Bozell Column: HBO Hates Popes, Loves Kennedys
Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world on Monday morning by announcing he would resign at the end of February. For Catholics, there was sorrow and there was gratitude for a Holy Father who taught with such distinction and worked with such care to safeguard the church’s theological traditions.
But there are those people who hate the Catholic Church, and they are ecstatic. Take documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney, a man who clearly thinks he is holier than the Pope. He told The Daily Beast that Benedict is a “criminal.” This helps explain why he’s made a documentary for HBO, the home of toxic God-haters like Bill Maher.
Clinton Not Tried in Senate After Impeachment, Ed Schultz Comically Insists
Ed Schultz's grasp of American history in the BB era -- Before Barack -- is tenuous at best. And when Schultz is wrong about something from that ancient realm of our past, he makes a fool out of himself.
On his radio show Friday, Schultz got on the wrong side of an argument with a better informed caller. Naturally, Schultz couldn't resist hanging up on the man and labeling him an idiot. That's when you know Schultz is 180 degrees off the mark -- he becomes dogmatic about being right. (audio after page break)
Ted Kennedy Jr. considering potential run to replace John Kerry?
**Written by Doug Powers
There’s a good chance John Kerry will be nominated to become the next secretary of state, and many names have been floated as to who on the Democratic side would run to replace Kerry in a special election (Scott Brown would likely run on the GOP side, and he’s polling well against all likely Dems).
As always, whenever a congressional seat from Massachusetts is potentially opening up, the name of a Kennedy is thrown into the mix. In this case, Ted Kennedy, Jr:
Simas’ name comes as national Democrats ramped up their bid today to get Edward M. Kennedy Jr. to run in an effort to bring a big name into the race. The Herald’s Truth Squad first reported on Monday that the 51-year-old was considering running after several insiders urged him to get in.
One source told the Herald that Democrats are concerned that the current field of potential Senate candidates, including U.S. Rep. Edward Markey and U.S. Rep Michael Capuano, would face an uphill battle in a race against departing Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown, who is expected to run again if Kerry leaves.
Ted Kennedy Jr. would have the clout and financial ability to compete against Brown, some Democrats believe.
Last month, Joe Kennedy III won the race to replace Barney Frank, and the family is jonesing to re-stock government with Kennedys. However, Ted Jr. has just one problem:
The biggest obstacle for EMK Jr. is that he lives in Connecticut and would probably have to fix that before running for Senate across the border. But he could be an unbeatable candidate in a state where the Kennedy name and bloodline is one of the most powerful assets a politician can have.
Ted Kennedy Jr. has never closed the door to the possibility of a congressional career, telling USA Today in 2009, “Maybe I’ll run for public office. I haven’t crossed that bridge yet.”
No, I did not make up that quote. Errah…
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe
Robert Bork, R.I.P.
Judge Robert Bork, former Supreme Court nominee, legal scholar, and the conservative movement’s champion of originalism, died early this morning after a long battle with heart and pulmonary complications. His family reports that the funeral will be held on Saturday.
Bork endured one of the most vicious, coordinated attacks from the Left during his Reagan-era SCOTUS confirmation fight. How different might things have been in the era of blogs, Twitter, talk radio, and Fox News. The monopoly of the liberal narrative-setters helped doom Bork. But in the end, as Adam White wrote recently in Commentary, “Bork Won.”
The changed course of future Supreme Court nominations was the Bork nomination’s most obvious legacy, but that was not its only legacy. Indeed, the Bork nomination’s most significant impact may be not the manner in which Supreme Court justices are selected, but rather the content of constitutional law itself. For while Bork himself was pilloried for embracing an originalist approach to constitutional law, his nomination’s failure laid the basis for originalism’s eventual success. The Bork hearings galvanized conservatives and challenged them to refine originalism to achieve greater political effectiveness.
