Ted Kennedy

I'll save the longer eulogies for other commentators, but Kennedy's reputation seemed always to embody a political paradox. On the one hand, he was constantly vilified by those on the right for his steadfast liberal views, but he also had a lot of success in reaching across the aisle to pass significant legislation.

It looks like Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who has served 50 years in the Senate, is pushing to name the health care bill after Kennedy. As some in the liberal blogosphere have pointed out, let's hope it's a bill that Kennedy would be proud of.

Today, I came across Kennedy's 1980 Democratic National Convention speech. Here's part of it:

Finally, we cannot have a fair prosperity in isolation from a fair society. So I will continue to stand for a national health insurance. We must -- We must not surrender -- We must not surrender to the relentless medical inflation that can bankrupt almost anyone and that may soon break the budgets of government at every level. Let us insist on real controls over what doctors and hospitals can charge, and let us resolve that the state of a family's health shall never depend on the size of a family's wealth.