TimesWatch Tracker
Today's Headlines: 08/26/09
Ted Kennedy Obit Avoids the Jesse Helms Treatment
Liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy was "one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate," while conservative Sen. Jesse Helms's "mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art."
Adam Clymer in Full Swoon Over Ted Kennedy's Legacy
Adam Clymer, who wrote a supportive biography of Sen. Ted Kennedy, defended Kennedy from a hostile questioner: "If you voted at 18 or were served Meals on Wheels or took advantage of a Medicare drug benefit, he helped get you there. Cheap college loans, children's health insurance, aid to the disabled and a variety of civil rights measures are also to his credit."
Pro-Obama-Care "Grassroots Advocates" -- Controlled by the DNC
Advice for reporter Katharine Seelye: If pro-Obama "grassroots advocates" are operating "under the aegis of the Democratic National Committee," they aren't really "grassroots advocates."
Times Tries (and Fails) to Rebut Fact Obama-Care Will Pay for AbortionsReporter Katharine Seelye quotes not one but two Planned Parenthood staffers to rebut a Family Research Council claim that taxpayers would have to pay for abortions.
20090826 sdsom Kennedy Obit Avoids Jesse Helms Treatment
Ted Kennedy Obit Avoids the Jesse Helms Treatment http://tinyurl.com/mtxeax Full http://tinyurl.com/mkzdp9
http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2009/20090826150424.aspx
http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2009/08/ted-kennedy-obit-avoids-jesse-helms.html http://tinyurl.com/mtxeax
Liberal Sen. Ted Kennedy was "one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate," while conservative Sen. Jesse Helms's "mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art."
Posted by: Clay Waters
8/26/2009 3:43:52 PM
News of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death late Tuesday night didn't make the Wednesday print edition, but a 6,000-word obituary by John Broder was posted on nytimes.com this morning: "Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies."
Broder's obituary left room for the lowlights of Kennedy's career, including Mary Jo Kopechne's death at Chappaquiddick and Kennedy's ruthless personal attack on conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. But the opening paragraph offered a sharp contrast with another ideologically polarizing senator, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, who died on Independence Day last year. Broder's opening paragraph:
Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, a son of one of the most storied families in American politics, a man who knew triumph and tragedy in near-equal measure and who will be remembered as one of the most effective lawmakers in the history of the Senate, died late Tuesday night. He was 77.
Contrast that respectful tone with the snarling opening sentence from Steven Holmes' obituary for Sen. Jesse Helms on July 5, 2008, under the print edition headline "Jesse Helms, Unyielding Beacon of Conservatism, Is Dead at 86."
Jesse Helms, the former North Carolina senator whose courtly manner and mossy drawl barely masked a hard-edged conservatism that opposed civil rights, gay rights, foreign aid and modern art, died early Friday. He was 86.
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