The media is abuzz today with speculation about how Ted Kennedy's absence will impact the health care reform debate. And, as usual, the conventional wisdom is starting to coalesce around a frame designed by Republicans and propagated by the traditional media.
It's clear that Republicans came up with this strategy at least a week ago: praise smear Kennedy as uniquely skilled at extracting concessions from liberals (what Republicans call "bipartisanship") and suggest that Kennedy's absence means reform will fail. They're trying to use the death of their "friend" to either kill health care reform outright, or to pressure House progressives into giving up on the public option.
Last weekend, Senator McCain was already lamenting that Kennedy's absence has made health care reform all but impossible:
"He had a unique way of sitting down with the parties at a table and making the right concessions, which really are the essence of successful negotiations," McCain said. "So it's huge that he's absent, not only because of my personal affection for him, but because I think the health care reform might be in a very different place today.".
As Digby commented, "Somehow I don't think Teddy thought 'he made the right concessions' was going to be his legacy."
And then there's Ted's good "friend," Orrin Hatch. Hatch has been everywhere repeating the same mantra:
...[Kennedy] had more control over the Democrat [sic] Party base than anybody else. He's the only one who could bring them along on issues that were -- you know, that were down the middle and really bipartisan, but he could bring them along. They would have to listen to him.
Judd Gregg has been on script, as well:
"There is nobody else like him," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. ... "If he had been physically up to it and been engaged on this, we probably would have an agreement by now."
Starting to notice a pattern? It's not just Republicans either. The Democratic opponents of health care reform are also moving in for the kill:
The American corporate media and the Beltway crowd that runs it are working overtime with folk like Max Baucus to lie like a rug about how Teddy Kennedy got to be the most effective Democratic Senator outside of Lyndon Baines Johnson. They're claiming he did it by constantly "compromising" in the name of "bipartisanship," which of course in Beltway Villager-Speak means "caving to Republicans on all matters of substance." Specifically, the Villagers are using this lie to tell Obama and the Democrats to cave on health care reform, Teddy's life's work, in a way that Teddy himself in his last months was horrified to see even being contemplated.
[...]
Max Baucus and his fellow travelers for Big Pharma and Big Insurance are pretending that longtime single-payer champion Teddy Kennedy would approve of their selling him out with their co-op bills, saying he would welcome that "compromise."
Like clockwork, the elite media is quickly assimilating the Republican propaganda and converting it into conventional wisdom. Cue the Associated Press:
In an era of bitter political division, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's death silenced a singular voice of bipartisanship at a time when colleagues are struggling with angry constituents and each other about an elusive plan to overhaul the nation's health care system.
[...]
Some lawmakers said Tuesday that the current stalemate is the result of Kennedy's absence for the past few, crucial months.
samantha in oregon has a diary that digs deeper into this unfortunate AP piece.
MSNBC has been repeating the same refrain over and over for two days. David Gregory set the tone, only hours after Kennedy's passing:
Well, you know it's interesting. On the program on Sunday, I asked Senator Hatch the sense of loss that was felt by Kennedy not being there. And he was kind of cryptic in his reply, saying "Look, Ted Kennedy would have been on the phone to me saying let's get this done." And Senator Hatch has actually walked away from negotiations on the Senate Finance Committee. Which, I think, is a small example of just how powerful and how huge that void in the debate is.
[...]
I think in terms of strategy, the ability to deliver some kind of grand bargain is something that Kennedy would have been looked to to provide.
But it was Norah O'Donnell who really closed the circle, relaying the Republican talking points perhaps a bit too explicitly. You see, Teddy would have convinced the House progressives to cave on the public option:
And yet that first major piece of legislation that President Obama is trying to get through Congress is mired in this sort of awful, nasty debate. And I think you hear Republicans say that Ted Kennedy could have changed that. You know this from the House, Joe. So many of the liberals that are saying "It's a public option or nothing." Is there any other Democrat who could go over to those liberals and say look, "Let's take 80% of what you guys want. I promise if we just get this done we can come back and get more later." And the only person that probably could have done that was Ted Kennedy. That could have not just crossed party lines but could cross chambers. Go from the Senate to the House and talk to those liberal members of the House and say "Guys, let's just take what we can get now, we can get more later." And that's certainly significant, because that's perhaps lost.
I realize that many Democrats are hesitant to jump into the politics of Kennedy's death. I understand that. But the Republicans and their enablers in the media (and their allies within the Democratic Party) are on the move. They will do everything they can to exploit Ted Kennedy's death.
The message being propagated this week by the opponents of health care reform is simple:
If only Kennedy were still in the Senate, he'd convince the liberals to fold (bipartisanship). Without him, we just can't reform health care.
But Ted's message was simpler. We don't have to wonder if he would have advised Democrats to negotiate away the public option. Last month, Ted wrote a piece on health care reform for Newsweek, and had this message for us:
Incremental measures won't suffice anymore. We need to succeed where Teddy Roosevelt and all others since have failed. The conditions now are better than ever.
That's what Ted Kennedy thought about the notion that Democrats should settle for "half a loaf," yet again. Not this time.
Incremental measures won't suffice anymore.