Obama’s original schedule for Health Care was to have each house finish committee work before the August recess, which the House did, but the Senate did not. I suspect his last press conference about Health Care was about the time when Baucus told him he could not complete the Senate Finance Committee bill by recess time.

I would suggest the blame for “slowing things down” should go to Grassley and the Republicans. After all that is their announced strategy. And I rather doubt if he had advanced notice of exactly when Ted Kennedy would die. But I do expect the White House had contingency plans if Kennedy could not return in September to advance the legislation.

I also believe that in the long run there may be a distinct advantage in allowing all the nasty rot the organized right has deployed during recess to be on public display. I don’t think they are winning any significant support, particularly when they show up in militia drag at Town Hall Meetings. But it is out there, is dangerous, but I suspect can be more easily dealt with once it is fairly obvious.

I agree that Obama is a Politician — that’s why I supported him. I think he has great skills, but I also realize that those who want him to be a more partisan advocate are probably disappointed. I am not at all certain the way to get major legislation passed is to futher polarize the environment in DC.

As to the “looking forward” stuff — I too want all the rot from the Bush Administration’s torture programs and all laid on the table. But I would rather have it happen as it is — mostly by court order, rather than by an Obama Executive Order, for tactical reasons. I still believe the argument that “torture” kept us safe has considerable currency. Just listened this morning to a call-in program with Mark Danner who has been writing about this for years, and even on MPR, which tends to have a slightly better educated class of listners, at least two callers were more convinced of this than Dick Cheney. Danner at least took the callers more or less seriously, and took apart their arguments and pushed back in a logical way — but that argument can still stir up Cheney’s troops.

But I am really tired of the preening Obama, he has frittered away Kennedy’s life work and allowed it to be stalled out to where Kennedy died before seeing its fruition.

Frittered? Nonsense. You really think a bill this huge could’ve been rammed through a month ago? And it was Obama’s obligation to make sure it got rammed through before Kennedy died of his extremely aggressive glioblastoma? That is ridiculous.

Such a sad day.

The news on NPR is reporting that the Kennedy Family part of it all will be in Boston, with the lying in repose at the Kennedy Library in Cambridge, and then Mass at a small mission church in Boston.

The Military District of DC which supervises Arlington as a Military Reservation is making all arrangements for burial next to Robert’s grave. The President of the United States, Barack Obama, will, as commander in Chief, lead the mourners at the grave.

At least that is what NPR is saying.

What isn’t clear yet is date and time, and whether there will be a lying in State in the Rotunda. If that happens, it will be supervised by the leadership of the Senate.

NPR is also reporting that about an hour after Kennedy died, Vickie his wife had a long conversation with the Obamas, and they coordinated things more or less during that phone call. I don’t think there is much daylight between the Kennedy Family and the Obamas.

To paraphrase:

“When you give food to the poor,they call you a liberal.When you ask why the poor have no health care,they call you a socialist”.—Gitcheegumee

Kennedy understood the concept of “noblesse oblige.”

He understood and exemplified its intrinsic meaning.

And he wore the moniker “liberal’ proudly and honorably.