Not much known at this point, about at 8:19 AM this morning, there was a 9-1-1 call from the Kennedy Hyannis Port compound and a man, now identified as Senator Kennedy, was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with stroke-like symptoms.

UPDATE: Kennedy was first taken to Cape Cod hospital, and then after two hours, airlifted to Massachusetts General. Stroke victims are optimally treated within three hours using tPA, a clot-busting drug. Its not known if he actually received this treatment in a timely fashion.

Kennedy was successfully treated last October for a blockage in his carotid artery. He is 76 years old, which these days, is actually pretty young (cracks about McCain notwithstanding...), but Kennedy has had high risk factors for stroke for decades at this point--overweight, excessive drinking, smoking, etc... Being overweight has less to do with gluttony than with the injuries he suffered in an airplane crash which left him unable to stand for extended periods.

UPDATE: Its a death-watch, judging by the coverage and the mass of media outside the hospital. I hope not--Kennedy, strangely enough perhaps for conservatives, is simply too valuable to die. He's unquestionably liberal, but in an era of partisan obstructionism, Kennedy remains one of the very few Democrats that Republicans are able to work with on a consistent basis.

Kennedy actually has many close friends who have political views completely opposite to his own, include Cal Thomas, who actually was befriended by Kennedy when Thomas was working with the Moral Majority. UT Senator Orrin Hatch also has a close relationship, which also seemed very odd to me considering Kennedy's rather dissipated lifestyle constrasted with Hatch's Mormon conduct.