No one questioned Kennedy's commitment to the liberal agenda. Yet few senators have ever authored more bipartisan bills & reaching across the aisle.

In an 8-23-04 post, quoted in a 4-2-05 post, I did a post about one of my favorite Republicans, Christine Todd Whitman, entitled "Christie Whitman: Former N.J. governor and Bush Cabinet member says religious extremists have taken over GOP & the administration in which she served."

In those posts I wrote in part:

The years 2006 and 2008 can be the Democrats' chance to recover. Why?

Without acknowledging Zell Miller -- but agreeing with what he says in his book to the effect that much of America agrees that the [Democratic] party has veered too far to the left -- the party is veering to the middle.

But the GOP is Washington, like the GOP in Georgia, is forgetting for the moment that the pendulum is always swinging. Thus the GOP is not listening to Ms. Whitman's message that the GOP has veered too far to the right.

This and hubris will do them in. Our task at hand is to make it sooner rather than later.

In The Washington Post Ms. Whitman has this to say about Sen. Kennedy and what President Obama should do to right his ship:

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN

Chair of the Republican Leadership Council; governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001

If he wants to regain ground on the health-care debate, climate change and the other legislative initiatives he has identified, President Obama needs to start by rebuilding some bridges within his party. The squabbling among Democrats is bitter, with the attacks from the more liberal end of the party on the more moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats reaching a fever pitch. Obama might keep in mind the legacy of Sen. Edward Kennedy and reach out to those Blue Dog Democrats as well as moderate Republicans to find common ground. Kennedy was an ardent partisan with a 90 percent liberal lifetime voting rating from the liberal watchdog group Americans for Democratic Action. No one questioned his commitment to the liberal agenda or his party. Yet few senators have ever authored more bipartisan bills and were known for so consistently reaching across the aisle. The president should refuse to push through legislation on strictly partisan votes and should seek the types of bipartisan compromise he promised to broker.