As Harry Reid continues his tour of self-destruction, he really shot himself in the foot today.

The Majority Leader of the United States Senate is in a celebratory mood because Ted Kennedy died.

Really.

In an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal, he’s asked out Ted Kennedy’s death will affect the healthcare debate. His response:

I think it’s going to help us. He hasn’t been around for some time. We’re going to have a new chairman of that committee, it’ll be, I don’t know for sure, but I think Sen. (Chris) Dodd, (D-Conn.). He has a right to take it. Either him or (U.S. Sen. Tom) Harkin, (D-Iowa), whichever one wants it can have it. I think he (Kennedy) will be a help. He’s an inspiration for us. That was the issue of his life and he didn’t get it done.

Hat tip to Glenn Thrush at the Politico.

When a polarizing figure dies, there is sometimes an impulse to ignore courtesy and to instead viciously attack. The glowing tributes can create a visceral push-back instinct. But upon the day of a man’s passing, respect for the pain of his loved ones, and yes, even his ideological fellows and followers, is a proper thing. There is no shame in allowing a day for the mourning of others.

Now, that does not mean it is not appropriate to criticize. It’s not even to say that on the very day you cannot reconfirm your distaste for the deceased. No, when a polarizing figure dies, even in the short hours following the news, it is to be expected and tolerated that those who oppose him will say so. Again, it’s a pushback against what may be historically inaccurate, hagiographic, rhetorical excess on the part of his dedicated fan base, as well as against any attempt to score political points with a perceived martyr. That’s understandable.

But what is not right, and certainly not classy, are the vicious and nasty personal comments celebrating the loss that others are feeling. Let me give you some examples:

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Being exhausted on Kennedy coverage, I recommend to you two final pieces on Kennedy. The first is from Orrin Judd.

Let me begin by offering a personal story about Ted Kennedy that is illustrative, but quite possibly apocryphal. At the time of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, he was a Senator from New York. The other member of the delegation was the liberal Republican, Jacob Javits. In that time of less politicized judiciary appointments, senators had significant sway with the White House and the party in power made a less concerted effort to pack the courts with ideologically safe choices. At any rate, the two politically similar senators had worked out a deal to the effect that for every two judges RFK got to recommend, Mr. Javits would get one.

As it happened, my grandfather, Orrin G. Judd, had gotten their joint nod, on April 25, 1968, to fill an open seat on the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, but with RFK out of the way, the Johnson administration started making noises about withdrawing the nomination and naming a Democrat instead. The story has it that Senator Javits went to the Senator from Massachusetts, explained the deal he’d had with the dead brother and asked Ted to intervene with the White House. He did and the appointment was confirmed on June 24, 1968.

The second is from Pejman Yousefzadeh.

He showed some of his best stuff as a legislative tactician and strategist with the election of Ronald Reagan and the relegation of Senate Democrats to minority status–the first time that Kennedy had served in the minority since he was first elected to the Senate. As a member of the minority, Kennedy displayed his now-famous ability to reach across the aisle and work closely with Republicans on selective issues that could–and often did–attract bipartisan support. But that ability was nowhere to be found when the nomination of Robert Bork for the United States Supreme Court reached the Senate in 1987.

Read those two, both incidentally from the New Ledger, and you’ll be all set, up to date, and in need of no further reading on the man.

Of course, after those, you can listen to Coffee and Markets.

-TobyToons

It is traditional, upon the passing of an important and famous person - however controversial - to find some good words to say. This is not an easy task in the case of Ted Kennedy, a man whose personal life ranged from alcoholism to debauchery to sexual harrassment to (sadly, uncharged) second-degree murder, and whose public career entailed the embrace of nearly every foolish, ruinous and cruel political idea of the past five decades and whose most enduring legacy is installing the bitterly polarized modern Supreme Court confirmation process.

But a few words are nonetheless in order to recognize the man’s work. Because what we can remember positively about Ted Kennedy is his role as a Senate workhorse - a role that Barack Obama might have been wiser to emulate.

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Senator Edward Kennedy is dead.

I had an encounter with Senator Kennedy once. When I was in law school I wrote a paper on campaign finance laws as they relate to the media. I had to interview “two people of note.” I chose Tony Snow and Senator Kennedy — Kennedy just to see if I could get to someone like that and impress my law school professor.

