A Day of Sadness

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 8:45 AM

The outpouring of affection and tribute for Ted Kennedy, cutting across partisan lines, speaks volumes about the place he has occupied in our national life.

The Massachusetts Democrat has been an incredibly productive member of the U.S. Senate in the four and a half decades since he won the seat vacated by his brother the president. But that is not what the emotional reaction to the diagnosis of his brain tumor is about.

It is about the family, which has been touched by tragedy for so long, and for which he is the link to history. Two brothers, assassinated. John Jr., killed in a plane crash. Jackie's cancer, Patrick's alcohol problem, and on and on. Some of these problems were self-inflicted, including the horror of Chappaquiddick, but Kennedy has soldiered on. At 76, he has lived the long life of which JFK and RFK were robbed.

The other reason this has struck so deep a nerve, I think, is that Kennedy has been a happy warrior in pursuit of his liberal goals. Even those who are opposed to just about everything he stands for respect the relationships he has built with the other side and the moments of cooperation, such as his working with President Bush to pass the now-criticized No Child Left Behind legislation. Ted is a throwback to the days before national politics was quite so toxic.

(A digression: Michelle Malkin is among those conservatives asking readers to put aside political differences and pray for Kennedy and his family, and most of her commenters did just that. But there were a few, revoltingly hateful exceptions-- posters who were reveling in the news and, in one case, talked of celebrating.)

I remember interviewing Kennedy during his 1980 campaign and thinking he really had trouble making the case for why he should be president. But his "dream will never die" speech at Madison Square Garden was one of the great moments of political oratory.

"News about the Kennedys has so often come in shocking bursts, such as plane crashes and gunfire, that yesterday's revelation that the senior senator from Massachusetts is suffering from a deadly illness had a quiet poignancy all its own," the Boston Globe says.

"Days when Democrats worried that an assassin might try to remove the last Kennedy brother have long since receded, and Ted Kennedy carries a new image as the Senate's indefatigable warrior. So it was a surprise that something as ordinary as cancer would be what slows down Kennedy's relentless drive to promote liberal causes, build coalitions, and pass legislation."

Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama, so ballyhooed by the media, may turn out to have been his last major political act.

Hillary Clinton paid tribute to Kennedy after winning Kentucky last night, as Obama did in his speech. By the way, isn't it downright weird that Obama gets humiliated in Kentucky, barely reaching 30 percent, and still goes out and gives a celebratory speech?

I thought the networks were a little less dismissive of Hillary's Kentucky blowout than they were when she clobbered Obama in West Virginia. That's two bad losses for him in a week. But the talk still turned quickly to What does she want? More leverage? The vice presidency, perhaps? Soon the pundits were spinning scenarios about how he could keep her off the ticket.

For Hillary to keep proclaiming that "we're winning the popular vote" doesn't make it so. But the Obama camp must be concerned at the margin in these losing states, even as he revels in winning a majority of pledged delegates (as we all knew he would) by carrying Oregon.

If the noises from the Clinton camp are to be believed, this thing will end in two weeks. Then comes the biggest question of all: whether Hillary's hardest-core voters can reconcile themselves to Obama (or vice versa, if it goes the other way), or whether a significant chunk will defect to John McCain.

LAT: "Barack Obama took a long stride toward history Tuesday, capturing a majority of pledged delegates to the Democratic convention even as he lost Kentucky by a wide margin to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"Obama's big win in Oregon, combined with a share of Kentucky delegates, left him fewer than 100 shy of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the party's presidential nomination."

NYT: "Rebuffing associates who have suggested that she end her candidacy, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it clear to her camp in recent days that she will stay in the race until June because she believes she can still be the nominee -- and, barring that, so she can depart with some final goals accomplished . . .

"In private conversations and in interviews, Mrs. Clinton has begun asserting that she believes sexism, rather than racism, has cast a shadow over the primary fight, a point some of her supporters have made for months. Advisers say that continuing her candidacy is partly a means to show her supporters -- especially young women -- that she is not a quitter and will not be pushed around."

Chicago Trib: "It is a purely Clintonian form of math, this idea of winning by losing.

"But it may be working. By any conventional means of keeping score--pledged delegates, superdelegates, primaries and caucuses won, popular votes in party-sanctioned contests--Sen. Barack Obama became the putative Democratic nominee for president Tuesday night."

Slate's John Dickerson, (under the telling headline "Lady, You're in My Way"):

"The race for the Democratic nomination--'race' is hardly the right word, is it?--now feels like a quantum physics problem: How long can a body exist in a state approximating motionlessness without actually stopping? Tuesday night, Barack Obama took the majority of delegates selected through primaries and caucuses, meaning that a race that was already all but over is now a little more so. Superdelegates are not likely to deny him the nomination by reversing the pledged delegates. They have been moving steadily in his direction despite recent losses. Obama needs to win fewer than 30 percent of the remaining delegates to reach the finish line.

"The math is relentless, yet Obama hasn't won yet, and Hillary Clinton shows no sign of stopping."

Politico's Roger Simon: "Hillary Clinton does not lack for victories. She has had several recently.

"What she lacks is a way to make her victories meaningful. What she lacks is an argument . . .

