Video of JK statement/interview re Teddy

[Luftmensch067]

Here:
http://www.necn.com/Boston/Politics/Kerry-Were-pulling-for-our-pal-/1211308482.html

[beachmom]

1. Whole press conference here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24730024#24730024

[Luftmensch067]

2. Thanks, Beachmom

That is even more moving. Reid and Dodd and JK together were living proof of the closeness of that Senate "family."

[beachmom]

3. Here is an article about Senate colleagues reacting:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/20/kennedy.reaction/

When Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told his Democratic colleagues about Kennedy, there was "stunned silence," one senator said.

Capitol police officers and Senate staffers gathered around television screens off the Senate floor and watched news reports about Kennedy.

Kennedy, 76, was airlifted Saturday to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston after suffering a seizure. Following a battery of tests, doctors determined a malignant tumor in the brain caused the seizure, the hospital said Tuesday. Kennedy was first elected to the Senate in 1962.

Sen. John Kerry, a Kennedy friend and fellow Massachusetts Democrat, arrived late and entered a back door to the lunch. Looking drained, he declined to comment except to nod that he had spoken to Kennedy's family.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, spoke quietly on his cell phone outside the lunch. He looked emotional when he hung up and told a reporter, "I can't say anything."

[wisteria]

8. Thanks for posting. Maybe it is just the picture, but Sen. Kerry looks very upset.

I realize the odds are not with Senator Kennedy, but if anyone can fight this and win it is Senator Kennedy.

[beachmom]

4. This is the story I thought of when I saw Dodd and Kerry speak about Kennedy:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8811.html

How do you go home again and still hold on to that political drive? How do you continue to push a strong agenda in the Senate with your wildest dream and largest ambition in your rearview mirror?

How do you return, period?

“You just have to get off your butt, dust yourself off and get back on the horse,” Kerry said in an interview last week. “Outsiders think is a competitive place where everyone is gunning to be No. 1. But the truth is, I think especially when you’ve been knocked on your butt, your colleagues are there for you in the most genuine way.”

In the days after he lost to Bush, Kerry said that he and his wife, Teresa, invited Tom Daschle and his wife, Linda, over to their Georgetown home for a cathartic dinner. Daschle, then the Senate minority leader, had just suffered a mind-numbing defeat of his own, losing his long-held South Dakota Senate seat to Republican John Thune.

“We’d both had tough ends to 2004 in similar ways, but it was just one of those nights in Washington that don’t happen enough these days,” Kerry said.

Kerry had another one of those nights two months later. As Bush bounced from one black-tie ball to the next to celebrate his second inauguration, the Kerrys settled in at their house for dinner with Kennedy and his wife, Vicki, and Chris and Jackie Dodd.

“You never forget those moments,” Kerry said. “The people who are there for you, it just leaves a lasting impression.”

“All the people who quote Harry Truman’s adage that ‘if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog’ don’t know a damned thing about the special and lasting friendships you make in the Senate, and how much that sustains you,” Kerry said.

It seems to me that the Senate colleagues who spent that painful day with Kerry had to have been his best friends. Kennedy and Dodd.

[TayTay]

5. The news is devastating

And so very, very sad.

[beachmom]

6. Here is his statement:

KERRY STATEMENT ON SENATOR KENNEDY



BOSTON – Senator Kerry today issued the following statement on Senator Kennedy’s illness.

“Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy family have faced adversity more times, in more instances, with more courage and more determination and more grace than any family should ever have to face even just once.

“He's helped millions and millions of people, in so many ways, at so many different times, from countless big pieces of legislation in Washington to the most personal of issues.

“Now, everybody needs to pull together on behalf of Ted. We must pull for him and his family and remember that Teddy is one unbelievable fighter.

“Over the weekend, I saw him and he’s in a fighting mood, and I’m confident that he will continue to draw strength from his tower of strength in Vicki, from each of his children and grandchildren, and from his unbelievably loving and caring family, both in Boston and from his extended family of Americans and people all over the world.

“I know that Ted is determined to fight this because he wants to continue his fight for the people of Massachusetts and he wants to continue to fight for everything that he believes in here in the United States Senate and throughout our country.

“Teresa’s and my prayers – and the prayers of a nation – are with my good friend and his family in these most trying of times.”

[Island Blue]

7. I saw a brief clip of Sen. Byrd

crying on the floor of the Senate. Heartbreaking.

[Inuca]

9. I started watching it online and

I just could not watch it till the end :cry: