The Pundits Come Out in Force

picture-127.thumbnail.pngMuch of the news media has, I think, treated Ted Kennedy’s passing with the appropriate respect.

But a significant swath of pundits have leapt–without pause–into issuing projections about how Ted Kennedy’s death will affect the health care debate. They are not, mind you, calling attention to how his passing changes the parliamentary landscape for the health care bill: noting that Dems will no longer have a filibuster-proof majority until such time as Massachusetts sends another Democrat to the Senate in the next five months or so, noting that one or two potentially appropriate replacements for Kennedy–like Ed Markey–would open up holes in key Committees in the House. They aren’t so much noting the things that could change the debate: Obama adopting a different stance towards the HELP bill, for example, or naming the bill after Kennedy (which Senator Byrd has already called to do).

Rather, they are suggesting they know whether Kennedy’s passing will make health care more or less likely; or make a bill with a public option more or less likely.

That pisses me off for a number of reasons.

First, such reflexive punditry–the urge to claim omniscience about politics–arises out of the 24-hour cable world, a need to fill time. Yet to so quickly jump to making pronouncements about whether Ted Kennedy’s death is a "win" for progressive Democrats or conservative Democrats, Republicans, and their corporate backers (which is really what this is about) suggests the cable news channels have exhausted all the things they have to say about Kennedy, the man. Now, Teddy Kennedy’s record of achievement in the Senate is a half-century testimony of all that progressives have brought to this country. And if the cable news can spend a week paying tribute to Michael Jackson’s half-century career in music, then they sure as hell can spend at least one day paying tribute to Ted Kennedy’s half-century leading this nation. To so quickly turn his death into one event in a horse race dishonors the man and slights his great achievements.

But I’m perhaps most pissed about this urge to claim to know what will happen now because of the way I look on death. Today is a day to pay tribute to Ted Kennedy, absolutely. But it’s also a day to reflect on what his life means, and to reflect on how–for those of us who honor that legacy–we can keep his dream alive through our own actions.

Today should be a day to reflect not on what will happen, but what each of us can do to make sure we influence what happens. Today should be a day we reflect on the possibilities and the challenges presented by the health care fight, not on events that some pundit imagines have already been determined.

Kennedy’s death will change what happens with the health care fight in both tangible and intangible ways. But anyone who claims to know, now, how it will change things is just blowing smoke, posing as an omniscient actor in the face of unknowable potential actions. And that poser-pundit is effectively denying the possibilities of human organizing and action.

Ted Kennedy’s life is, at its core, a lesson in how important a single person’s actions can be, how much one person–believing in and fighting for what’s right–can achieve. And if one person can make a difference, then no pundit can claim to know what the outcome of thousands of people trying to make a difference will be.

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62 replies
  1. Leen says:

    Ew “To so quickly turn his death into one event in a horse race dishonors the man and slights his great achievements.”

    We’re talking about the profit margin driven folks…no conscience there and you have every right to be pissed off.

    Ew “And if one person can make a difference, then no pundit can claim to know what the outcome of thousands of people trying to make a difference will be”

    Danm right and I think a tidal wave is coming in Sept that will knock out the profit margin driven thugs

    • WordBloom says:

      “I think a tidal wave is coming in Sept that will knock out the profit margin driven thugs.”

      Oh, how true that is. And the great thing is, they have NO CLUE it’s coming.

    • JohnJ says:

      You’ve basically layed out why a lot of people, myself included, hate the cable(and Big 3) news channels/networks.

      The really sick thing is that I thought that FAUX was going to be the antithesis of the big 3 scrubbed “information” and “entertainment” with Married with children and The Simpsons.

      Fooled me.

      RIP Ted. You did good. Only pay attention to those that actually can do better (not many).

  2. foothillsmike says:

    if the cable news can spend a week paying tribute to Michael Jackson’s half-century career in music, then they sure as hell can spend at least one day paying tribute to Ted Kennedy’s half-century leading this nation.

    Another appropriate comparison will be the attention paid to Tim Russert

  3. phred says:

    Ed Markey?!?!? Dear God, no!

    He’s my f’ing rep and you will not find a more pliant happily rolled “progressive” in the House. What’s worse is his patronizing staff pretends that each and every f’ing capitulation is absolutely f’ing necessary because… well, just because… Replace Teddy with him?!?! That would be a travesty. A real travesty.

