I know what yo mean, it's just the firsy thought that popped into my head when I saw your post. It's night & day.

it again, compared himself to Kennedy:

I'm thinking that the staffer's excellent oped was essentially informing Brown and everyone else that Kennedy would not have supported this. Not to mention, he keeps calling it bipartisan when the only Democrat is Ben Nelson. I don't remember a whole lot of times where Teddy and Ben Nelson stood against the rest of the Democrats - especially on an amendment that would ultimately gut healthcare reform.

I suspect that it will be a while before we hear from Vicki (or Kerry). The more times that Brown has the chutzpah to take a dead man's reputation to use politically against the main cause of the man's life, the more this sticks to him. He is a creepy demagogue here. To go as far as to say "it borrows language" from a Kennedy bill is sick - especially as the Kennedy staffer already identified how different the two objectives are.

This goes beyond someone like Kerry being able to use the Benson line - that Brown is no EMK - this has to offensive to the people who really loved Ted Kennedy.

(that is, from JK and Vicki) when it comes time for the general election.
Granted that Warren is the presumptive Dem nominee, still: Sen. Kerry seems to have a general (and, to me, wise) principle (with some exceptions for veterans) of not getting involved in primaries, especially not in Massachusetts. So my theory is that they are holding their fire until September.

that came to my mind as well.

They do not go as far as saying that Kennedy would have sided with Brown, but they chide the Kennedy family for saying that Brown misunderstood the late senator.


http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2012/02/29/kennedy-family-isn-only-interpreter-senator-legacy/LvUPlXdFrcnhmQUqJLRpMK/story.html

Kennedy family isn’t only interpreter of senator’s legacy

...
Kennedy’s words were open to interpretation: When he referred to “conscience protection,’’ was he referring only to abortion? Or would he also extend “conscience protection’’ to church-affiliated institutions that oppose insurance coverage for contraception? While Kennedy family members have every right to express an opinion about how the late senator’s principle might be applied, so do others - including US Senator Scott Brown.

...

That assertion led Patrick Kennedy - Kennedy’s son and a former eight-term congressman from Rhode Island - to ask Brown to take down the radio ad and, beyond that, to refrain “from citing my father any further.’’

...
In fact, Edward Kennedy’s legislative record suggests he likely would have agreed with the Obama administration’s original contraception mandate, or at least with a subsequent compromise. Yet in demanding that Brown stop quoting Edward Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy is seeking to manage how others might construe his father’s decades-long legislative legacy. The more far-reaching a public figure’s work, the more it necessarily belongs to everyone.

This surely won’t be the last time Edward Kennedy’s name - like those of his brothers and many other larger-than-life figures - will be invoked in ways that rankle his immediate family. Massachusetts voters may conclude that Brown is misappropriating Kennedy’s memory. But that, ultimately, isn’t for the Kennedy family to decide. The family went so far as to put the senator’s private correspondence into the public sphere. Now that it’s there, everyone, including Brown, is allowed to interpret it.