In lieu of flowers

Okay, seriously, once health reform is passed I will go back to telling stories about Ted cheating at Harvard and hitting on high-school girls after his divorce, and seeing him walk down a Boston street in February eating an ice-cream cone, which is one of the field signs of a true Bostonian but probably did not help him keep his girlish figure. But even my cynicism isn't ready to go there yet. Instead, here is a call to action in Sen. Kennedy's honor, from Joe Conason, who is not usually this good, perhaps because passion and decency really do trump worldliness and ironic detachment. At least some of the time.

Ted Kennedy wanted the public option
"...It is true that Kennedy, the friendly warrior, excelled in bipartisanship. Nearly all of the domestic reforms mentioned here were sponsored by at least one Republican senator. But in every case, those stodgy conservatives were cajoled and whispered (and perhaps shamed) into venturing much closer to Kennedy's perspective. He drew them toward him, invariably against their own habits, not by selling out his progressive goal, but by appealing to the decency he perceived in them.
... [But we] know that he could shout as well as whisper — and that he could be partisan as well as bipartisan. He believed that the time for incremental changes had passed. He was ready to fight. The tragedy of his death is not only that he didn't see the triumph he had dreamed, but that he fell before he could lead the nation to that final victory. Now that victory will have to be won in his name."