      • phred says:

        No, I knew you weren’t. It is just the suggestion is just so repellent. Kerry’s primary opponent got 30% of the vote last year. He is no Teddy and neither is Markey. I would dearly love to see them both ousted in primaries at the earliest possible opportunity. If I wasn’t such a hothead, I’d run against Markey myself. Somehow I suspect my constituent relations skills wouldn’t quite cut it ; )

  4. WilliamOckham says:

    And if the cable news can spend a week paying tribute to Michael Jackson’s half-century career in music, then they sure as hell can spend at least one day paying tribute to Ted Kennedy’s half-century leading this nation.

    This thought occurred to me as well. The parallels and differences are many. There will be an excellent master’s thesis or two in analyzing the coverage.

  5. phred says:

    Ok, now that I have recovered from my outburst… EW, I completely agree with the point of your post, but the fact is, it isn’t just the pundits. Read through any thread on any post today and everyone is talking about the implications for health care… We could depend on Teddy and now that he’s gone, who can we depend on?

    Bueller? Bueller?

    • emptywheel says:

      Teddy hasn’t been actively fighting this battle for months, though I’m sure he would have liked to be. But thousands of FDL readers have been making a really critical difference by giving progressives spines on the public option.

      And as I said, I don’t complain about talk about tactical changes: naming this after Teddy or waiting for his replacement. I complain about any person saying, “this makes it less likely that health care reform will pass.”

      • phred says:

        I agree Teddy hasn’t been able to fight this particular fight, but that’s really my point. We don’t have anyone inside the Senate fighting alongside of us. It is not hard to imagine how much easier it would be for those of us on the outside to prevail, if we had a real ally on the inside.

      • Cujo359 says:

        Agreed. There’s no reason to think it will help, hurt, or make no difference at this point. There are too many unknowns. Only time will tell.

        In any event, it was Ted’s willingness to fight for the rest of us, when he didn’t have to and many of his peers did the opposite, that is what I choose to remember and celebrate about the man.

      • Crosstimbers says:

        Nice post, Marcy. Actually, I’ve been tired of the omnicient tone of pronouncements made by pundits, posters, commenters, even on our side. I could take, “and that’s the way it is” from Cronkite, but now I hear it everywhere. I never knew that politics and economics were such exact sciences and the so many could tell us with supreme confidence what the bird entrails say.

        I know that wasn’t you’re main point, but you mentioned a pet peeve.

  6. TarheelDem says:

    Today should be a day to reflect not on what will happen, but what each of us can do to make sure we influence what happens. Today should be a day we reflect on the possibilities and the challenges presented by the health care fight, not on events that some pundit imagines have already been determined.

    Yes, indeed.

  7. earlofhuntingdon says:

    Ted Kennedy’s legacy is about triumph in the face of adversity. That may sound absurd when talking about a man born of wealth and power to match the Bush family’s. It isn’t.

    Most of us, including others in Mr. Kennedy’s family, would be swallowed by the adversity, sometimes self-inflicted, he faced. His domineering father, his sibling’s ailments and losses, the murders of two of his brothers and implied threats to himself and their families, the unremitting political wrath of his opponents, and a passion for excess that matched his passion to do good.

    His enemies, his faults and ill-luck, his passions didn’t swallow him: they kept him going. He didn’t drop out or hide behind his wealth or limit himself to making more of it. Like TR and FDR, he enjoyed it and he made it work for those who had none. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

    Rather than compete for the last word on what Mr. Kennedy’s legacy will mean, pundits, newscasters, politicians, and spiritual, business, community and blog leaders should pick up his baton and run with it. Mr. Kennedy did over and over again all his life. They and we can too. Immortality isn’t a state of being; its remembrance married to action. Mr. Kennedy gave us plenty of that.

  8. rincewind says:

    Teddy was the unlikeliest of heroes. I’m old enough to remember the Teddy who was a rich, charming, handsome, ne’er-do-well; the black sheep who could never live up to his brothers’ promises. Teddy WORKED to become the man who fulfilled — and arguably surpassed — those promises.

    This morning Jon Meacham used the word “redemption” about Teddy’s life, which I think is a good one but it doesn’t go far enough (and carries too much religious connotation for me). I would choose “transformation” instead; the ability of one person — through the power of his will, courage, intelligence, and compassion — to turn his failings to success, his weaknesses to strength; to overcome everything in his way, even himself.

    For 41 years, I’ve mentally ‘heard’ these words in Teddy’s voice:

    It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us….

    But Teddy’s own words about Bobby are his most fitting epitaph:

    My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

    It’s for us the living to be those good and decent people now.

  9. freepatriot says:

    ted Kennedy death means we ain’t gettin health care reform ???

    so Ted’s legacy is the final destruction of the repuglitards ???

    thanks Ted

  10. tejanarusa says:

    So well articulated, and applying to so many things “covered” by cable news/tainment.

