I want to quote from Lyndon Johnson's speach to a Joint session of Congress in the wake of the assasinatiopn of President John F. Kennedy. It is extremly important to know that LBJ thought the best way to honor the slain President's legacy was to pass the civil rights bills then winding their way thorugh Congress. Bills for which the President had worked so hard to pass.
More after the jump:
As President Johnson said:
[N]o memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights Bill for which he fought so long. We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for a hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law. I urge you again, as I did in 19 and 57 and again in 19 and 60, to enact a civil rights law so that we can move forward to eliminate from this Nation every trace of discrimination and oppression that is based upon race or color. There could be no greater source of strength to this Nation both at home and abroad.
Not a single member of the Kennedy family objected to this. Not one of them were upset or concerned that President Johnson was exploiting the dead President's assasination to pass contentious domestic legislation. They didn't object, because they wholeheartedly supported it. And they knew that passage of this historic legislation would be a far greater legacy than any memorial, or resolution could provide. And, history has shown that President Johnson was right.
Keep this in mind when you hear Republicans and conservatives lamenting the so-called political exploitation of Ted Kennedy's death -- in order to pass the President's Health Care Reform bill. A bill for which Senator Kennedy "fought so long."
In the context of the times, the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were far more controversial and politically polarizing than health care reform is today. People were, literally, laying down their lives fighting for these rights. Yet, our Senators and Congressmen were able -- in the end -- to pass this landmark legislation. Sometimes, it takes a jolting event or a tregedy to force our politicians to do the right thing. Hopefully, we can pass a good health care reform bill, for which Ted Kennedy would be proud.
"[N]o memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor" his memory than that.