RUSH: Senator Kennedy screwed up everything he touched. You get all this discussion about what a great legislator he was. I got the cover story of Newsweek magazine from May 28th, 1979. May 28th, 1979, a cover story on Ted Kennedy: ‘Teddy Comes on Strong. The Battle Over Health Care.’ ‘We can’t do it piecemeal.’ It’s the same tired script. It’s the same old, tired scripts. They have been working on this massive health care program, and 1979 is the same year that they ran covers on global cooling and the coming freeze.
Here, let me show it to you on the Dittocam. You’ll see my little note to myself there, ‘Same tired scripts.’ ‘Teddy Comes on Strong.’ That is May 28th, 1979. It’s Groundhog Day. It’s Groundhog Day with the American left. Every day it’s the same garbage. It’s been that way for my whole life. Now, you’ve gotta hear these upcoming sound bites. David Shuster yesterday afternoon on PMSNBC said this about Senator Kennedy.
SHUSTER: Ted Kennedy, unlike so many politicians of this day, he didn’t dabble in the small stuff, the petty personal attacks. That was not him. And, again, I think that’s why so many people are feeling so sad not only for the loss of him, but for the loss, perhaps, of a political era.
RUSH: Yeah, you heard right. Petty personal attacks were not Ted Kennedy. And our old buddy, David Brooks, on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last night, David Brooks of the New York Times and the new conservatism.
BROOKS: I would just say he could exercise great anger when he disapproved, but it was not resentment and so it never got quite as personal, and for conservatives who are now in the wilderness, that is a model for them, to find the best in your tradition and to follow it the way he followed liberalism during the Reagan years.
RUSH: This is unbelievable. These guys are on the scene, they are so desirous, they are so desirous of this peaceful world where all the red and blue states get along and there aren’t any arguments and everybody is as civil as these clowns from the Ivy League and their Oxford debating societies that they have to make up stories about how civil Ted Kennedy was. Well, how civil this was?
KENNEDY: Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution. Writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government. And the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is and is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.
RUSH: Oh, yeah, he never got personal. He never got petty. Mr. Shuster, you’re a dunce. Mr. Brooks, you defy explanation. He never got personal. No. He only destroyed Robert Bork’s career. He tried to destroy Robert Bork’s life. Ted Kennedy, with views like this, succeeded in screwing up, along with his Democrat buddies, the federal bunch, the US judiciary, more than anybody could have had they tried. He never got personal? He certainly got personal about Clarence Thomas. He pulled the same stunt on Clarence Thomas that he tried here on Robert Bork. This was from 1987. I think I was in Sacramento when this happened. This is the beginning of the dawn of the age of the current hate. This is what started it. Everything was hunky-dory back then, the Republicans had 135 members in the House and they were happy, did not even show up, just go play golf with Democrats now and then, guys like Hugh Scott were in the Senate, there wasn’t any acrimony. The Democrats ran the show except for Reagan, who they hated. They despised Reagan as much as they despised Bush. But this started it. This started the age of hate in American, good old Ted Kennedy, the lion, he never got personal, he never got petty. We can learn a lot from Ted Kennedy and his civil ways. And he went on, in the same Bork speech, to attack Ronald Reagan.
KENNEDY: America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be. The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.
RUSH: There you have it, no petty personal attacks from Ted Kennedy. He didn’t dabble in the small stuff. And, yeah, he never resented anybody, never got personal, says David Brooks. And now for conservatives who are in the wilderness, Ted Kennedy is a model for us to find the best in our tradition and to follow it. I mean, this is puke city.
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RUSH: Another sound bite of Senator Kennedy here. David Brooks and David Shuster, the two dunces: ‘Ted Kennedy never got personal. Ted Kennedy never got petty and personal, Teddy wasn’t like that.’ You know, Ted Kennedy, he didn’t get personal with people who could hit back. But when people couldn’t answer back, he was fearless in getting personal. Bork couldn’t comment. Bork’s up for nomination. Clarence Thomas couldn’t comment. He’s up for nomination. And here’s Teddy Kennedy in 2007 on the Senate floor, his comments on the resolution against the surge in Iraq.