    I’m waiting to see if the CNN and MSNBC devote all their air time on the day of his funeral to the funeral and discussion of the man, the way they did for Reagan’s funeral.
    My hopes are not high.

  11. readerOfTeaLeaves says:

    But I’m perhaps most pissed about this urge to claim to know what will happen now because of the way I look on death. Today is a day to pay tribute to Ted Kennedy, absolutely. But it’s also a day to reflect on what his life means, and to reflect on how–for those of us who honor that legacy–we can keep his dream alive through our own actions.

    Today should be a day to reflect not on what will happen, but what each of us can do to make sure we influence what happens. Today should be a day we reflect on the possibilities and the challenges presented by the health care fight, not on events that some pundit imagines have already been determined.

    Wonderful.

    And not to toss oil on fire, and certainly by no means to be omniscient, but I was awed when Teddy spoke one year ago at the Dem convention. When I’d initially heard his diagnosis, I had enough other background information to believe that he could not possibly have survived this long, and I was amazed at how well he looked a year ago this week. It must surely have been one of the high points of his life.

    When I heard that Specter had joined the Dems in late spring, and that Obama was pushing to pass this health care legislation ‘before August’, I suspected that Ted Kennedy must be visibly declining, and that his health was a key driver of the timelines set by the WH.

    That is part of why I have come to utterly despise Grassley, because I infer that his taking credit for ‘delaying’ a health care vote was part of this calculus about timing; factoring in Ted Kennedy’s declining health. I hope that my assumptions about Grassley are unfair, but I can only judge by what I see, and what I see is depraved, callous, and reprehensible on the part of the GOP and the healthCos.

    I also believe that if progressives get all pissy about the way that the GOP has quite likely ’strategized’ by using Kennedy’s health [and Senate vote] as a key factor in calculating their ‘tactics’ in the health care ‘fight’, then it will come back to haunt the GOP in ways that at the moment none of us can imagine.

    Kennedy’s pragmatism, his unflagging willingness to keep slogging even during dark times and overcome his flaws were remarkable.

    Punditry is reflexive.
    The desire for omniscience grows as the world becomes less predictable.

    No one knows what will happen on health care, but earlier this week FDL hosted labor leader Richard Trumka, and that’s one more sign that new alliances are forming. In addition, last week President Obama was on the largest-ever phone ‘Town Hall’ with evangelical ministers, specifically to talk about health care reform. If these alliances strengthen, then all bets are off regarding the final outcome of health care legislation.

    The pundits get paid for making noise.
    Ted Kennedy made history.

    • Gitcheegumee says:

      The legacy of our lives is not always determined by the content ,but invariably by the intent of our lives.

      Ted’s instincts and intentions were ,for the most part, on the side of our “better angels.”

  12. NorskeFlamethrower says:

    AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

    Citizen emptywheel and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

    Just what options does the Governor of MA have…can’t he appoint or is he constitutionally bound to call an election…Bobby Kennedy Jr. would be my suggestion to the good Governor.

    KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, IT IS TIME TO RELOAD!!

    • Raven says:

      It’s a law the dems passed when Romney was gov to keep HIM from appointing a Dem. It’s a sucky situation.

      • dakine01 says:

        It was to keep Romney from appointing a Republican to a seat held by Kerry should he have won the presidency in ‘04.

        If the law had been that Romney had to appoint a Dem, it most likely would have stayed that way (a couple of western states I believe do have that type law – that the appointee has to be of the same party as the person they are replacing.)

    • Cujo359 says:

      Back in 2004, the Mass. legislature passed a law specifically prohibiting the governor to make interim appointments. At the time, it was concerned that Mitt Romney, a Republican, would appoint a Republican should John Kerry have won the Presidential election. Now, there seems to be resistance to repealing that law, since it would be an admission that the original change was purely a political decision. A Boston Globe article explained this a week or so ago.

  13. biffdiggerence says:

    ” . . . and his brother was killed by a Castro-lover and stuff”

    Sparkling journalistic flair from Chris Matthews.

    yeesh.

    • RieszFischer says:

      Yeah, is Tweety the biggest douchebag on the planet or is it Bill Maher? I know it’s between the two of them but I’ve never been quite sure which one it is.

  14. ghostof911 says:

    Today marks more than the death of one noble man. It marks the end of the Kennedy era, represented by men and women of integrity who entered the political arena to become dedicated public servants.

      • ghostof911 says:

        His two brothers lost their lives at a young age while engaged in public service, yet it did not deter him to follow their footsteps regardless of the hazards ahead. If that is not unselfish dedication, please explain to us what is.

