Burr on Kennedy

Mr. Malone,

As TruthSquad said, you are misinformed. Your post is off-base and way off-target. If you had actually read Burr’s statement, you would see that Burr is referring to his work with Kennedy on the public health system, not health care reform. There is a difference. Check Wikipedia: public health deals with population-level, rather than individual-level health issues. Best example: national efforts to prepare for epidemics and pandemics.

If you had looked at Burr’s (or even Kennedy’s) record before posting, you would have noticed at least a couple of items. In the current Congress, Burr and Kennedy sponsored S. 485, to reauthorize the Select Agent Program. In the 109th Congress, Burr introduced S. 3678, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act, which became law. If you look closely (or look at all), you would see that Kennedy was an original cosponsor of the bill.

The record goes back to at least the 106th Congress (1999-2000), when Burr was still in the House of Representatives. Burr introduced, along with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI), the Public Health Threats and Emergencies Act (H.R. 4964). The Senate version was S. 2731. The Senate sponsors? Bill Frist and Ted Kennedy.

There is nothing disingenuous or hypocritical about Burr’s statement. Burr and Kennedy worked together on public health legislation for a decade. You just leapt before you looked.

Mr. Malone,

I think you are misinformed. The reason Burr said that is because both he and Senator Kennedy served on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP). You are reading too much into this. They both share a passion for health care and worked on that issue together in the HELP committee. That is why Burr said it. I did not think it was a disingenuous statement

If Sen. Burr had simply expressed sympathy about Sen. Kennedy's passing and noted that although they disagreed on issues that Kennedy was a good fellow, etc., then it would have been a predictable and proper statement for an opposition member of the Senate to make. But when he added the part that insinuated he had been working hand in glove with Kennedy on health care reform, it was a disingenious statement that set Burr up for being called a hypocrite.

Charles Malone,
Raleigh

"slog through such vile"?

What in the world are you talking about?

The comments to this story were in no way "vile". Read them again. You must be confused.

However, the decline is not in the quality of the reporting, but in the quality of comments and discourse. It's no wonder thoughtful people are finding better things to do with their time than slog through such vile.

I know I used to be part of the problem, and I'm sorry for that. But I've seen the error of my ways and apologized to anyone who will listen. And now that I'm a born again nice guy, I have to say, reading comments on this blog is a genuinely frightening experience.

They say America gets the democracy it deserves. If that's the case, it's a wonder we even exist as a country anymore.

The quality of this blog has decreased considerably since RTB left.

Nice job Mark -- you added your own editorial comments after Senator Burr's statement but not after Senator Hagan's. Showing your biases once again. I can always depend on the N&O to slant articles and comments.

Why the digging for the 2004 quote, Mark Johnson? An attempt to embarrass Sen. Burr?

News flash - candidates, including your beloved Democrats, do indeed engage in hyperbole during election campaigns. Using this quote for partisan purposes was pretty low, even by N&O pro-Democrat standards.

Kennedy stood against tobacco farmer's interests only in the sense that tobacco has been found to cause cancer in human beings. His support of the health of all Americans placed him in opposition to many, many narrowly interested groups. I doubt there's a state in the land that didn't hear some variation of this ad over the last forty seven years...

Nicely said, Senator Burr. As someone just noted in an interview about Kennedy on NPR, Senator Kennedy understood that the other party was the opposition, not the enemy. I trust that Burr's statement reflects that understanding, too, notwithstanding the cheesey and perhaps inevitable campaign rhetoric from the 2004 campaign.