Bork himself took the first significant step by writing The Tempting of America, the first substantial book-length defense of originalism. In it he presented originalism as a matter of theory and then, in recounting the confirmation fight, responded to the charges levied against him by senators and liberal activists. For example, Bork attempted to resolve alleged conflicts between the originalist theory and Brown v. Board of Education, which relied upon sociological arguments utterly foreign to originalism. “The purpose that brought the fourteenth amendment into being,” Bork wrote, “was equality before the law, and equality, not separation [i.e., separate-but-equal], was written into the [Constitution’s] text.”
More important, Bork’s defense of originalism would be followed by the comprehensive efforts of scholars such as Michael McConnell (who developed a lengthy defense of “Originalism and the Desegregation Decisions”), Randy Barnett (on the Commerce Clause), John Yoo (on the president’s war powers), and myriad other conservative proponents of originalism.
Even more fundamentally, the Bork hearings forced originalists to reconsider, or at least further develop, first principles. Where Bork had defended originalism primarily as an inquiry into the Founding Fathers’ “intentions”—a seemingly subjective inquiry, irrevocably tied to the Framers’ politics and prejudices—conservatives eventually shifted their focus away from “intentions” and toward the more objective “original public meaning” of the constitutional text.
The Bork nomination had profound organizational effects as well…
Roger Kimball adds:
In a way, Robert Bork had the last laugh. Ted Kennedy went to his grave a rancid, lumbering, pathetic laughing stock. Bork went from intellectual triumph to intellectual triumph, contributing now-classic studies to the library of legal understanding and penning two of the most important works of social criticism of the last several decades, the aofremention Tempting of America and Slouching Toward Gemorrah, wild bestsellers both. I am proud to say that this spring Encounter Books will be publishing a memoir by Judge Bork called Saving Justice: Watergate,. The Saturday Night Massacre, and Other Adventures of a Solicitor General.
R.I.P.
The MRC@25: The Worst Media Bias of 2003
For the past two weeks, NewsBusters has been showcasing the most egregious bias the Media Research Center has uncovered over the years — four quotes for each of the 25 years of the MRC, 100 quotes total — all leading up to our big 25th Anniversary Gala September 27.
If you’ve missed a previous blog, recounting the worst of 1988 through 2002, they are here. Today, the worst bias of 2003: The New York Times compares the U.S. bombing of Baghdad to the horror of September 11; Peter Arnett goes on Iraqi state TV to propagandize against the U.S.; and we find out what a “comfort” Ted Kennedy’s liberal policies would have been to Mary Jo Kopechne, “if she had lived.” [Quotes and video below the jump.]
On CBS, Douglas Brinkley Marvels at ‘Still Very Popular’ Kennedys
Liberal historian Douglas Brinkley sang the praises of the Kennedy family on Monday's CBS This Morning, spotlighting the apparently "very important public service work" of Robert F. Kennedy's children: "It's just remarkable to me how Bobby Kennedy's kids keep making public policy influences." Brinkley also claimed that "the Kennedy name is still very popular, and....we're endlessly fascinated by the family."
The author also played up the Democratic family's Catholic background, without mentioning how several prominent members have dissented from the Church's teachings on abortion and sexuality.
Stephanie Cutter Abruptly Bails on Ed Schultz, But He’s Not Bitter
Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter succeeding in getting under Ed Schultz's skin by canceling her appearance on his radio show Friday with only 15 minutes' notice. (audio clips after page break)
Schultz tried to hide his irritation but it was a losing battle (audio) --
I don't mean to mislead the audience , but I guess I just got word, well I did get word, that Stephanie Cutter will not be on the Ed Schultz radio show today. (pause) Well, whatever. Fifteen minutes to airtime, uh! Can't make it! That's fine. I don't care. I mean, I do care but that's just sometimes how it goes. ... I think we're going to have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on. Sometimes I think I'm just a little too aggressive for these people. I just might prod them to say something that just might get them in trouble because I might say, gosh, how come the president doesn't say what you say? Why doesn't President Obama come out and question whether Mitt Romney committed a felony or not? Why not?! Come on! They don't want that interview.
