Hoping, Praying for the Liberal Lion

[babylonsister]

Hoping, Praying for the Liberal Lion
posted by John Nichols on 05/17/2008 @ 4:16pm



Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are agreed on one thing.

They are all worried about Ted Kennedy.

While cynicism is always appropriate when dealing with politicians, this concern is genuine.

Anyone who knows anything about the U.S. Senate knows why there is complete unity when it comes to hoping that Ted Kennedy will come through his current medical scare rested and ready to continue serving.

Since 1980, when he surrendered his presidential ambitions, Kennedy has devoted himself to the Senate. Even when Republicans ran the chamber, he was considered the essential player -- so much so that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney courted him. Despite all the pokes he took from right-wing interest groups and media, conservative Republicans have known the liberal lion as a man of the Senate who forges the compromises -- on judicial appointments, education and labor policy and just about everything else -- that end up having staying power.

So everyone in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, gasped when the word came that Kennedy had suffered a seizure Saturday morning -- perhaps two seizures, depending on the report -- and was hospitalized in Boston.

more...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/321847