a key Clinton adviser, played a major role in convincing Kennedy’s congressman son, Patrick, to vote for the war authorization against what the younger Kennedy said was the advice of his father and his own better instincts. According to a Knight Ridder report at the time, “Patrick Kennedy said the most persuasive arguments for attacking Iraq came from members of the Clinton White House,” including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is often described as the foreign policy expert closest to Hillary. Patrick J. Kennedy refuses to be burned twice and now supports Obama.

Yes, if Hillary Clinton is the candidate, she probably will be better than the Republican alternative and, as Ted Kennedy made clear, deserving of our support. But isn’t it troubling that she can’t hold a candle to Sen. John McCain when it comes to fighting Pentagon waste or pushing for campaign-finance reform to curtail the power of lobbyists? Isn’t it disturbing that Sen. Clinton has received more money than any other candidate of either party from the big defense contractors, according to a report on the Huffington Post? Why have the war profiteers given her twice the campaign contributions that they sent to McCain, if not for the expectation that she is on their side of the taxpayer rip-off that has seen the military budget rise to an all-time high? It’s for the same reason that the bankers, Wall Street traders and other swindlers who produced our economic meltdown fund Clinton.

Hillary Clinton has made “experience” key to her claim to the presidency and tells us she will do the right thing from “day one.” The reality is that her extra four years in the U.S. Senate hardly provides better experience than Obama’s eight years in the Illinois state Senate battling for progress with the nation’s most hard-boiled politicians. And if she lays claim to her husband’s presidency, then she must also take responsibility for caving in to big media with the Telecommunications Act, selling out to the banks with the Financial Services Modernization Act, and killing the federal welfare program—a political gambit that deeply wounded millions of women and children.

Her political career began with the Senate and she hit the ground running, but, as her craven support for Bush after 9/11 shows, it was in the wrong direction.

Howie P.S.: I first met Scheer in 1965 when he spoke at anti -war (Vietnam) Teach-In I helped organize at UCLA. Here we are again. You can now add Sen. Patty Murray to the list of Clinton apologists, according to today's Seattle P-I.

Barack Obama

"Obama, Kennedys Resonate with Youth"

The Caucus, NY Times political blog:

Patrick Kennedy, a representative of Rhode Island, today reminded a packed crowd at American University in Washington that the 26th Amendment that lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 came about largely through the work of his father, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

“And I can see that all of you are going to make good use of that this election. Right?” asked Mr. Kennedy as he, his father and his cousin Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, formally endorsed Barack Obama for president.

Each Kennedy family member incorporated youth or issues important to young people in their speech on the college campus. Caroline Kennedy talked about how her three teenagers are big Obama fans, and Senator Kennedy spoke of President Kennedy’s commitment to youth public service as well as Mr. Obama’s dedication to the fight against global warming.

Mr. Obama himself told the crowd that he’s able to run for president because his father, who grew up in poverty in Kenya, received a grant from the Kennedy Foundation to study abroad.

Kaitie O’Hare, 17, drove down from Baltimore with her mom early this morning to make sure she got her chance to see Mr. Obama speak. She called the whole experience – which included several hours lined up in the cold outside the Bender Arena – “inspiring and moving.”

And of Senator Kennedy’s endorsement, she said, “It’s good because Hillary’s not getting it.”

“Ted Kennedy’s, like, ‘Mr. Democratic Party,’ and everyone’s always talking about the whole experience thing, and here’s the most experienced guy in Washington saying he thinks Barack’s the guy for the job,” said Brian Levy, 18, a friend of Ms. O’Hare’s who attends George Washington University in Washington.

“I think this is one of the biggest events in the election so far,” he added.

Friends Melani Hom, 22, and Danielle Pals, 21, work at nonprofits in Washington and skipped a half-day of work to go to the rally. Pre-rally, they were leaning toward Mr. Obama, and they said they, too, were impressed by the speeches they heard.

“Right before, Danielle was like, ‘I’m looking for some inspiration,’ and I got some chills,” Ms. Hom said. “I think Kennedy and Obama bring a balance of old and new Democrats.”

“I think it brought some revitalization to the campaign,” Ms. Pals added. “I think it brings a different group of people on board – I hope.”

The younger – we mean really young – crowd also soldiered the cold to show their support for Mr. Obama, sometimes by their own choosing and sometimes, well, not. The rally coincided with a teacher institute day for the Arlington, Va., school district, so a lot of kids spent their day off learning about politics.

“I don’t want to be here. It’s really cold,” said Lydia Packard, 9, of Arlington, Va., whose mom Nancy Butt Packard is an Obama supporter.

That said, Ms. Packard admits she’s learned a little bit about Mr. Obama at home from her parents. “I hear them say he’s a good person.”

Zulaika Brown, 7, of Columbia, Md., perhaps approaches politics more seriously.

“He’s a great man and we want him to be president because he’ll be good to us and our country,” said Ms. Brown, who is home-schooled, of Mr. Obama. “He’ll be the first African-American president, and maybe he’ll stop the war.”

And she loves — loves — the idea of Mr. Obama’s daughters Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, moving into the White House. As she jumped up and down in excitement, the only word Ms. Brown could eke out about the Obama girls was that it would be “cool” if she could someday play with them.

“I told her she’s not old enough to vote,” said her mother, Faridah Brown, “but if she could, she would vote for him.”