        • SanderO says:

          He kinda lived as a marked man. If he stepped on too many toes he would probably be offed. I was more of a pussy cat than a lion. But he struck the right tones until he passed.

          • ghostof911 says:

            You’re correct, Joe has been continuously overlooked. It has been said that he would have towered over his younger brothers.

  15. shell says:

    Maybe I just watched teevee too early this morning, but I had to turn the set off. (Rather than throwing a rock through it.) But I did NOT see the pundits being respectful. Oh, sure, they spoke somberly, as pundits do when they dishonestly think they are acting like the public wants them to.

    But the disgusting filth that came out. Yeah — Chappaquiddick! Like that event, which happened before the majority of Americans were even born, was the be-all and end-all of Kennedy’s life. AND his womanizing. AND his drinking. Hardly a word about his great actions in the Senate. Oh yes, they were mentioned, but not on par with the tabloid crap.

    And Norah O’Donnell was hideous. She acted like when he died, a whole “big govt. era” died as well. Is she kidding?

    And if you are young (born after, say, 1970), think about it — which is a better govt.? One that brought you Medicare, Social Security, Roe vs. Wade, all the Civil Rights laws — or since the Reagan era? There is no comparison, NORA, you bimbo.

      • cbl2 says:

        thank you for this post – well said (natch). have been avoiding the tv all day in hopes of avoiding any of their tired ass predictable shit

        caught 20 sec of Todd – who was clearly just beginning his turn in the rotation and that tool couldn’t wait more than 12 seconds to go all fair and balanced and mention Bork

        yep – good decision on my part

    • cbl2 says:

      And if you are young (born after, say, 1970), think about it — which is a better govt.?

      I wrote to both my young adult children today – showing them how so many of the breaks and advantages they and their loved ones had had in this life were directly tied to the passionate, tireless efforts of this good man –

      and I closed with Digby’s dead solid perfect tribute as a means of explaining mom and dad’s grief.

  16. Sufilizard says:

    I heard about this about 2:00 a.m. this morning as I was finally returning home from a business trip. It wasn’t a shock given his condition, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks.

    He’s one of the last of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. He will definitely be missed.

    • ghostof911 says:

      He was the last remaining link to that era of relative Amerian innocence which ended abruptly on that fateful day in 1963.

  17. SanderO says:

    We live UNDER a very corrupt system. Our government has largely been taken from us – bought by bribes, feeding on the ego and greed of people who get to wield some power.

    Our economic life has been taken over by monopolistic corporations who sees people as cheap labor and fools who buy their junk and run the machine believing it this nation is god’s gift to the world.

    Our people have been dumbed down by the same corporate interests who have turned our news resources into infotainment and propaganda outlets for the already powerful insuring that there is no threat to their power.

    The courts and justice system have been perverted as well. They largely are used to round up poor and ethnic people and lock them away (at profit for the prison industrial complex) while the white collar criminals are ignored.

    Our national pride has been abused and perverted by a military who acts like a hammer and sees everything as a nail. They have taken enormous resources from society to fight wars against people who represent no threat to us and they continue to take these resources.

    Every sector, has been perverted by the greed and need for profit for a few – the so called benefit of capitalism – wealth creation. Wealth creation largely comes from the working people who don’t see any of it. This is no different than a plantation. Americans are the slaves, Corporations the plantation owners.

    Wherever you look you see distorted reality and abuse of human beings for profit.

    We face a big fight with so much to change.

  18. TEBB says:

    I was up, unable to sleep, around 2:30 a.m. Central time. Some “reporter” said that Kennedy was good at bi-partisan coalitions and that the Obama admnistration will have to learn that they should drop the public option because half a loaf is better than none!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOu can imagine how loud I was yelling at my t.v. Gee thanks mr. “reporter” for your PERSONAL COMMENTARY UNRELATED TO KENNEDY’S DEATH.

    Don’t know who it was as I was in the kitchen when I heard it and the tv is in the den.

  19. Blub says:

    I think it’s now officially safe to say that we have left way behind in the dust somewhere any illusion whatsoever that are are dealing with a loyal opposition here.

  20. redalert says:

    ” a day to reflect not on what will happen, but what each of us can do to make sure we influence what happens.”
    Really liking the similarity to “ask not what your country……”, whether intentional or not.
    great post.

  21. BMcGarth says:

    Which pundits Emptywheel ? Help those of us who don’t devote much time to the tele with a”better picture”.

