Starting today, Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers: Exploring the right Wing Blogosphere will run here every Monday until Armageddon.
After a plane crash killed liberal Sen. Paul Wellstone, his wife and daughter, and several staff members in 2002, his friends and family held a memorial at the University of Minnesota attended by 15,000 people. The theme was "Stand up, keep fighting" for Wellstone's beliefs, and the expected Democratic replacement for Wellstone on the November ticket, Walter Mondale, was ardently cheered. Wellstone's son and other speakers called for victory in that election as a tribute to the fallen senator.
Outrage from Wellstone's non-family and non-friends ensued. "His family went and turned his funeral into a goddamned political rally," cried Cold Fury. Andrew Sullivan echoed a friend who "felt the pure partisanship, the jeering and cheering, the fanaticism almost, just after a family has been killed, was about as unseemly a spectacle as anything one could imagine."
The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan topped them all, actually offering a Wellstone memo from the great beyond. "When the rally was over, I grieved," she had him say. She also had Wellstone castigate his family for "turning everything in your life into politics. ... There are people with the same sickness on the other side too. But I'm telling you, this polar thinking thing has gotten worse on our side the past few years. It's becoming the Democratic disease."
Notwithstanding the absurdity of this pretended solicitude for one of their mortal enemies, the rhubarb was thought to have helped elect Republican Norm Coleman to Wellstone's seat.
Last week Ted Kennedy, a longtime advocate of health-care reform, died of brain cancer, and rightbloggers hauled out the Wellstone memorial template in hopes of again defeating a dead senator's cause by using the dead senator himself.
"Ted Kennedy: Another Wellstone," said BitsBlog. "Will Kennedy's Death Bring About a Wellstone Spectacle for Health Care?" asked Wizbang. "Will they be dumb enough to 'Wellstone' Ted Kennedy's memorial?" said Noteworthy. "It's Already Started," claimed Pro Ecclesia, "The Party of Wellstone Uses Kennedy's Death for Political Opportunism."
Jammie Wearing Fool
took what he may imagine is the high road: "While we have no doubt the
Democrats will do all they can to exploit [Kennedy's] death and will
probably have a Wellstone memorial on steroids, we'll stay above that."
"This Saturday, President Obama will give the eulogy at Ted Kennedy's funeral," said Yid With Lid.
"It is certain that within the flowery prose, the POTUS will urge the
Congress to complete Kennedy's work, and go out and kill grandma for the gipper Teddy."
"Is Ted Kennedy really spending the afterlife wishing we would all accept Obamacare?" asked NewsReal Sunday's Paul Cooper. "The Bible offers insight to this question." He then described the torments of Hell.
Legal Insurrection
found some writers calling for the pending health-care bill to be named
after Kennedy, which he said demonstrated that "Democrats are desperate
to do anything to overcome public opposition on the merits."
Just
in case there was anything to this notion that Kennedy's name might
help the bill, some rightbloggers worked to blacken the late senator's
reputation. Some circulated a report that he made jokes about Chappaquiddick;
Blackfive jumped on a Kennedy aide's overstated report that he had
"gone to the funeral of every soldier who's come home from Iraq in a
casket" ("Email me if you have seen or not seen Senator Kennedy at a military funeral anywhere"); others revived a story that Kennedy had conspired with the Soviet Union to undermine the Reagan Administration (strongly disputed here); and some attacked surviving Kennedys ("Just like Uncle Ted, Joe Kennedy is a communist enabler too").
But in the main, the talking point was that Democrats would use the
death of the murdering, treasonous Kennedy to promote health care
reform.
The funeral service came and went with little to which serious objections could be made. President Obama eulogized; various Kennedys spoke; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick read some correspondence between Kennedy and the Vatican (of which Gateway Pundit
complained, "Of course, the AP did not release any parts of the Vatican
letter that discussed life issues or was critical of Teddy Kennedy").
Dr. Edward Peters
gave his best shot. When the Rev. Mark Hession said in his homily
"Kennedy tied his faith to justice in the land," Dr. Peters observed,
"good grief, justice? for millions of unborn babies in the land? was
that the fruit of Teddy's faith?" Peters was struck by "how oblivious,
I say, all the participants were to Ted Kennedy's disgraceful and
chronic failings to defend the natural right to life." Peters must not
go to many funerals, and those he does attend must be lively affairs.
This
left some scraps offered by two young Kennedys in their intercessions
at the service: "For what my Grandpa called the cause of his life, as
he said so often, 'In every part of this land, that every American will
have decent quality healthcare as a fundamental right, and not a
privilege,'" and "For my Grandfather's brave promise last summer that
'The work begins anew, the hope rises again, and the dream lives on.'"
"Dems Exploit Child at Kennedy Funeral to Pray for Obamacare," cried Stop the ACLU,
and offered their own, more respectful intercession, "Please throw all
the Democrat bums out of office in the mid-terms. Lord hear our
prayer!"
"I hold no bad feelings towards this little boy," graciously acknowledged Sister Toldjah,
"but I'm angry he was used by his family to promote healthcare reform
at a funeral during the 'prayers of the faithful' segment. It's the
Absolute Moral Authority Card and the kiddie human shield tactic all
rolled into one." "Words fail," said Patterico's Pontifications. 'Words cannot begin to express my disgust," said Protein Wisdom. "The Kennedy family could not pass up using the children for political gain," said Virginia Virtucon.
"[The Kennedys] have no morals and common decency as they will even use
a church service to advance their cause. Shame on the Kennedy's for not
even respecting a funeral Mass."
"Like Chappaquiddick, we aren't supposed to notice," raged RedState's Lori_Z.
"It doesn't fit the narrative. Or if we do notice, we are supposed to
think it is all worth it; that the ends justify the means." She
concluded that "the entire funeral was used as an Obamacare rally" --
rather a stretch, but as the Catholics say, act as if ye had faith, and
faith will be given to you.
It's early yet to tell if the
children's prayers will call a Wellstone-style firestorm of indignation
upon the Kennedys, the Democrats, health-care reform, Obama etc. Early
returns suggest not. Legal Insurrection,
previously concerned about the Kennedy effect, was content to notice
"Kennedy TV Coverage A Ratings Flop" though "CNN and MSNBC have been
covering the Ted Kennedy death virtually non-stop. ... Maybe it's a sign
that the Kennedy name does not mean much outside of the circles who
supported Kennedy-care before it was called Kennedy-care."
American Power
saved its outrage for a New York rally in favor of health-care reform.
"Almost no one attending the rally has made their own signs," they
said. "That's the Dems for you: Shameless exploitation and staged
rallies to generate media support."
But as we said, it's early yet, and there'll be plenty of mailings, blog posts, and town brawls
with which rightbloggers may inveigh us to please think of the
children, and defeat Obamacare in respect for the injured memory of Ted
Kennedy.
Roy Edroso's Rightbloggers originates in the Village Voice, our sister paper in New York City.
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