Since we keep hearing more and more about what it is Ted Kennedy would have wanted, here's Brian Beutler bringing us someone who was in the room when Kennedy was negotiating in 1994, Lawrence O'Donnell:
"Senator Kennedy...is not an easy compromiser on health care reform. In 1994, I was in the room when he told the president that he believed the strategy should be a Democrats-only strategy and that we should not be trying to reach out and get Republican votes."
I should note that Beutler posts this in response to yet another Villager, George Stephanopoulos (in this case someone who should know better because he was in on those 1994 negotiations, too) who gravely intones the growing conventional wisdom--pulled out of their collective asses--that Kennedy would have caved.
"It's pretty clear right now that there aren't the votes in the senate to pass a public health insurance option as much as a majority of Democrats in the House would like it," he said. "It's not going to get through the Senate right now and I think that what Democrats may try to do is remind people of another side of the Kennedy legacy. That was Kennedy the compromiser. Kennedy the negotiator. The man who was willing to take a portion, incremental gain even if he couldn't get everything he was calling for."
I don't know why so many purported liberals, including Ezra Klein and Steven Pearlstein are so hell-bent on scaling back reform, and attaching Ted Kennedy's legacy to that, both of them using the "greatest regret" Kennedy had--his refusal to cut a deal with Nixon many years ago on healthcare.
Here's that deal as it looked from the other side of the negotiating table, as David relates over at Congress Matters:
In one exchange, Nixon "made clear that the Secret Service protection afforded Kennedy before the 1972 election would be rescinded after."
Said Nixon: "If he gets shot, it's too damn bad."
Ted Kennedy knew a bad deal when he saw one, I'm certain. On this issue, I'm going to take it from Lawrence O'Donnell. He fought too hard for too long to realize universal healthcare to settle for something less now, when his dream is well within our grasp.
