Kai Wright

Kai is senior writer for The Root. Follow him on Twitter @kai_wright

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KAI'S BLOG ROLL

    Ted Kennedy to the Health Reform Rescue

    Sen. Ted Kennedy has fight in him still. He began circulating an outline for his own health reform legislation late last week, which he’s expected to flesh out today or tomorrow. It’s an important step, because Kennedy’s legislation rejoins the fight for a creating a public plan to compete with existing private plans.

    Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the crucial Senate Finance Committee, has thus far not had the stomach to fight for a public plan—which was a key component of President Obama’s reform proposal and, frankly, his entire presidential campaign. With Baucus running the congressional debate thus far, the public plan has gone from fait accompli to contentious. Baucus—a “moderate” Democrat—has sacrificed the idea in hopes of winning Republican support, while the White House has done little to defend it.

    Until now. The WASHINGTON POST reports that, as Kennedy began circulating his plan, Obama began stoking his Organizing for America network to turn up the volume on America’s demand for health care reform. And in a Boston Globe op-ed, Kennedy declared that a robust public option is an essential element of reform. Kennedy’s plan reportedly echoes Obama’s in requiring employers either offer health insurance or pay into a public option and it mandates all Americans have insurance. It also creates a federal minimum for state Medicaid coverage.

    Meanwhile, Baucus and Kennedy, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, released a joint statement on Saturday seeking to downplay their differences and vowing to work together.

    “We intend to ensure that our committees report similar and complementary legislation that can be quickly merged into one bill for consideration on the Senate floor before the August recess.”

    But their differences are nonetheless foundational.

    Kennedy’s committee is expected to start discussing his bill this week. Given how little he’s been in Washington since he began battling brain cancer, it remains to be seen how active of a role he’ll play. But Kennedy’s name is synonymous with health reform and given his close relationship with the White House, his loud noises in support of a public plan may at least signal that Obama is prepared to fight for it.

    —KAI WRIGHT

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    Kennedy, nicknamed "Ted," was the younger brother of slain President John F. Kennedy and New York Sen. Robert Kennedy, who was gunned down while seeking the White House in 1968. However, his own presidential aspirations were hobbled by the controversy around a 1969 auto accident that left a young woman dead, and a 1980 primary challenge to then-President Jimmy Carter that ended in defeat.

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    We are accustomed to reading histories that deify the Founding Fathers. They, after all, overthrew the world’s greatest military power to establish a republic, and they did it with rhetorical grace that even today stirs the heart citi cards. Our idealized view of the Founding Fathers obscures their failings as often as it eclipses other great American political leaders who did not have the good fortune to be alive in 1776.

    I’m thinking, of course, of Senator Kennedy whose passing last week finally drew him the bipartisan praise that he had earned but was generally denied in his lifetime car loans. Whatever one may think of his liberalism, he was a fierce and effective advocate, who nevertheless respected his colleagues on both sides and conducted himself with a civility that is as absent today from politics as it was in 1776. Ted Kennedy understood that just because a person has a different opinion about tax policy, health care, or military spending is no reason to question his patriotism, intellect, or character.

    What makes Kennedy’s collegiality extraordinary is that he was constantly maligned by conservatives, including those whom he genuinely liked. For nearly a half-century, he bore all of this abuse with quiet dignity and humor motorcycle insurance.

    When you consider Senator Kennedy’s monumental legislative record of accomplishment in health, labor, human rights, economic reform, and education, there are few presidents who got as much done as he did. And he did all this while winning the respect and affection of his adversaries as much as his allies.

    By comparison, some of the Founding Fathers were vicious hypocrites who thought nothing of defaming their colleagues with baseless accusations and whose fiery politics alienated even members of their own party. Jefferson, for example, as vice-president arranged for the publication of outrageous lies about President John Adams houston homes for sale. Jefferson paid someone to steal the personal papers of Silas Deane, the hero of my book UNLIKELY ALLIES. Jefferson tried to impeach federal judges who disagreed with him. Jefferson extolled the virtues of the bloody French Revolution, and so alienated the Federalists in Congress that his election in 1800 bitterly divided the young republic.

    That’s not to say that Jefferson does not deserve his place as one of the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the founder of the University of Virginia. But a fair-minded person could conclude that the achievements of Jefferson, like other Founding Fathers, were won despite his mean partisanship. In contrast to Jefferson, Ted Kennedy time and again reached across the aisle to heal the divisions of party.

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