As we near the fortieth anniversary of Robert Kennedy's assassination this week, Ted Kennedy will be fighting for his life today in six hours of "extremely risky" surgery for a brain tumor at Duke University Medical Center.
He has always been a survivor, outliving a plane crash, the plunge of a car into deep waters and the violent death of two brothers to fill out a long and honorable life.
Barack Obama said last week that he "would not be sitting here as a presidential candidate had it not been for some of the battles that Ted Kennedy has fought. He is somebody who battled for voting rights and civil rights when I was a child. I stand on his shoulders."
Others will be on their knees today, praying that Ted Kennedy will be granted more years to give us all.
Showing posts with label RFK assassination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RFK assassination. Show all posts
Monday, June 02, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
The Campaigns' Most Morbid Day
Death will not take a holiday this Memorial Day weekend, which starts with Hillary Clinton's bizarre invocation of Robert Kennedy's assassination as a reason for staying in the race and John McCain's release of his medical records in a scene straight out of "Citizen Kane."
Others may not go as ballistic as Keith Olbermann did over the RFK reference, but the former First Lady, who had to live for eight years with the specter of her husband's possible death as a condition of occupying the White House, was far out of bounds in raising the subject, as her own ensuing backpedaling and her campaign's multiple explanations indicate.
Mortality was an issue for Republicans as well with the carefully controlled viewing of 1,173 medical documents relating to John McCain's health.
As described by the New York Times Caucus blog, the circumstances resemble the "Citizen Kane" scene in which a newsweekly reporter is allowed to examine his deceased guardian's memoirs in a vault with an armed guard standing by:
"Senator McCain’s campaign is making the documents available in a limited way (they cannot be copied or taken out of a room at a resort in Phoenix; and only certain media organizations--not The Times--were allowed in as pool reporters). And they can only be reviewed for a few hours today."
Years ago, news media used to report predictions of the numbers of highway fatalities for holiday weekends like the odds on football games. Discretion ended that practice, but for this holiday weekend at least, potential death is back in the headlines again.
Others may not go as ballistic as Keith Olbermann did over the RFK reference, but the former First Lady, who had to live for eight years with the specter of her husband's possible death as a condition of occupying the White House, was far out of bounds in raising the subject, as her own ensuing backpedaling and her campaign's multiple explanations indicate.
Mortality was an issue for Republicans as well with the carefully controlled viewing of 1,173 medical documents relating to John McCain's health.
As described by the New York Times Caucus blog, the circumstances resemble the "Citizen Kane" scene in which a newsweekly reporter is allowed to examine his deceased guardian's memoirs in a vault with an armed guard standing by:
"Senator McCain’s campaign is making the documents available in a limited way (they cannot be copied or taken out of a room at a resort in Phoenix; and only certain media organizations--not The Times--were allowed in as pool reporters). And they can only be reviewed for a few hours today."
Years ago, news media used to report predictions of the numbers of highway fatalities for holiday weekends like the odds on football games. Discretion ended that practice, but for this holiday weekend at least, potential death is back in the headlines again.
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