I could. He was surprisingly accessible.

He was very nice, generous with his time, and disagreed with me on everything. We completely and totally disagreed. He got a laugh out of it, as did I.

I can’t say that I’ll miss him. He, to me, represented all that is wrong with Washington — a kingdom of nepotism and worship at the alter of failed liberal policies that get repeated ad infinitum. He opposed school choice for the poor while segregating his kids from the poor in school. He supported policies opposed to life except when life could be advanced through the destruction of the unborn. He opposed a strong national security against even the evidence of its necessity during his brother’s Presidential administration.

Ted Kennedy supported the expansion of the welfare state and a culture of dependency on government, made all the more tragic given how ensnared his life was to dependency. He should have known better given his own life and that of his family.

And then there’s Mary Jo Kopechne. May she rest in peace.

Senator Edward Moore Kennedy of Massachusetts is dead at 77. John Kerry is now the senior senator. God help that state.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act” contains an “employer mandate,” or a legal requirement that all American businesses with 25 or more employees offer health insurance to their workers.

The penalty for failing to comply with this mandate to offer employees health insurance is a $750 fine per full time worker per year.

In 2008, employer-provided insurance policies averaged $4,704 a year for individuals and $12,680 for families, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (p. 2 here). This means employers would be able to save $4,000 per worker (or $12,000 per family) by ending their employee health benefit programs and simply paying the federal government the fine.

Source: Senate HELP Committee bill fact sheet, pp. 7-8.

The Orwellianly-titled American Health Choices Act, a health care overhaul bill the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee passed Tuesday with a 13-10 party line vote, contains a two-pronged mechanism for increasing government’s already enormous footprint within the health care market, and for driving private insurance into the ground.

When the first public draft of the American Health Choices Act (AHCA) was released at the beginning of June, it contained language mandating that employers with 25 or more workers offer health insurance to their employees or face a federal fine. The level of that fine, as with almost every other penalty and tax increase provided for in the bill, was to be left to the discretion of the Secretary of Health and Human Services. This new ability to impose taxes and levy fines of an amount entirely at her discretion would be a breathtaking expansion of the appointed HHS Secretary’s power.

When an evaluation by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the AHCA’s net cost – that which would have to be spent above built-in revenue increases and offsets – to be around $1.6 trillion (a number that many experts and outside evaluators find to be reminiscent of the Medicare forecasts at its inception, which put the cost of the now-$37 trillion program at less than $10 million), while only extending health coverage to approximately a third of the 45 million American uninsured, public backlash was significant enough that the HELP committee members writing the bill took steps to bring that projected cost down from a trillion and a half dollars into the hundreds-of-billions range.

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Mary Jo Kopechne died 40 years ago today. And today Ted Kennedy plots our deaths at the hands of an inferior healthcare system.

Consider this an open thread.

I’m trying to be delicate. The man is 91 years old, and he has been hospitalized since May 15. According to Roll Call, he has now handed off his primary legislative responsibility:

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), hospitalized five weeks ago for an infection, will not be coming back to work this week, according to a statement from his office.

“Senator Byrd continues to improve but remains in the hospital while he undergoes physical therapy and treatment for a staph infection,” the statement said. “He is not expected to be in the office this week.”

Byrd, 91, is the Senate’s longest-serving Member and serves as its President Pro Tem, a leadership position that requires him to sign bills approved by Congress before heading to the White House. The statement released Monday notes the ailing Senator “is resuming some of his official duties while recuperating, including signing several enrolled bills as President pro tempore of the Senate.”

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According to Senator Tom Harkin (D-Labor), the Senate may vote next month on a Card Check compromise:

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) indicated Wednesday that he will be ready to bring up the long-stalled Employee Free Choice Act next month, following weeks of negotiations with key stakeholders.

“We’re in meetings right now. I’m still hopeful that we can get something done,” Harkin said.

The Iowa Democrat has regularly huddled with Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) to try to hatch a compromise on the measure, known as “card check.” On Tuesday, Harkin included AFL-CIO legislative director Bill Samuel in the talks—an indication that progress is being made.