"Hillary Clinton won a huge victory in Kentucky on Tuesday night, and you know what happens next? Nothing probably. Nothing good. Not for her, anyway. Not if the past is prologue."

Is McCain grandstanding on Iran? Joe Klein raises the question:

"I just asked John McCain about why he keeps talking about Obama's alleged willingness to talk to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has no power over Iranian foreign policy, rather than Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who does. He said that Ahmadinejad is the guy who represents Iran in international forums like the United Nations, which is a fair point. When I followed with the observation that the Supreme Leader is, uh, the Supreme Leader, McCain responded that the 'average American' thinks Ahmadinejad is the boss. Didn't get a chance to follow up to that, but I would have asked, 'But isn't it your job to correct those sorts of mistaken impressions on the part of the American public?' Oh well."

McCain has another problem, says Slate's Tim Noah, as the guy who championed high-definition TV (and showed up on "Saturday Night Live"):

"As McCain cracked wise ('What do we want in our next president? Certainly someone who is very, very, very old.'), I found myself thinking, Jeez, he doesn't look like a guy who'll turn 72 this August. He looks like a guy who'll turn 82.

"For all I know, McCain is in fine physical condition. If he appears older than his chronological age, that probably has something to do with the torture he endured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam; nine years ago the Arizona Republic reported that he continued to experience 'orthopedic limitations' related to his imprisonment, including pain in his shoulders and right knee. But TV is unfair, as Richard Nixon learned when his perspiration and five o'clock shadow helped give John F. Kennedy the edge in the first-ever televised presidential debates."

I have suspected that the gay-marriage issue was losing some of its punch. When you have Ellen DeGeneres and now George Takei (Mr. Sulu) announcing they will get married, that may help change the perception of some skeptical Americans. American Prospect's Paul Waldman argues that the California Supreme Court ruling last week didn't amount to an explosion:

"The political reaction was remarkably subdued. Yes, there will be a constitutional amendment on California's ballot this November, and the campaign there will be hard-fought. But on the national level, there were no raised voices, no cries of anguish, no calls to man the ramparts -- at least none to which anyone paid much attention. All soon-to-be Republican presidential nominee John McCain could muster was a spokesperson reading from the old script, mumbling that the Arizona senator 'doesn't believe judges should be making these decisions.'

"If you didn't know all that much about McCain you might think his muted response reflects a moderation on gay issues uncharacteristic among Republicans. But you'd be wrong. McCain's position on gay marriage is that the issue should be left to the states, unless state courts confer marriage rights on gays, in which case he would favor an amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning gay marriage . . .

"So why is it that same-sex marriage doesn't seem to have the political potency it did just a few years ago? Obviously, with our miserable war in Iraq now in its sixth year and the economy in the toilet, Americans have more important things to worry about. But it's more than that. We've been down this road before. It has been four and a half years since same-sex marriages were legalized in Massachusetts, and for some reason the Bay State has not descended into a perverted bacchanal, families have not been torn asunder by the destructive power of these new unions, and the bonds holding society together have not been torn to shreds. Incredibly, the prophesies of doom were wrong."

Jamie Rubin, the former State Department spokesman, tells me he's been unfairly criticized over a Washington Post Op-Ed in which he said McCain was "guilty of hypocrisy." Rubin spent the day on television, showing video of a Sky News interview he did with McCain in 2006 that, he said, conflicted with the senator's current stance against talking to Hamas.

In the clip, McCain said: "They are the government, sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations have such antipathy towards Hamas -- it is because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse to but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East, I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah never gave them that."

But there was a second question--the RNC has the video--in which McCain said: "I think the U.S. should take a step back and see what they do when they form the government, see what their policies are and see the ways in which we can engage with them and if there aren't any then there may be a hiatus but I think part of the relationship will be dictated by how Hamas acts, not how the U.S. acts."

Rubin says in the Huffington Post that he provided "a full question and a full answer. Nothing was left out of the question or the answer. Nothing is taken out of context."

I think it was a mistake for Rubin not to have released both portions at once. It's not that McCain's second answer totally undercuts the first, but it certainly qualifies it and provides a fuller picture. I don't think Rubin was trying to be intentionally misleading, but he gave the media only part of the story.

At Power Line, Scott Johnson renders a harsh judgment:

"There is only one problem with Rubin's column. Its thesis is built on a quotation from his interview with McCain that Rubin truncated and falsely represented. The falsehood was quickly exposed by the McCain campaign . . .

"The Washington Post has yet to run a correction or clarification of Rubin's column. One can only speculate why. Perhaps the reason the Post has stood by the column so far is that the column is illustrative of the large truth on which Rubin predicates it: 'If the recent exchanges between President Bush, Barack Obama and John McCain on Hamas and terrorism are a preview of the general election, we are in for an ugly six months.' Both Rubin and the Post have made early contributions to the ugliness."

Finally, Vito Fossella's wife, Mary Pat, speaks out, to the New York Post, after learning that her congressman-husband has a mistress and child:

"I have known Vito since I was 16 years old, and this is not what I envisioned for him and my family. I had no idea of this world he was living."

Classy guy. Maybe he and Eliot Spitzer should set up a dating service.