Will The Republicans Get Away With Destroying Ted Kennedy's Legacy?

With vicious right-wing extremists and their leader, Rush Limbaugh, fulminating that Democrats would try to reform health care as a tribute to Senator Kennedy-- who called that mission "the cause of my life"-- the Massachusetts state legislature seems to be moving towards helping with that goal by granting another, more recent Kennedy wish-- asking lawmakers to allow Gov. Deval Patrick to name a temporary Senate replacement until a special election can be held in 5 months.

Kennedy wanted a caretaker replacement named so that Massachusetts would be represented with two senators between the time he could no longer serve and when a replacement is elected. Predictably, Republicans are opposed to the idea for the same reasons Democrats favor it. The new senator will surely be a supporter of the Edward Kennedy Health Care Reform Bill-- as well as other family friendly legislation Republican habitually oppose. Patrick supports the idea and the most powerful Democrats in the state legislature have come around the agreeing it's the way to go.

Elections Law committee co-chair Sen. Tom Kennedy (D-Brockton) said he and House co-chair Michael J. Moran (D-Boston) may bump up a hearing date for a bill that would give temporary appointing power to Patrick to Sept. 17.

“(The bill) was originally grouped in with the October hearing, but we’re trying to take into consideration the interest of the legislators,” said Kennedy.

Rep. Robert M. Koczera (D-New Bedford), who filed the bill, spoke to Moran yesterday and said he received assurances that his bill would be heard before the original Oct. 7 hearing.

“I’m pretty confident they’ll try to honor the request in some way,” said Koczera.

Several friends have asked me for proof that the vicious right-wing extremists, aside from Limbaugh, are already disparaging Kennedy's name. I hardly know where to start and I don't have any stomach for sifting through the garbage. Politico, fortunately, has no such queasiness:

Andrew Breitbart, a Washington Times columnist who oversees Breitbart.com and BigHollywood.com, tapped into the anti-Kennedy vein in the hours after the senator’s death was announced, posting a series of Twitter messages in which he called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

"I’m more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified,” Breitbart wrote. “Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it."

...“They say one should not speak ill of the dead,” wrote Bill Bennett on the National Review’s website. “True. But I am of the view that one should not lie about the dead either. So I will not go on.”

Bennett did go on, however, saying there was “no one in the Senate” with Kennedy’s “force power, and impact”-– even if the Massachusetts Democrat “assaulted our causes and nominees.”

Their causes? Like implementing a barbaric society based on the Law of The Jungle? If conservative "causes" had prevailed we wouldn't have had a Bill of Rights; we would still have slavery; women wouldn't have the right to vote. There would be no public education, no labor unions to protect workers, no protection for consumers, no Social Security, no environmental protections, no protections for the disabled, no Medicare, no regulations of the unbridled power of corporations. These are all what conservative "causes" are and have always been all about-- preserving the status quo on behalf of the wealthy elites who prosper and bribe them-- that simple. And you know what? I'm sure Ted Kennedy would proudly stand up and plead guilty to that charge of Bill Bennett's. I wish I could be as sure Barack Obama would. Maybe Obama plans to really give the public option a Teddy Kennedy-like push when support climbs above the measly 79% mark. That includes 89% of Democrats and 80% of independents. I guess what's holding back President Bipartisan is that only 61% of Republicans favor the public option... and that means the 33% who oppose it won't like him. Maybe they'll say he's a socialist or Hitler or born in another country or that they wish he was dead. Time to grow up and accept the mantle of leadership we gave you.