  22. OccasionalObserver says:

    Exactly. Grant the pundits foreknowledge and all our deliberations, however profound they may seem to us, are a vanity, a total waste of time. The only sane thing to do is sit back and “see how it shakes out,” see which pundit is right. And give that pundit the prize for prognostication.

    The thinking is profoundly antidemocratic, and I take EW’s larger point to be this: When a giant dies, the offense of this logic is easier to see because the pundits look like the pygmies they really are even when anticipating nothing more than a small town’s reaction to the proverbial cat stuck in a tree.

    In a democracy there is no predicting, least of all in pivotal moments such as ours. That’s the nature of the beast. To predict is as offensive as presuming to strike a bargain from one side of the table.

    This we need to feel deeply, and if Ted Kennedy’s death helps us get there, it will have been that much less of a loss.

    So thanks, Marcy.

  23. PacificCoastRon says:

    I don’t really care about the names of these so-called “pundits,” what I want is the name of their editors and producers and network decision-makers that allow cable news talk TV to be the cesspool that it is.

    I can’t watch it, myself, it’s just physically sickening. I do have to put up with it occasionally in the break room at work.

    I feel like I’m beating a drum that no one wants to march to around here, yet again there needs to be an organization of millions of us that could take a response that could reach the producers and network executives that make that crap as bad as it is.

    It’s possible we can’t change them, since we don’t have enough evidence to dis-prove the theory that they are purposely trying to make the nation stupider in the furtherance of some corporate plot, yet if they do have ethics and consciences we might have an effect. They certainly have advertisers and the views of their advertisers will certainly have an effect on those network executives, and if there was an organization of millions of us ready to make phone calls to those advertisers — not necessarily even to boycott! I say, you can tell McDonald’s for example ‘yeah I need your breakfast meal on the way to work, but I hate you so much for sponsoring Fox/CNBC that I’m sure not gonna buy one extra thing, and I’m gonna take a huge bunch of napkins and sugar every day and I might even spit on your floor on the way out,’ — AND IF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WERE MAKING THOSE CALLS IT WOULD HAVE AN EFFECT.

    The right wing is more science-based than the left wing in one crucial aspect: they understand the verifiable power created by effective political organization. Those of us on the left seem to think we can blog away, in all our glorious subjectivity and individualism and never have to cohere on any one point, and never get together to create an organization THAT WILL FIGHT OUR CAUSES (even if we have to make it very clear that this is not a right-wing lockstep and belonging to the organization places no bars on your feelings and moods and your self-expression) and that yet, somehow, despite the pushback from organized conservatives, all our un-organized good wishes will make everything come out great.

  24. CTMET says:

    Well when my wife first told me he died the first thing I thought was Oh Fuck where are we going to get the 60th vote assuming we need it. As soon as I went on line I skipped through all of the “tribute” material and found an article saying it was likely the MA gov might appoint someone like Dukakis to the position. I felt a little better.

    Getting that 60th vote is the only thing that anyone on this planet can do anyting about right now, and its critical. I can read the tribute stuff later.

    That said I can see how the pundits claiming to know what was going to happen (if I was listening to them) would annoy me too.

  25. WordBloom says:

    Perhaps the most respectful and fitting tribute the non-pundits can offer to Kennedy’s life-long work is to continue and fight back, one voice at a time, against Right Wing Health-Care Reform lies, deceit and manipulation.

    The misinformation coming from the Far Right has no-bounds or morality and it would be an absolute tragedy, to let something Kennedy spent a great deal of his life fighting towards, be crushed by hate and lies and corporate agendas.

    One small gesture of respect for Kennedy’s good fight, could be for individuals, each of us, to march right into any Conservative blog and pick apart their hateful rhetoric and challenge the misinformation they are being fed by the Talkers. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Shawn Hannity have demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of the Right and have started a grass fire of hate that must be fought, even now, as we mourn the loss of our beloved Senator. He was a champion of the people and now the people must continue his legacy.

    The lies of the Pundits are shamelessly wrapped in an American flag with a Cross on top and it should be an outrage to every citizen with an ounce of logic and compassion. They hate our president, they hate Health Care reform and they especially hate the Truth.

    If the networks will not fight against misinformation and fear based objections, individuals must find the courage to confront it head on, at its source. The truth will out. The dream fights on… one tiny voice at a time.

    Google “Conservative Blogs” and give them a dose of Truth, before it’s too late. When they smell blood they circle. Take the drums to the lying liars who would otherwise seize upon this and any opportunity to shamelessly distort the facts even further. What Would Teddy Do? He would politicize the hell out of this moment, in the name of helping the less fortunate and the suffering.

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