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Keith Hennessey, whose bio is here, has analyzed the Kennedy Health Care Reform bill that leaked late in the evening of Sunday, June 7, 2009.

Hennessey’s analysis is straightforward, factual (based on the legislative language) and worth reading.

It is clear that under the Kennedy bill, the government will be in control of your health care plan, and that your current plan will change dramatically, cost much more and that you will be forced to buy one.

Click here to read Hennessey’s analysis.

Why in God’s name would you want to co-sponsor legislation with Teddy Kennedy that will increase the size and scope of the federal government and its regulatory powers?

John Cornyn, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins have done so. They have lent their names to legislation sponsored by Teddy Kennedy to give the FDA regulatory oversight of tobacco.

I have no problem with taxing tobacco out of existence — as long as that’s what is being done and not just using that excuse like Charlie Crist recently did when it was clear the taxes were actually to balance a budget.

I do have a problem with expanding the FDA’s jurisdiction into agriculture more than it is. I do have a problem expanding their regulatory powers into areas that have never been within their scope. We have, after all, as a nation, done pretty damn well without the FDA being involved in every aspect of our lives.

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Senator Edward Kennedy’s cancer is in remission.

Through the wonders of the American healthcare system — the finest on earth — Senator Kennedy was able to seek life saving treatment and, through that treatment, have his cancer go in remission.

The sad and tragic irony is that when Senator Kennedy returns to work, he will actively work to deny you the access to treatment he himself had.

We are not supposed to be so impolite to say such things, but the truth must be spoken.

We know, from what was publicly reported, that Senator Kennedy’s condition was extremely serious. We also know that Senator Kennedy’s compatriot, Senator Jay Rockefeller, said that under Senator Kennedy’s and the Democrats’ healthcare plan the government is going to weigh the cost/benefit of healthcare choices and deny you access to treatment if the cost outweighed the benefit.

Given media reports of Senator Kennedy’s health, we can postulate that, had Senator Kennedy had access to healthcare under the system he intends to design, he would not have gotten the treatment that put his cancer in remission.

We can also postulate one other thing — when Senator Kennedy does design the Democrats’ healthcare system, they will make sure people like Senator Kennedy are not subjected to it.

Just you and me.

But don’t worry. People like Arlen Specter will continue raising campaign cash off the plight of those stricken with cancer even while denying those people treatments they want but the government thinks would be wasted.

Someday, the good Lord will call Ted Kennedy home. We know neither the day, nor the hour. Undoubtedly Kennedy’s loved ones are preparing as they see fit - including fighting amongst themselves over who will get his most cherished possession:

Ted Kennedy’s wife, Vicki, and his nephew, former congressman Joe Kennedy, are getting set for a bruising battle over who will succeed the ailing senator, according to a new book excerpted in the new issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

“Vicki is seen by all as an interloper and she is deeply resented by Ted’s children and many of the newphews,” Edward Klein writes in his new book, “Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died,” due in stores next month.

“Joe, who sees himself as the only serious heir apparent, particularly loathes her control over his uncle and hence the family. Joe inherited his father’s ruthless gene. He is nothing if not aggressive. And anybody who tries to get between him and Ted’s Senate chair is in for a fight.”

Teddy has had a long and memorable career in public service. I’m sure that each of us can recall many moments where Kennedy grabbed the spotlight of national attention - and not just moments like Chappaquiddick, and the savaging of Judge Bork. As we consider the fullness of his career, we can only hope that his family behaves with precisely the same level of class that he has shown throughout his life - and not a smidgen more.

UPDATED: Hat tip to all the commenters and Caleb who suggest if the Dems are offended, we just call it the Mary Jo Kopechne Memorial Health Care Act. After all, she is already dead. — Erick

We can objectively conclude this morning that the Democrats are trying to distract attention from their failures by pointing fingers at Rush Limbaugh.

Yesterday afternoon, it reached a level of absurdness — so absurd that we can conclude the “blame Rush” strategy has become an instinctive reflex for Democrats without regard to fact.

Next time a notably Democrat staffer from the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee heads off to a crisis pregnancy center after a drunken night at Tortilla Coast, it’ll no longer be the mail man getting the blame, but Rush. It has gotten that reflexive and ridiculous.

The case in point today is this Associated Press article.

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