Rolling Redux

by digby

I think it’s time for a repeat of what Rick Perlstein wrote to me just before Senator Kennedy died this week:

The Republican old bulls will say they’re honoring EMK’s memory by voting against cloture for what they’ll say is a failed bill that he would never have happened had he been alive and kicking… It’s how they roll.

What Perlstein understands about the right wing, that nobody else ever seems to get, is that they always take the left’s icons and use them for their own ends. Reagan used to famously quote Roosevelt as a great example of conservative values. And just as John Kennedy and Martin Luther King have been recently appropriated by conservatives, we can expect Ted Kennedy to be transitioned from history’s most hated liberal into the Great Compromiser, who knew how to “make the right concessions.” They’re really good at this stuff.

There is another part to this, however, as we are seeing right now. The media villagers, who automatically assume that anyone who is beloved by the people is someone who reflects their own values (it’s all about them) are saying that Kennedy always compromised because he was committed to bipartisanship as a governing principle.

He wasn’t, of course. That’s completely absurd. He was committed to liberal goals, which he advanced at every opportunity. Under conservative reign he got his foot in the door, eked out whatever advances were possible get and stopped the Republicans from their worst if he could. But in a moment of liberal opportunity he would never have compromised simply out of silly beltway convention, particularly on a signature issue like health care. He would have used every lever of power at his disposal to get it done.

As far as Kennedy being a great example of their beloved village consensus, everyone loving each other even as they played out some sort of ideological kabuki, maybe they need to take a step back from the unctuous paeans of the conservative marketers and remind themselves of what the conservatives really thought of him. That’s the most intellectually honest piece about Kennedy I’ve read from a conservative since he died.

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