KENNEDY: All of us remember President Bush saying ‘I’m going to take my time and find a new direction.’ All of us remember that he said, ‘Do not rush me. I want to talk to the generals. I want to talk to political leaders. I want to talk to people all over this country and all over the world to find out a new policy.’ And then he comes out with his policy and what is it? It’s a military policy to escalate in Iraq. That is the issue before the United States Senate. Many of us do not believe that this president is right on it. The Baker-Hamilton Commission did not agree with that policy, General Abizaid did not agree with that policy before the Armed Services Committee and the American people don’t! We on this side are interested in protecting American servicemen from the crossfire of a civil war. Some on the other side are more interested in protecting the president from a rebuke for his policy of escalation in Iraq.
RUSH: Which led to victory, which Senator Kennedy was opposed to. And, by the way, what is this: The American people don’t want the surge. The American people don’t want Obamacare, either. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the Democrats in Washington.
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RUSH: A couple more sound bites of Senator Kennedy — perfectly civil, not personal. Senator Kennedy as David Brooks and David Shuster told us yesterday, oh, never got personal, no, he was a model of civility. We could learn a lot as we go forward emulating the behavior of Senator Kennedy. Here he is on the Senate floor in 2007.
KENNEDY 2007: We still cannot get a $2.15 over two years! Over two years! (screaming) ‘What is the price?’ We ask the other side. ‘What is the price that you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do we have to give to the private sector and to business? How many billion dollars more are you asking, are you requiring?’ ‘When does the greed stop?’ we ask the other side.
RUSH: He making a play here for the minimum wage to be raised, and it has been and we’re heading toward 10% unemployment. You know, the minimum wage ends up hurting the very people Senator Kennedy seeks to help, as do most of Senator Kennedy’s plans end up damaging the people he seeks to help. But there he is perfectly civil, perfectly reasonable! Not personal at all. Calling Republicans greedy. You know, I wonder, I’m looking at television now, and the State-Controlled Media is breathlessly waiting for the motorcade that will carry Senator Kennedy’s body to lie in repose at the JFK Library on Rose Kennedy Avenue at the Kennedy School of Government sponsored by Alan Dershowitz. They’re just breathless out there. They can’t wait. The same graphic’s been on the screen here, ‘Awaiting departure of Senator Kennedy motorcade from Hyannis Port.’ They’re showing us the route and all of this. They’re just breathlessly waiting for this blessed event to take place. In the meantime, when you examine the things that Senator Kennedy was for: He got the minimum wage up and is it helping anybody? It’s not helping anybody at all.
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RUSH: I can’t let this broadcast end without repeating these four sound bites. David Shuster yesterday afternoon on MSNBC Live.
SHUSTER: Ted Kennedy, unlike so many politicians of this day, he didn’t dabble in the small stuff, the petty personal attacks. That was not him. And, again, I think that’s why so many people are feeling so sad not only for the loss of him, but for the loss, perhaps, of a political era.
RUSH: He doesn’t dabble in the small stuff, the petty personal attacks. That wasn’t Teddy Kennedy. This is David Brooks on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer last night.
BROOKS: I would just say he could exercise great anger when he disapproved, but it was not resentment and so it never got quite as personal, and for conservatives who are now in the wilderness, that is a model for them, to find the best in your tradition and to follow it the way he followed liberalism during the Reagan years.
RUSH: During the Reagan years? During the Reagan years he never got personal! We gotta model ourselves after Ted Kennedy during the Reagan years. Well, let’s listen to Ted Kennedy during the Reagan years.
KENNEDY: Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution. Writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government. And the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is and is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.
RUSH: Wow. He never got bitter; he never got personal; he was a model for us to follow during the Reagan years. Never got petty, never got personal. It just wasn’t Teddy Kennedy. Here’s more from that same Senate floor speech.
KENNEDY: America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be. The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.
RUSH: Ted Kennedy seeking to destroy the career and life’s work of Robert Bork. But he never got personal. No, no, no, never got petty. In fact, David Brooks says that we have to model ourselves after Ted Kennedy in the Reagan years. We also must remember that Mr. Brooks comes from the conservative intelligentsia that tells us the era of Reagan is over, he and like-minded people. The era of Reagan is over, we can’t go back, that’s antique now. We have to forget Reagan. We have to forget Reagan now during the Reagan years but we’ve gotta remember Kennedy during the Reagan years. We have so-called conservative journalists telling us this, that we’ve got to forget Reagan, but we must remember Kennedy during the Reagan years. You know, there are really, folks, there are a lot of stupid smart people out there. I don’t know how else to describe it.