Kennedy Debuts His New Site

As reported by MyDD.com and the Blue Mass Group, Ted Kennedy debuted his new website this week -- TedKennedy.com. I was involved in the conference call with the Senator on Monday where he announced that he wanted his site to be a clearinghouse for information on what's going on in the Senate, and particularly a place to find out more about the 'nuclear' option -- the Republican scheme to turn the Senate into a rubber stamp for Bush's judicial appointees. Kennedy's site should serve as a nice complement to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's "war room" at Democrats.Senate.gov.

The conference call itself was a little surreal. Here is one of the longest serving US Senators, a bunch of the lefty blogosphere's heaviest hitters and little old me. The fact that I -- a nobody living in Watertown -- was invited to participate after only a few months of blogging says as much to me about his commitment to the netroots than any webpage. Senator Kennedy gave a quick rundown of the ways that the Republicans are trying to squelch dissent in the Senate, and in Congress in general, and then took questions.

One thing that the Senator did not emphasize was what we here in Massachusetts could do if we wanted to stop the 'nuclear' option. After all, our Senators certainly don't need any convincing -- Kerry is already on the record as being vehemently opposed to it. He said we should continue to follow the situation closely and, in particular, spread the word.

It's too early to say, but it seems like the Democratic message is getting out. Harry Reid was on the Ed Schultz Show today saying that the Republicans don't have the votes yet, or else they'd have gone nuclear already. Rick Santorum is apparently privately arguing for a delay in light of some recent GOP internal polling that shows the public is against the Senate rule changes. Still, the Judiciary committee has already approved (along partisan lines of course) three of the ten judges that were rejected in the last Senate session. If these judges are truly objectionable, any delay by the Republicans would just give the Democrats more time to explain to the public why they are unfit for the bench and what the consequences of approving them would be.