Tomorrow our President will eulogize this nation's foremost proponent of nationalized health care days before Congress returns to debate the fate of current reform legislation. I'm sure many of us would love to hear Obama voice a full-throated endorsement of the public option at that time - properly identifying it as the best tribute to Ted Kennedy and the best means to galvanize supporters of health reform. Certainly many conservatives fear this as evinced by their synchronized whining in the last few days.
I predict now that this won't happen - and for good reason. If he did this, the wisdom and tact of that decision would become the focus of news coverage and the President's endorsement itself would be sullied (we can count on our corporate newsmen to make sure of that). However, I still hold out hope that we will hear Obama's voice raised in support of the public option tomorrow in Boston.
Here's why I hope for what seems a contradiction: if Kennedy knew there was little chance he would survive to see health reform legislation pass - and his appeal to have his seat filled immediately indicates this awareness - he couldn't help but realize that his memorial services would be the perfect moment to rally the progressive troops and fatally undermine health care reform's opposition. He would also be able to anticipate how the conservative echo chamber would distort any call to action if it came from the designated heir to his political causes. Therefore, being a skilled politician, he would sit down and write one last speech - a speech with just as much passion and conviction as his 1980 concession but magnified ten-times by the poignancy and national mourning that is also predictable whenever a Kennedy passes. He would leave this speech for Obama to read during his eulogy - thereby absolving his heir from charges of politicizing the occasion and daring conservatives to challenge the final revelation handed down by the newest saint from Camelot.
I'm not a religious man, but tonight I will pray that Kennedy was holding back one last punch to thwart those leeches trying to wrap themselves in his mantle - one last rhetorical thunderstorm to expose the convenient fiction his opponents are building about his 'bipartisanship' to hide their own cowardice. Please Teddy, give them hell one last time.