**Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
*"At eight p.m. under a setting August sun, Edward Kennedy joined his brothers John and Robert at rest in Arlington National Cemetery. In that hallowed place, the flame burns eternally, as it does in the hearts of the millions who loved him. (Politics Daily)

*"On the day he was carried to his final resting place, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was remembered Saturday as a legislator of almost unequalled prowess, a political force who left a lasting imprint on the country and a husband, father and patriarch whose private acts of love and devotion helped his star-crossed family endure tragedy and misfortune. (Washington Post)

*National Journal has testimony from many public officials remembering Kennedy.

**President Obama
*And you thought August was bad. The AP says that President Obama now "confronts a tortuous September -- and it's not just the divisive political fight over health care." With his approval rating down, he "must spend heavily from that shrinking fund of political capital -- with a highly uncertain outcome -- if his vision of a health care overhaul is to emerge from Congress." There's also declining support for Afghanistan, and "growing unease about Iraq."

*In his weekly address, Obama pledged to keep up the pace of recovery in New Orleans, and promised to visit the city before the end of the year. The fourth anniversary of the hurricane was this weekend.

*A measures of good news, from the New York Times. "Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation's biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again." It's about $4 billion so far, the paper estimates.

*But more bad news. Washington Times reports that Democrats like Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla). say Obama "won't be able to ignore the simmering discontent within his own party much longer" on gays in the military "or on a range of other issues on which the president appears to be charting a course that veers away from his political base."

*Japan election: "The Obama administration will be watching closely how the Democratic Party of Japan will govern should it gain power," AP reports. "Opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama, in line to become prime minister, has pushed for his country to be more independent from Washington and closer to Asia."

*After being inducted into the Little League Hall of Excellence Sunday, Vice President Biden joked "that if he was given the choice as a child to pitch in the World Series or be vice president, he would pick the World Series."

**Health Care
*"Obama is mustering some of the same rhetoric in 2009 he used in 2004" in the state senate, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. "If the past is prologue, the episode involving Obama's successful bid to pass what became the "Adequate Health Care Task Force" could be instructive. Obama won on a party-line vote."

*On the Sunday shows, leading Democratic and Republican senators "seized" on Ted Kennedy's reputation for compromise "to call for cooperation in the healthcare debate, but showed little give in their own positions."

*Orrin Hatch, one of Kennedy's close friends on the Republican side of the aisle, said that Congress "is less likely to pass sweeping health-care overhaul legislation" following his death. "You're not going to get this big, broad Democrat spending bill -- you're not going to get Republican support," he said on CNN, per Bloomberg.

*In Toronto this weekend after attending Ted Kennedy's funeral, former President Bill Clinton said he hopes Congress will fulfill the senator's "lifetime dream that America finally will follow Canada and every other advanced nation in the world in providing affordable health care," Bloomberg reports.

*The New York Times profiles Sen. Jim "Waterloo" DeMint, looking at his strong opposition to the health care plan. He may be "a back-bencher with little influence in Washington's corridors of power. But at home he is stoking anger over the health care issue as he advances his free-market philosophy, gains national attention and, perhaps, helps derail Mr. Obama's agenda." He so far faces no serious challenge in 2010, with most of the state's "political oxygen" focused on Gov. Mark Sanford.

*Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is being targeted by two liberal groups "for refusing to endorse a public insurance option as part of health-care reform. A television ad set to debut in Iowa and the Washington area in coming weeks features an Iowan who says he voted for Grassley and other Republicans but is unhappy with their opposition to providing a public health insurance program as part of the health-care reform legislation," Washington Post reports.

*Two-time unsuccessful congressional candidate helping liberals in health care fight: "Darcy Burner, executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, said the health care debate has rallied traditionally disparate Congressional liberals to hang together, while galvanizing support for their position from an array of left-leaning outside groups. The result, she said, is that Democratic leaders will not be able to clear a package through the House if it does not include the public plan," Roll Call reports.

*"Democratic aides and lawmakers are questioning how their party can pass a health reform bill next month with centrists and liberals at odds over a core aspect of the legislation. Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) has pledged to include a government-run insurance option in the House bill that will be voted on next month. This reassures liberals but will make it difficult or impossible to get the votes needed to pass it if the public option is included," The Hill reports.

*New York Times pictorially chronicles a Saturday afternoon health care rally in Times Square.

**Republicans
*Dick Cheney tees off on the Justice Department considering probes of CIA interrogation techniques, saying it "offends the hell out of me." "It's clearly a political move," he said on Fox. "There's no other rationale for why they're doing this."

*Tom Ridge now says people are making too much about a passage in his book implying politics were a consideration in raising terror alerts when he was DHS secretary. Ridge, on ABC today, "said there was a lively discussion among Cabinet officials of whether to lift the terror alert to a higher status, but that it was not done." He said his concern "was that he had to be 'absolutely certain the process worked.'"

**Campaign Stuff
"Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Edward Kennedy who won America's hearts over the course of her public mourning, is being urged by family and friends to consider her late husband's Senate seat, even as a field of contenders waits for the right moment to launch their own campaigns," the Boston Herald reports. The paper talks to a "Democratic operative with Kennedy contacts" who said she is "very much interested" in occupying the seat.

*As for the special election, the Boston Globe reports that "all eyes now are on Joseph P. Kennedy II, the former US representative, with family members and political allies expecting him to make a decision very shortly on whether to enter the Democratic primary. No other Kennedy of his generation with the political stature to step into the role has signaled interest in it, according to Democratic insiders and people close to the family."

*Politico's Josh Kraushaar culls the CW that Democrats are facing double digit losses in 2010. But, "the national political environment, of course, could look significantly different next year. It wasn't until the final month before the 1994 GOP landslide that political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, editor and publisher of The Rothenberg Political Report, anticipated GOP gains large enough to win back control of the House."

*Al Hunt profiles Tim Pawlenty, who he thinks matches the successful Democratic presidential models in 1992 and 2008 as someone who is "not associated with Washington's wars, who doesn't belong to the party's ideological base though is acceptable to it, and who can attract independent voters." Hunt: "He doesn't excite Republican passions like Sarah Palin, or bring the intellectual range of Newt Gingrich, the down-home humor of Mike Huckabee or the resources of Mitt Romney. He also brings none of their baggage, has a consistently conservative record, presents his views in a less-confrontational and more measured way, and has succeeded in a Democratic state."

*Democrats in Virginia are hoping this Washington Post story on a thesis from Republican Bob McDonnell shakes up the gubernatorial race.

*CA-10 Special Election: With one day to go, it's hard to tell what's going to happen, though Lt. Gov. John Garamendi has the lead in money, name ID and a recent poll, reports Roll Call and Contra Costa Times.

--Kyle Trygstad and Mike Memoli