While it is indeed sad that the Kennedy family has lost two family members in such a short period of time and Ted Kennedy was, no doubt much admired by many of his colleagues I will openly admit that I have never been a fan of Senator Kennedy’s. He, like others in the Kennedy family got away with too much, far more than other American would ever have gotten away with had they had their hand in some of the antics that he had his hand in. I am an adamant advocate for the equality of all people and the Kennedy family has been held above that position for far too long. I do not need to go into the long list of grievances that mar the family and the Senator’s name, they are well known to all.
However, what I do want to talk about today is the Senator’s recent request of that the Governor of Massachusetts. Allegedly, the Senator sent a private letter to Governor Deval Patrick asking him to again change the state’s law of succession so that the governor could appoint a temporary replacement in the event of the Senator’s death. This is an interesting caveat because it was Ted Kennedy who originally had the law changed so that the governor in 2004, then Republican Mit Romney, could not appoint an interim Senator to replace John Kerry should he win the Presidency, now he wants it changed back. This is clearly an attempt on Senator Kennedy’s part to manipulate the law to again benefit the Democrats. The Dems need the critical 60 votes for the health care debate and without Kennedy and the critically ill Senator Byrd they will lack the full 60. Now, they said Kennedy did this, if indeed he did do this (it is unclear as to whether or not Kennedy was, in fact actually up to writing this type of letter in his last days), because he didn’t want to see the State of Massachusetts short a senator and therefore unequally represented during critical votes. And yes, they said votes, as in plural, not ‘vote’ as in the ‘Health Care Reform’ vote. C’mon, feed me a new one.
If Senator Kennedy was really so altruistic then he would have stepped down months ago when it was apparent that he, and thereby Massachusetts was going to be missing numerous ‘critical votes’, but I guess all those votes were really not so critical after all and maybe, just maybe the only ‘critical vote’ he was referring to was the one in which the Democratic party is only going to squeak through on the skin of their nose, if at all and that is Health Care Reform. So, maybe that’s the reason they want to name the health care reform after Kennedy.
These days nothing surprises me anymore, but it should and that is sad. More importantly it is a deep, deep outrage and an absolute affront to our system of government and to the people of this country that one man can or even thinks he can change a law or request that a law be changed to suit his needs or even the needs of his party. The implementation of this law will affect the lives of millions of people from here on out and to the best of our knowledge no one, NO ONE has even authenticated the letter requesting the changing of the law. More troublesome still, is that no one seems to think that it is a problem for one man to be able to change a law on his request alone.
Who is this man? A King? A Sultan? A Czar? A President?
Oh, wait, this is supposed to be the United States a country based on Representation and the equality of all. No one should have such power, yet no one has even questioned it.
I find that a problem.
LB