This was right at the end of the first hour of Schultz three-hour weekday radio show, after he'd mentioned several times that Cutter would be a guest. At the start of the second hour, Schultz was still peeved (audio) --
I don't know why Stephanie Cutter can't make it. I was just told 15 minutes ago she couldn't be on the program after promoting that she is. That's all I'm saying. Chill out, Rita. (presumably a listener who responded to Schultz's earlier comments about Cutter). ... Look, it's a known fact. And, you know, look, I'm not being a crybaby, OK? I'm not! I'm going to be just fine. Axelrod doesn't do anything with me. Gibbs doesn't do anything with me. Stephanie Cutter doesn't do anything on the show with me. And that's fine, that's OK. I'm probably too much of a live wire for 'em. Because they know I'm going to support President Obama anyway so why do they need to talk to me?
How about that, Schultz and I have something in common, at least when it comes to Cutter -- she did much the same to me almost 10 years ago when I was political reporter at the Cape Cod Times and she was a top aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy. I'd been assigned to line up an interview with Kennedy at his office in Washington to get his views on Cape Wind, a 130-turbine wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound that would be visible from the Kennedy compound.
Kennedy agreed to the interview and I was given a time and date, a weekday in March 2003 at 3:30 p.m., and I'd get a half hour. I was struck by the fact that it was scheduled on the half-hour, not the hour, and I dutifully wrote this down in my Day-Timer and proceeded to make flight and hotel arrangements.
On the day of the interview, I arrived 10 minutes early and waited in Kennedy's outer office. Cutter came out and said, where've you been?! You were supposed to be here at 3. No, I responded, I was supposed to be here at 3:30 -- and I'm early. No, she answered imperiously, the interview was scheduled for 3 and you are 20 minutes late. How about I speak with Kennedy now, I suggested, seeing how you carved out a half hour anyway. No, Cutter replied, so sorry. Tell you what, she offered, we could do it over the phone next week if that's OK. Followed by me leaving Kennedy's office shortly thereafter and making a seriously excruciating phone call to my editor.
Which of us was wrong? Of that I have little doubt -- her. I'm the type who doesn't just write to-do lists in my Day-Timer (though a different system now), I'd highlight them as each task was completed. What actually happened was that something else came up for The Senator, as Cutter unfailingly referred to the man, and since I was with the Cape Cod Times and not the New York or Los Angeles Times, something's gotta give and it's not The Senator's whim on this given day.
It's worth noting that Cutter and I had met before, a year earlier, when I was assigned to shadow Kennedy for a day in Washington for a profile on his upcoming 70th birthday. On that day, which ended up spilling into the next morning with an interview in Kennedy's hideaway office in the Capitol, Cutter was with me nearly every moment I was in Kennedy's presence, except for several minutes when my photographer misplaced a piece of equipment and Cutter had to accompany him when he retrieved it. (This was six months after 9/11, when Washington bristled with more security than usual).
As for that phone interview with Kennedy suggested by Cutter a year later, she did arrange that. When it came time to speak with The Senator, he was on a speaker phone in Washington while I was on Cape Cod and just about every time I asked Kennedy a question, his response was preceded by what sounded like whispering around him. Almost as if Cutter and her colleagues were telling The Senator what to say.
Suffice it to say my memories of Cutter are not fond ones, but she did leave me with something I savor. It was a few months before that cross-signaled day in Washington when, in a moment of unguarded exasperation toward The Senator, she blurted out these memorable words -- I have to work with what I have.
Hey Ed, maybe Cutter will reschedule, like she did with me. Just be sure to call back repeatedly to confirm.
Stephanopoulos Celebrates ObamaCare Victory with Someone ‘Special,’ Ted Kennedy’s Widow
How cozy. Former Democratic operative turned television news host George Stephanopoulos used his ABC News platform on Sunday to celebrate, with Vicki Reggie Kennedy, ObamaCare’s Supreme Court victory. Stephanopoulos excitedly plugged his “special exclusive guest” on This Week, announcing: “We begin with something special. The first reaction on the ruling from Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy who fought for universal health care...”
A giddy Stephanopoulos conveyed how he’s vicariously living in the glory of the liberal triumph: “I can only imagine what it must have been like for you, at the moment you heard that the Supreme Court had decided.”
