Kennedy to Pass the Torch, Prepares to Speak at DNC

Posted by Jill Hussein C. at 2:18 PM on August 25, 2008.

Joe Scarborough is working furiously already this morning to push the "If Obama loses..." meme. So much for "liberal" MSNBC, eh? But not even Scarborough is going to be able to throw cold water on this development:

In a development that is sure to bring the house down, US Senator Edward M. Kennedy is expected to attend the Democratic National Convention, most likely to deliver a speech tonight.

Kennedy is battling brain cancer, and his doctors are said to be worried that his treatment has compromised his immune system and that attending the convention could put him at further risk. Still, the senator has recently told people that he has a speech written for the convention and that he badly wants to come, pending a final medical consultation.

Buzz has built among Massachusetts politicos that Kennedy would come, and today a source close to the family confirmed that he had made a decision to come.

Ever since it began back in February to appear likely that Barack Obama would be the nominee, we had a pretty good idea that there was going to be some kind of symbolic torch-passing by Ted Kennedy from his family to Obama; a demonstration of the culmination of the civil rights legacy for which Kennedy's brother fought, as in a speech from June 1963 in which he said:

This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to ten percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go in the street and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

Therefore, I'm asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents.

As I've said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

What we didn't see at the time that the torch was going to be more than metaphorical, as a terminally ill Kennedy stands up for what is probably the last time at a Democratic convention, to speak for the nomination of a man who is the living embodiment of that legacy.

I get all blubbery just thinking about it. I can't wait.

Tagged as: obama, kennedy, dnc

Jill Hussein C. blogs at Brilliant at Breakfast.