Barack Obama

"KENNEDY EAGERLY STUMPS FOR OBAMA..." (with video)

Ari Melber (The Nation), with video (00:55):

Senator Ted Kennedy is not wasting any time in his new advocacy for Barack Obama's campaign. After the official endorsement rally in Washington on Monday, Kennedy took to the airwaves to tout Obama in an interview with PBS' Tavis Smiley before the State of the Union.

"The one overriding issue is which of these candidates can galvanize the Democratic party, can galvanize America," Kennedy said. "My sense is that Barack Obama has the ability to bring together young and old, black and white, the people from all different parts of our country, call on the best within them and get the job done for not just the Democratic party but for our country." He also repeated the idea that Obama offers the kind of historic inspiration and leadership associated with JFK and RFK. "I think Barack Obama brings this same sense of vision, this same sense of uplift, this same sense of hope, the same challenge to the young people that my brothers brought," he added.

Smiley also asked why "so many of the powerful white male members of the U.S. Senate, past and present, are lining up behind Barack Obama," while "the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus ... though not by much, has gotten behind Hillary Clinton"? Kennedy answered that many politicians endorsed people based on personal relationships, but he was moved by Obama because he combines inspiration with the ability to get the job done. "We want elect the person that can get the job done," he said. "And to get the job done you have to bring people together. And to bring people together you have to be Barack Obama."

Barack Obama

"BARACK TOPS TOPLESS BRITNEY" (with video)

Ari Melber, with video (18:45):

Barack Obama's South Carolina victory speech skyrocketed to the top of YouTube on Monday, shooting past new footage of a topless Britney Spears and netting over 323,000 views so far.

Obama and Britney have actually been battling on YouTube since last week, when he shot past two videos of a (fully clothed) Spears trailed by paparazzi. Obama's speech is also the second most "favorited" video of the day on YouTube, just behind a personal message from Ron Paul. (Paul does not draw as many overall viewers, but he has the most views of any Republican candidate, and his motivated supporters consistently choose his clips as their favorites.) And today the Obama Campaign rushed out another video of his endorsement event with Ted Kennedy -- we'll see if the liberal lion can also rival the pop culture competition.

The Kennedy and Paul videos are below. If you want Britney, go find her yourself.

Howie P.S.: You will have to find the Paul video yourself, as well.

Barack Obama

"Kennedy to Endorse Obama"

The Caucus (NY Times political blog): MACON, Ga. – Senator Edward M. Kennedy intends to endorse the presidential candidacy of Senator Barack Obama during a rally on Monday in Washington.

The Kennedy endorsement has been underway for days, even before the outcome of the South Carolina primary. Mr. Kennedy told his decision to Mr. Obama on Thursday.

“I’ve had ongoing conversations with Ted since I’ve got into this race,” Mr. Obama told reporters today as he flew to Alabama.

Of all the endorsements in the Democratic Party, Mr. Kennedy’s is viewed as the most weighty. He had vowed to stay out of the presidential nominating fight, but as the contest expands into a state-by-state fight – and given the tone of the race in the last week – associates said he was moved to announce his support for Mr. Obama.

The endorsement will be announced at a rally at American University on Monday, hours before the State of the Union Address at the Capitol.

Mr. Obama flew to Georgia for his first post-South Carolina stop. Before appearing at Sunday morning church services at the Harvest Cathedral in Macon, Ga., Mr. Obama was asked about Mr. Kennedy’s potential endorsement on ABC News’ “This Week.”

“Well, you know, I’ll let Ted Kennedy speak for himself. And nobody does it better,” Mr. Obama said. “But obviously, any of the Democratic candidates would love to have Ted Kennedy’s support. And we have certainly actively sought it. And you know, I will let him make his announcement and his decision when he decides it’s appropriate.”

Mr. Kennedy, the latest in a string of senators to announce their support for Mr. Obama, is said by associates to be drawn to Mr. Obama because of his ability to motivate a new generation of Democrats. His niece, Caroline Kennedy, made a similar argument in an op-ed piece in today’s Times.

During Mr. Obama’s three years in the Senate, he has worked to build allies and gain friendships with many of his colleagues. While Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Obama have not been particularly close, Mr. Obama quickly gained the admiration of the Kennedy family.

It was on a November day in 2005, near the end of Mr. Obama’s first year in the Senate, when he was asked to deliver a keynote address at a ceremony commemorating the 80th birthday of Robert F. Kennedy. The invitation was extended by Ethel Kennedy, who at the time referred to Mr. Obama as “our next president.”

“I think he feels it. He feels it just like Bobby did,” Mrs. Kennedy told me that day, comparing her late husband’s quest for social justice to Mr. Obama’s. “He has the passion in his heart. He’s not selling you. It’s just him.”

While Mr. Obama dismissed the suggestion at the time, her words were among the many accolades from prominent Democrats that sparked his presidential ambitions.

In an interview with reporters aboard his plane, Mr. Obama said he had been having ongoing conversations with Mr. Kennedy since he began his presidential campaign a year ago. He declined to discuss the endorsement of Mr. Kennedy, but he called the support of Caroline Kennedy “an extraordinary honor.”

“For somebody who, I think, has been such an important part of our national imagination and who generally shies away from involvement in day to day politics to step out like that is something that I’m very grateful for,” he said.

Barack Obama