A wide-eyed and smiling Stephanopoulos cued up Reggie to recall a moment only a liberal would appreciate: “Right after the decision, you received a call from Speaker Pelosi saying Teddy can rest.”
Audio: MP3 clip
Stephanopoulos soon read from a letter Ted Kennedy sent to President Obama predicting ObamaCare would win passage, but Stephanopoulos fretted “he did also refer to the continuing struggles,” prompting his guest: “What do you see as the biggest struggle going forward?”
From the top of the July 1 This Week on ABC, with Stephanopoulos hosting the “Washington” show in New York while Reggie appeared from a DC studio:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We begin with something special. The first reaction on the ruling from Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Senator Ted Kennedy who fought for universal health care throughout a Senate career that spanned almost half a century. A commitment captured in his final convention speech.
SENATOR TED KENNEDY, AUGUST 25, 2008: This is the cause of my life. New hope that we will break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American -- north, south, east, west, young, old -- will have decent, quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege!
STEPHANOPOULOS: And Vicki Kennedy joins us now. Thank you so much for coming in this morning.
VICKI KENNEDY: Thank you, George.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I can only imagine what it must have been like for you, at the moment you heard that the Supreme Court had decided.
VICTORIA REGGIE: You know, George, as you just heard in that wonderful clip, this health care reform was the cause of my husband's life. He believed that it was a moral issue, that it defined the character of who we were as a society, who we were as a country, and that decent quality, affordable health care should be a fundamental right and not a privilege. And now all three branches of our federal government have affirmed that right and I think if Teddy were here, he would tell us now it’s time to roll up out sleeves, get to work, fully implement the law and move on with the business of our country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I do want to get to that, but I imagine that Senator Kennedy would have been surprised, like so many were, by the fact that the deciding vote was cast by Chief Justice Roberts.
REGGIE: You know, I don't think he would have. I think he felt very strongly in health care reform. He had studied this issue for more than 40 years. He believed in it. He believed in its constitutionality. He had looked at it in every way. I think he would have been pleased, but not surprised.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Right after the decision, you received a call from Speaker Pelosi saying Teddy can rest.
REGGIE: Yes, yes, it was a lovely, lovely call. She fought valiantly for health care. She led the House of Representatives beautifully in fighting and championing health care for all Americans. She really was a real, real heroine in this battle.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You mentioned how the Senator would be looking to the struggles ahead. I want to read a little bit of letter he wrote to President Obama shortly before he died where he gets into that. He was quite optimistic. Here’s what he said, he said: “I came to believe that soon, very soon, affordable health coverage will be available to all, and while I will not see the victory, I was able to look forward and know that we will – yes, we will – fulfill the promise of health care in America as a right and not a privilege.” But he did also refer to the continuing struggles. What do you see as the biggest struggle going forward?
CNN Helps Eulogize Ted Kennedy, Lets His Son Patrick Praise ObamaCare Decision
Health care activist Patrick Kennedy got over four minutes on CNN prime-time to air his glee over ObamaCare being upheld on Thursday. Host Piers Morgan simply let the former Democratic congressman expound on his father Ted Kennedy's fight for health care and praise the Supreme Court decision.
CNN is no stranger to the Kennedys, having lauded Ted Kennedy as "American royalty" and given his son Patrick an exclusive one-hour special on his struggle with alcoholism and "a new beginning." [Video below the break. Audio here.]
Morgan gave the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) a fond introduction, airing a clip of Nancy Pelosi eulogizing his fight for health care. "I knew that when he left us, he would go to heaven and help pass the bill and now I know he was busily at work until this decision came down, inspiring one way or another," Pelosi gushed.
"Patrick, how do you think your father would have felt today?" Morgan asked his first softball question.
The second, and last, question, was simply "Were you shocked that Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, was the deciding vote today?" Kennedy went on to say many will "sleep a little bit better" now that the law has been upheld.
"And I think the Supreme Court upheld really the truest vision of what is in the best interest of this country today," Kennedy gushed.
