Health Care Opponents Scream Through Moment of Silence for Ted Kennedy

This is who they are, and this is what they do.

Conservatives have kept an eye on the increasing use of Kennedy’s name at health care reform rallies. In areas where health care reform was already unpopular, Kennedy’s name has provided no boost, and occasionally even an angry reaction from crowds, according to some staffers. Last week, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), who narrowly won a seat in upstate New York last year in a district that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) narrowly carried over Barack Obama, asked for a moment of silence for the late senator. Some constituents shouted throughout the 10 seconds, as supporters of health care reform stayed mum. At a town hall for Rep. Parker Griffith (D-Ala.), a Democrat who won a deep red seat in 2008, Kennedy’s name set off derisive heckling and cries of “Chappaquiddick” and “Mary Joe Kopechne,” the location of Kennedy’s calamitous 1969 car wreck and the woman who died in it. And the backlash extended to rallies where no members of Congress made appearances. A Saturday rally for health care reform in Fargo, N.D. was interrupted by conservative counter-protesters, who booed when a recording of Kennedy’s voice was played.

This “town hall” disruption circus is a corporation-sponsored celebration of hate and ignorance.