(the answer I sent "reply all" follows)
Senator Ted Kennedy
When Sen. Ted Kennedy was merely just another Democrat bloviating on Capitol Hill on behalf of liberal causes, it was perhaps excusable to ignore his deplorable past. But now that he's become Sen. John Kerry's leading campaign attack dog, positioning himself as Washington's leading arbiter of truth and integrity, the days for such indulgence are now over.
It's time for the GOP to stand up and remind America why Sen. Kerry's chief spokesman had to abandon his own presidential bid in 1980 - time to say the words Mary Jo Kopechne out loud. As is often the case, Republicans have deluded themselves into thinking that most Americans already know the story of how this "Conscience of the Democratic Party" left Miss Kopechne behind to die in the waters underneath the Edgartown Bridge in July 1969, after a night of drinking and partying with the young blonde campaign worker. Well, I haven't.
Most Americans under 40 have never heard that story, or details of how Kennedy swam to safety, then tried to get his cousin Joe Garghan to say he was behind the wheel. Those young voters don't know how Miss Kopechne, trapped inside Kennedy's Oldsmobile, gasped for air until she finally died, while the Democrats' leading Iraq war critic rushed back to his compound to formulate the best alibi he could think of.
Neither does Generation X know how Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard on his ear 15 years earlier - for paying a fellow student to take his Spanish final. As they listen to the Democrat's "Liberal Lion" accuse President Bush of "telling lie after lie after lie" to get America to go to war in Iraq, young voters don't know about that notorious 1991 Easter weekend in Palm Beach ,when Uncle Teddy rounded up his nephews for a night on the town, an evening that ended with one of them credibly accused of rape. It's time for Republicans to state unabashedly that they will no longer "go along with the gag" when it comes to Uncle Ted's rants about deception and moral turpitude inside the Bush White House. And if the Republicans don't; let's do it ourselves by passing this forgotten disgrace around the Internet to wake up memories of what a fraud and fake Teddy really is. The Democratic Party, not to mention Sen. John Kerry, should be ashamed to have the national disgrace from Massachusetts as their spokesman. And the GOP needs to say so out loud. I remember all of this and I'm sure you do, too.
(my reply)
Death toll:
Kennedy - 1
Laura Bush - 1
George W. Bush - thousands and counting
On January 31, 2001, The Hart-Rudman Commission handed them, on their 12th day in office, a detailed blueprint for how to begin making precisely the sort of changes they are now complaining needed to be made.
The United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, as it was formally known, was authorized by President Bill Clinton and the Republican Congress. The commission spent millions of taxpayer dollars, and thousands of hours of research to assess the threats to homeland security, and develop strategies to prevent attacks and/or respond to successful attacks. Of course, it was a bi-partisan panel, co-chaired by former senators Warren Rudman (R-NH) and Gary Hart (D-CO). And lest anyone accuse Rudman of being a soft Republican, keep in mind that Congressman GOPAC himself, Newt Gingrich, was a commissioner and signer of all its reports. Moreover, Clinton surely thought and hoped that his successor would be Al Gore, and as such the recipient of the commission's findings, not George W. Bush.
The final part of the Hart-Rudman commission's three-part report was aptly titled: "Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change" (note that "imperative" is a noun that has a similar, dual meaning in its adjective form). The document details a variety of structural and organization problems, and offers 50 concrete solutions.
But the Bush Administration does not take advice well. They already know all the answers. Even with Gingrich was on the commission,
if it was initiated during the Clinton years and inherited from their predecessors, well, it just has to be wrongheaded…right? Little wonder that Bush did almost nothing about Hart-Rudman, other than to reject the idea of creating of a homeland security agency and establishing a "Cheney commission" in May that never met – not once. After all, there were missile defense programs to promote.
Prior to September 11, the shunting of Hart-Rudman might be characterized as bureaucratic malfeasance. But the fact that Bush continued to oppose creating what eventually became the Department of Homeland Security after September 11, and only relented under severe public and political pressure, is simply – and, yes, I dare say it – an act of unpardonable negligence.And why the post-9/11 delay? Well,
because of Tom Delay's delays, and worries of radical House Republicans that – gasp! – some of the homeland security department personnel might be unionized. http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=71Here's the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century website:
http://www.nssg.gov/ 
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