Ingraham: Kennedy Funeral Politicized

Laura Ingraham was sitting in as guest host for Bill O'Reilly on Monday evening.

Ingraham argued that Ted Kennedy's funeral Mass was politicized when during the intercessions his grandson, Max Allen, read a petition referring to health care as "the cause of his life," and a "right, not a privilege."

Here's a video clip of a discussion she had with Nancy Skinner involving the exploitation of Kennedy's death in the health care debate:



Transcript

LAURA INGRAHAM: So only after his death and after the polls show that the public basically doesn't want this whole ObamaCare thing, do they think, 'OK, the whole rebranding, the first two times around, hasn't worked. So now we're going to try this.'

And let me just play... We have a sound bite of one of the prayers at the Mass on Saturday. This was the funeral Mass, and this was one of the Kennedy grandkids during the prayers. Let's listen.

(Clip)

MAX ALLEN: 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 health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege. We pray to the Lord.

(End clip)

INGRAHAM: Nancy, do you think an adorable little boy came up with that on his own? I mean, it sounds like it's right out of, like, Howard Dean's speech or something. Come on. This was politicizing the funeral!

NANCY SKINNER: But you know what? I've been... I was there, Laura, at the convention when Ted Kennedy actually gave his last speech, and he was bedridden before he even gave that speech. So, I'm telling you that he said, 'This is the cause of my life.'

Everybody... 1969, he's been working on this...

INGRAHAM: Who cares?

SKINNER: And here's the point...

INGRAHAM: Nancy, who cares? Who cares that it's the cause of his life? It's a sixth of our economy. It's not a tribute to one man. This is our future.

SKINNER: You're right...

INGRAHAM: This is our liberty and our freedom at stake.

SKINNER: You're right. That's why he worked on it.

INGRAHAM: It's not about Ted Kennedy.

SKINNER: What the calls are for, Laura, is bipartisanship. If he crossed the line, for Nixon, he got Nixon's cancer institute passed, and Nixon didn't want his name on the bill. He said, 'Fine, I don't need credit.'

INGRAHAM: All right. We're going back to Nixon for the bipartisanship.

SKINNER: He's done No Child Left Behind. He's done lots of things. It's not about Ted Kennedy. That's why he worked on it.

INGRAHAM: It's not about Ted Kennedy.

First, I wouldn't expect Ted Kennedy's grandchildren, nieces, and nephews to have come up with the intercessions themselves.

They read them. They didn't write them. If they were part of writing them, they certainly didn't do it without an adult overseeing the process.

It's not at all unusual for the person or persons reading the intercessions to have had no part in composing them.

Were some of the intercessions politically charged and partisan in nature? Yes.

It was the family's decision to do that, and the priest presiding at the Mass allowed it. After all, this was Ted Kennedy's funeral. For all the talk of his work with political opponents and willingness to compromise, he was a fiercely partisan figure and unashamed of it. It was no secret.

I assume the family wrote the intercessions based on what they believed Kennedy would have wanted, or simply what they wanted.

The family injected politics in the funeral. That was their choice. I don't think they should be criticized for it.

Regarding the issue of using Kennedy's death for political gain, I don't think that's a wise move.

It's unlikely to have much of an impact since government-run opponents probably weren't big fans of the very liberal Ted Kennedy.

Ingraham is right. The massive overhaul of health care in the United States is not about one man.

That's why I think the Dems' hope of exploiting Kennedy's death won't work.