A transcript of the interview, which aired on June 28 on Piers Morgan Tonight at 9:12 p.m. EDT, is as follows:
PIERS MORGAN: Patrick Kennedy is a former congressman. A health care activist. And of course the son of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who called universal health care the cause of his life. Listen to what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said today about the senator.
(Video Clip)
Rep. NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader: He called it the great unfinished business of our country, of our society. I knew that when he left us, he would go to heaven and help pass the bill and now I know he was busily at work until this decision came down, inspiring one way or another. And now he can rest in peace.
(End Video Clip)
MORGAN: I'm joined now by Patrick Kennedy. Patrick, how do you think your father would have felt today?
PATRICK KENNEDY (D), former U.S. representative: Well, I think he would have been thrilled that not just members of Congress have guaranteed health care anymore but that all the constituents that elected them now have access to health care that members of Congress are fully happy to have.
My father saw it as simply a matter of hypocrisy that these people who are critic
izing health care take government funded health care themselves. And he just thought it was a matter of fairness. And he thought it was a moral issue. It was about whether we wanted to treat others the way we ourselves would want to be treated. And I recall that what made him really so passionate about this was when my brother Ted had bone cancer and my father and mother had to worry about whether he was going to survive.
But they didn't have to worry about whether they could pay for him to get the health care he needed. But they saw other families go through the heartache of not only hoping that their loved one got better but they were worried about being bankrupted in the process. And I think that's what rubbed my father so against his sense of compassion and social justice, and it's what fueled his effort to fight for this, for his whole lifetime.
And keep in mind, Piers, he worked with Senator Hatch. Of course he did work with then-Governor Romney in Massachusetts. He was always anxious to work across party lines because he really felt this was in the best interest of the nation. And I think that it is in the best interest of the nation, as much as it's a polarizing issue right now as Governor Patrick said earlier.
I think everybody will benefit because that you get the efficiencies of having everybody in the system, in which case you can really implement prevention and population-based health care, which today we don't have a health care system. We have a sick care system which means people only get care when they get sick. And that's not really both cost effective. And it's certainly not humane if we – if we look at the system as it is today.
MORGAN: Were you shocked that Justice Roberts, Chief Justice Roberts, was the deciding vote today?
KENNEDY: I was shocked that he was just the deciding vote. And that Kennedy also didn't join him. It was obviously something that was a lot of commentary. But process is what it is. At the end of the day, I think it's individual families who get stuck in jobs. Who don't want to change jobs because they're worried about losing their health care. Or who are really on the margins. Who are trying to get health insurance but can't because of a pre-existing condition.
All of those families are going to sleep a little bit better knowing that in the future this is one less worry. Now I understand, you know, my former colleague, Rick Santorum before me said, that you know people are going to be -- you know, have this worry about government-run this. Well, I mean, it was the insurance industry that's unregulated that was running people's health care lives before.
And I don't know how many people feel really good about HMOs. That as much as they paid for their premiums whenever they needed health care, insurance companies' business model was to say "no." And I think that's the real issue here. It's not a question of, you know, whether people are going to pay, because they're paying already for health premiums. And those health premiums are going up.
What this is about is let's get people the coverage that they're paying for. And right now, it's about government stepping in and making sure that insurance companies aren't going to continue to profit off of other people's misfortune. And when they need health care, denying them that health care because that's how they make a profit.
I salute the President for standing up for the – really, the largest mass of American people who, you know -- who are worried every day about getting sick because they're worried about it bankrupting them. President Obama didn't have to worry about health care. My dad never had to worry about health care. Mitt Romney doesn't have to worry about health care. It's the average American who's worried because they're worried about a catastrophic illness putting them in the poor house.
And I think that's not American. And I think the Supreme Court upheld really the truest vision of what is in the best interest of this country today.
MORGAN: Patrick Kennedy, thank you very much indeed.
Selling Socialism: The Media’s Campaign for ObamaCare
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector.
Selling Socialism: The Media’s Campaign for ObamaCare
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector.