Kennedy's Message to Obama

The late Senator Ted Kennedy spent decades fighting for health reform. And yesterday, at the signing ceremony for the health overhaul bill, Representative Patrick Kennedy gave President Obama a copy of the health reform bill that his late father filed in 1970. That was widely reported. But what did the Congressman scrawl on that memento? Politico has the details:

Rep. Patrick Kennedy handed President Obama a copy of S. 4297 after he signed health care reform into law on Tuesday.

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy had introduced the Health Security Act (S. 4297) in August 1970.

In blue pen, his son scrawled "March 23, 2010" across the top of the bill with a quote:

"The Day, Mr. President, that you completed what my Dad once called 'the great unfinished business of our country.' -- EMK"

Below the text of the bill, he continued:

"President Obama, My father carried on his brothers legacy of social justice in health care and you [illegible] only have completed it but you renewed our faith in the possible and made us once again proud to call you our president. Love, Patrick."