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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > August > 27 > Entry
Editorial: Kennedy: Great partisan target was top bipartisan
It’s an odd thing about Ted Kennedy. No non-president in the politics of his time was more viciously, relentlessly reviled by voices on the other side of the political spectrum. In most of the years between 1968 and 1992, when the Democrats only held the presidency for four years — and when many other Democrats were in ideological retreat — he was the chief bull’s-eye of the haters.
He gave the targeters plenty of material, from the fact that he was elected to the Senate at an extraordinarily young age on the strength of his brother’s name; to his role in the death of a young woman passenger in his car; to his uncowed advocacy of the liberal agenda; to his difficulties in speaking off-the-cuff; to his drinking and carousing.
Bashing him proved irresistible for the right-wing warriors.
Yet, by the end, he was known — with good reason — as the great bipartisan, as the reigning grandmaster of legislating in a way that works for both sides.
His cooperation with Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine is noted elsewhere on this page. Perhaps even more interesting is his work with Rep. John Boehner, a stauncher conservative. They worked on No Child Left Behind, one of President George W. Bush’s big early initiatives. Today it’s widely trashed by the left.
Sen. Kennedy made headlines in Dayton when Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and Hanscom Air Force Base were fighting over jobs. He stepped in forcefully on behalf of Massachusetts, to Ohio jeers.
He didn’t have a compelling case. And the project was really Republican Gov. Mitt Romney’s efforts to protect a much smaller base. Sen. Kennedy was doing his part as a member of his state’s team. He was the front man, because a senator has a role in defense policy, not a governor.
It would be stretching a point to say that the episode shows something about Sen. Kennedy’s bipartisanship. Anybody in his position would have done what he did. Bipartisanship in defense of local interests is one form of bipartisanship that hasn’t waned.
Sen. Kennedy’s characteristic form was much bigger.
He died in the middle of big fight about the great cause of his late career: the effort to provide health insurance to all Americans. Nobody knows if the fight would be going much differently if he were involved. He couldn’t help Bill Clinton win reform in the 1990s.
And yet the absence of the Kennedy legislative style is clear. The Democrats have made the decision that if they make many concessions to Republicans, they will lose Democratic votes in Congress without picking up any Republicans. So, for example, there is no “tort reform” (defined by supporters as the effort to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits) in the major proposals.
Sen. Kennedy’s favorite conservative partner, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was the last person to leave the negotiations now taking place in the Senate. He has hinted that things might be different if Sen. Kennedy were around.
Whether Republicans have been largely absent because they’re being excluded or because they were never going to agree to anything resembling reform is a chicken-and-egg debate.
What’s clear is that hyperpartisanship is exacting a price and that Washington could use more people like Ted Kennedy, who know when there’s a way around it.
He was a flawed man who figured out how to make the most of his life. He leaves venerated by his allies — widely ranked as the most effective liberal of his time — and respected by his adversaries, even missed by some.
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Martin Gottlieb, National Politics, Ohio politics
Comments
By irishguy
August 27, 2009 5:01 PM | Link to this
Don’t forget Mr Kennedy’s vicious personal attacks on Judge Bork and President Reagan.By Ice Bandit
August 27, 2009 5:54 PM | Link to this
De Mortui nil nisi bonum is the credo the Ice Bandit lives by; of the dead say nothing but good things. But the continuing lovefest of the DDN and the rest of the media over a flawed and dysfunctional senator ten states away is getting just a little maudlin. In case they haven’t noticed (and they sure didn’t with the 24/7 coverage of Michael Jackson) this isn’t a nation in mourning. But the DDN never passes up an chance to put the GOP in their crosshairs, and this tribute is no exception. Hyperpartisanship? May the Old Bandito remind the mathematically challenged DDN editorial that the Dems have a large majority in both houses, and don’t need even one GOP vote. Dems representing traditionally red areas just felt the fire at the various tea parties and town hall meeting. It is the Dem Blue Dogs who hold the key to Obama’s legislative agenda, but criticizing them would be sacrelige. Our elites sure pick an unusual and strange bunch to lionize….By John Galt
August 27, 2009 9:08 PM | Link to this
Remind me again where Kennedy’s bipartisanship was when he excoriated Robert Bork with left-wing hate and lies, then later President Reagan for daring to nominate him. That moment marked the launch of the political animosity that remains to this day.By quiet2long
August 28, 2009 12:41 AM | Link to this
how quickly the American public forgets what his real legacy is… caught cheating at Harvard when he attended it. He was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. … enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up f or four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U. S. Ambassador to England (a step up from bootlegging liquor into the US from Canada during prohibition), pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years…never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged. Imagine a person of his “education” NEVER advancing past the rank of private… cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver’s license was never revokedk of Private. …offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and into Poucha Pond walked back to the party, after passing several houses and a fire station. Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep. Kennedy called the police the next morning and by then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. The Kennedy family began “calling in favors,” ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted.He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF TWO MONTHS…he has been the prime instigator and author of every expansion of and increase in immigration, up to and including the latest attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens…In his very first Senate role, he was the floor manager for the bill that turned U. S. immigration policy upside down and opened the floodgate for immigrants from third world countries…known around Washington as a public drunk, loud, boisterous and very disrespectful to ladies. JERK is a better description than “great American”.By Philman
August 28, 2009 6:07 AM | Link to this
Dear 2long you forgot to mention the deal Teddy tried to make with the Russian KGB to hurt Regans reelection battle.we now have the evidence. just google it & see for yourself.By Media Bias
August 28, 2009 9:38 AM | Link to this
“his role in the death of a young woman passenger in his car…” Seriously? Thats how this “newspaper” wants to describe it? He KILLED a young woman, fled, hid, and lied about it for THREE days. Where was the DDN’s glowing tribute to Mary Jo Koepenich?By davidss2
August 28, 2009 10:51 AM | Link to this
Where was the DDN’s glowing tribute to Mary Jo Koepenchne?—She must have been a Republican—the DDN doesn’t do anything to help Republicans, no matter how deserving.By Dvaidss2
August 28, 2009 10:59 AM | Link to this
Quiet2long. It’s amazing how the democrat’s shortcomings don’t get trumpeted by the media. Instead we have a partisan’s life history rewritten. I hadn’t read about MaryJo having tried to get out through the floor as she died. Terrible scene. It shows the evil that the bad money of the superrich Democrat family can do to persons and to the country.By hammermill
August 28, 2009 3:24 PM | Link to this
We should remember Ted Kennedy for those elements of his character that defined him best. For being expelled from Yale twice for cheating. For accusing a Supreme Court nominee of degrading women, segregating the races and enforcing ignorance (how ignorant of you Teddy). For hijacking the American dream. For jacking taxes so high the average American household can barely get by (though his oil wealth is sheltered in off shore trusts, safe from annual income taxes and estate taxes). For leaving a girl to drown in his car while he sobered-up, his family paid off authorities to fix the investigation (he was only charged with leaving the scene of an accident and given a suspended sentence). For sending a message to the Soviets that he would help derail Regan’s defense of Western Europe. On second thought, let’s forget Teddy altogether.By absurd
September 1, 2009 3:28 PM | Link to this
The state run media and liberals in general are willing to overlook any character “flaw”, no matter how big, if the individual in question will tow the (communist) party line. Ted was an amazing womanizer , drunk and suspect in a death that no one really understands to this day. Start rewriting history media clowns.By delois gucinski
September 7, 2009 11:36 AM | Link to this
would our president be allowed to speak at the local school as that bush did????