Kennedy warns health-care debate could turn violent
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
By Steve Peoples
Journal State House Bureau
projo.com
The Providence Journal Kathy Borchers
PROVIDENCE — U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy fears that supercharged passions fueling the national health-care debate may lead to violence.
Drawing on his family’s violent past, the Democratic congressman told roughly 75 people gathered at a private health-care forum Saturday morning that opponents of Democrat-backed health-care legislation had gone too far. He cited, as an example, 10,000 signs distributed at a recent Washington protest that read, “Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy.”
Patrick Kennedy is the last member of his storied family to hold federal office. His father, U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, died one month ago after battling a brain tumor. His uncles, former President John F. Kennedy and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, were assassinated.
“My family’s seen it up close too much with assassinations and violence in political life. It’s a terrible thing when people think that in order to get their point across they have to go to the edge of violent rhetoric and attack people personally,” Kennedy told the nurses, union officials and AARP members finishing their breakfasts at the invitation-only event in the Providence Marriott hotel. “It’s fine for people to debate the issue and attack the issue, but when they go and stoop to the level of the vitriolic rhetoric that we’ve seen this debate turn up, it’s very, I think, dangerous to the fabric of our country.”
In a subsequent interview, Kennedy went further in warning that angry opposition could create physical danger for elected leaders.
“I will note that there were a number of prominent security people in this country who spoke very openly this past week that … that there are consequences in terms of trying to protect public officials. There are consequences to violent rhetoric,” he said. “Some people can see through TV ratings and right-wing talk show hosts that just try to create some theater, but unfortunately, there are some that can’t see through it. And that’s the danger in it. There is definitely freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not allow yelling ‘fire’ in the middle of a crowded movie theater.”
Kennedy referenced an article published Friday on the news Web site Politico that cited interviews with former Secret Service, FBI and CIA officials also concerned that the intensity of today’s debate could produce violence. The article notes that this summer’s health-care protests included an episode where freshman Rep. Frank Kratovil Jr., D-Md., was hanged in effigy. Anti-energy bill protesters tarred and feathered an effigy of Rep. Allen Boyd, D-Fla.
“It’s very, very dangerous,” Kennedy said in the interview. “We put a lot of people in jail around the world for threatening our country’s security. But this atmosphere of attack that doesn’t attack the issue, but attacks the people, is very disruptive to the institution of democracy, which relies on a respect for the opposition.”
He continued: “George Wallace didn’t need a gun to pull a trigger. We just need to be mindful of the wisdom of people … who have been through these ugly periods in American history. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Kennedy is the only member of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation not to have hosted a public forum devoted to health-care legislation moving through Congress. Saturday’s event, hosted by the AARP, was open to the media, but attendance was limited to a select group that largely supports a health-care overhaul.
In contrast to some public meetings hosted by the Rhode Island delegation in recent weeks, the audience was completely passive. There was no sign waving, shouting or heckling.
“I think they are democracy in action,” AARP senior state director Kathleen Connell said of the rowdy public forums. “But I don’t think that some of them produced good information. I wanted a different experience.”
Along with Kennedy, Saturday’s event featured Konstantine “Nick” Tsiongas, a doctor and former president of the Rhode Island Medical Society, and Donna Policastro, executive director of the Rhode Island Nurses Association. Both support Democratic efforts to change the nation’s health-care system.
Tsiongas said that those who depend on the current health-care system are right to be afraid.
“What they should be afraid of is that we do nothing,” he said, “because if we do nothing we can no longer be able to afford this health-care delivery system as it stands.”
Kennedy spoke generally about health-care legislation for 25 minutes before fielding six questions that were screened and asked by the moderator, Connell.
He suggested that groups on both sides of the debate must temper their expectations. At this point, neither the House nor the Senate has finalized a formal proposal and compromises on both sides are likely.
“We’re going to get a bill and it’s going to be a big, big step forward from what we currently have,” he said. “What we need to get away from is this ideological purity where people think they’ve got to get it all, or else nothing. The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
There was little discussion of the more controversial elements that have surfaced at recent public forums, such as the cost and impact on illegal immigrants.
“This was not really the sort of thing the other politicians have done. This was an ultra-controlled environment,” said Justin Katz, of the conservative blog Anchor Rising, who was allowed to videotape the event from the back of the room.
Seizing on Kennedy’s reluctance to host a public forum, his likely Republican opponent in next year’s election, state Rep. John J. Loughlin II, has scheduled a health-care town hall of his own in Tiverton this Wednesday. Loughlin has promised to send a DVD recording of the event to Kennedy, who Loughlin says is out of touch with his constituents.
Kennedy on Saturday dismissed the move as a political stunt, and said he would not host a town hall, largely because they fail to produce real discussion.
“Unfortunately, these town hall meetings have been hijacked by these Tea Party folks and extremists who really take away from the honest dialogue on the facts of the debate and end up seeing this issue devolve into fear mongering and the peddling of misconceptions,” he said, referring again to the sign that referenced his father’s death.
“They had mass-produced signs, ‘Bury ObamaCare with Kennedy,’ ” he said after the AARP event. “It wasn’t just an individual who was over the edge in their ideology and vitriol. This stuff was mass-produced and mass-distributed and mass-funded. When you put that together with folks around the country calling in very destructive ways for other things about Obama, and connotations of my family name, it’s not a real stretch as to what the message is here.”
The signs in question were created and distributed by the American Life League, a Virginia-based Catholic antiabortion organization, according to President Judie Brown, who was reached by phone Saturday. She dismissed Kennedy’s assertion that such opposition may incite violence.
“There’s absolutely nothing violent about the sign,” Brown said, noting that her group distributed 10,000 at a rally earlier this month on the national Mall; she could not immediately say how much they cost.
“I believe it was extremely insensitive for his father to have advocated the death of millions of babies,” Brown said, referring to the elder Kennedy’s support for abortion programs. “I don’t think what we did was insensitive.” |
