Two generations of Kennedys—the Democratic Party's best known political family—endorsed Barack Obama for president on Monday, with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy calling him a "man with extraordinary gifts of leadership and character," a worthy heir to his assassinated brother.So the Democrats are going to stop pitting the race against race? Sure.
"I feel change in the air. What about you?" Kennedy said in a speech salted with scarcely veiled criticism of Obama's chief rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as her husband, the former president.
Kennedy's endorsement was ardently sought by all three of the remaining presidential contenders, and he delivered it at a pivotal time in the race. A liberal lion in his fifth decade in the Senate, the Massachusetts senator is in a position to help Obama court Hispanic voters as well as rank-and-file members of labor unions, two key elements of the Democratic Party.
He is expected to campaign actively for Obama in the eight days leading up to next Tuesday's delegate-rich primaries and caucuses across 24 states, beginning later this week in Arizona, New Mexico and California.
The senator made his comments at a crowded campaign rally at American University that took on the appearances of a Kennedy family embrace of Obama.
He was introduced by Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late president, who said Obama "offers that same sense of hope and inspiration" as did her father. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, son of the senator, also offered his support.
In is own remarks, Kennedy sought one by one to rebut many of the arguments leveled by Obama's critics.
"From the beginning, he opposed the war in Iraq. And let no one deny that truth," he said, an obvious reference to former President Clinton's statement that Obama's early anti-war stance was a "fairy tale."
"With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.
"With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay," Kennedy said.
They'll stop playing the gender card? Sure.
They're stop using gays as mascots to bash people with? Sure.
Oh, that's just for Democrats?
You can bet every nickel you have Kennedy will just lie with impunity and misrepresent everything the GOP says.
And naturally, the media will let him get away with it.
It will be most curious to see the next card the increasingly desperate Clintons now play.
Next to the Kennedys, getting the endorsement of Janet Reno isn't exactly a big deal.
UPDATE: Suitably Flip and Gateway Pundit link. Thanks!
UPDATE II: You've got to be kidding me. Via Hot Air.
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