Thread: Kennedy talks to packed center

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Kennedy talks to packed center
Senator: Bipartisanship saved U.S.
By John Yellig
Daily Progress staff writer
Sunday, March 19, 2006


Leadership and bipartisanship have saved the United States in past times of crisis, but the availability of those resources in future hard times isn’t guaranteed, Sen. Edward Kennedy told a full house at the University of Virginia on Saturday.

Americans united to win World War II and the Cold War and to improve race relations and fight poverty in the 1960s, he said.

“We worked together as a country, Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “And now I look … and wonder whether we are going to have times like that in the future.”

The United States is currently challenged by globalization, particularly the growth of China’s and India’s economies, he said.

At a time when the United States should be tooling up for economic war, education funding is being cut, he said.

China and India train more than one million engineers annually, compared with 72,000 trained in the United States, he said, adding that half of those in the U.S. come from other countries.

Kennedy, a 1959 graduate of UVa’s School of Law, was in Charlottesville for another installment of an oral history project he is producing with the Miller School of Public Affairs, which studies the American presidency and public policy. Kennedy is the only non-president to participate in the program.

A six-year-long series of interviews will chronicle Kennedy’s public and private lives and his take on some of the legislative battles he’s waged in his 44 years in the senate.

“Oral history adds a new dimension to the written word,” he said, noting that while written history is indispensable, oral history adds spontaneity, texture and tone. “Imagine if we could hear the voices of the [Founding] Fathers today.”

After his 30-minute speech, Kennedy took questions from the audience.

When asked about immigration, he said the current structure is “completely broken” and complimented President Bush’s willingness to take on the issue, despite its divisiveness within the Republican Party.

“We’ve got well-trained border guards spending their days chasing after gardeners,” he said.

Kennedy supports a six-year-long naturalization program for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

Deporting them is unworkable and too expensive; it would cost the government an estimated $240 billion, not to mention the effect the end of cheap labor would have on the economy, he said.

When asked how the Democratic Party could take the White House in 2008, Kennedy said candidates need to bring a sense of hope, and they should stress not just homeland security but pensions, healthcare, education and job security.

The speech had its moments of levity.

The Senate lion called the high attendance at a speech he made to law students earlier in the day “impressive,” given that Friday was St. Patrick’s Day.

“You couldn’t possibly have had that if it was up in Boston,” he said.

Contact John Yellig at (434) 978-7245 or eyellig@dailyprogress.com.

“Imagine if we could hear the voices of the [Founding] Fathers today.”

If our founding fathers were alive today, your sorry arse would have been hung for treason and America would be a much, much, much better place for it.