The Gushing Begins

Adversaries praise a relentless Kennedy
Boston Globe
WASHINGTON

On Wednesday night, Senator Edward M. Kennedy stared at an exhausted negotiating team of 20 senators and two Cabinet secretaries and said, “Let’s shoot for 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.”

The negotiators were tantalizingly close to a historic deal to remake the nation’s immigration system. But at several points, nervous senators were ready to give up. Republicans wanted to give temporary visas only to workers taking undersubscribed jobs. Democrats wanted to allow family members of immigrants to come in more quickly.
But Kennedy, the Senate’s consummate dealmaker — still indefatigable at 75 — pushed hard at his fellow Democrats, wavering Republican moderates, and even members of the Bush administration, insisting that the deal-makers work all night Wednesday to beat the deadline imposed by the Senate leadership.
Yesterday, the two Cabinet secretaries — both of whom have been subjects of Kennedy broadsides in the past — lauded the Democrats’ aging lion as the one indispensable player in the negotiating process.

“He’s awesome,” gushed Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff , as he left a news conference announcing the bipartisan agreement. “I’d say he was one of the critical leaders in putting together this deal.”

Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez called it “a real privilege” to work with Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and liberal stalwart who spends much of his time trying to thwart or undo Bush administration policies.

“It’s obvious we’re in different parties. We don’t always agree,” Gutierrez said. But, he added, Kennedy “is focused. He’s very determined.”

Kennedy’s demand that negotiators have a deal by 10 a.m., Gutierrez said, was the “stimulus” that got the deal done.
A pact on immigration appeared dim at the beginning of the year. Several of the key Republican senators — John McCain of Arizona, Mel Martinez of Florida, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina — were starting to feel the pressure of election-year politics
But Kennedy — aware that an immigration pact would need to be finished by summer or it would collapse in the heat of campaigning — moved quickly.

“There were times he [Kennedy] blew up, and I had to calm him down. There were times I blew up, and he calmed me down,” said Graham . But he said the Massachusetts lawmaker refused to let things drop.

“He was informed, determined, practical, and essential,” Graham said. Asked whether there was a moment when Kennedy had saved the package when it appeared to be crumbling, Graham said, “112 moments.”

At 8 a.m. yesterday , Kennedy called Graham. “This is coming apart, that’s coming apart,” Graham recalled Kennedy telling him. Kennedy cajoled the team into a final negotiating session, and the group came to an agreement by midday — two hours after the deadline set by the Bay State senator.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
This is just sooooo nauseating! Bush had Clinton work with his Dad, and the Barbara Bush said how Clinton was like another son to them. And now because of the Bush and Kennedy duo we have to hear about the so called Republicans no other word for it then gushing all over Kennedy.