They may have had a chance to push it, but they didn't have the votes to pass it. Something that's overstated is how much control of congress the Democrats have had, specially in the Obama Administration. It's been said that they had 2 years, but they only had a few weeks between Senators being hospitalized, AL Fraken being seated and Ted Kennedy's replacement being seated. Something similar happened early this year with Feinstein (That's another topic all together) being hospitalized. Second, during the Obama admin they didn't have a party-platform mandate. Lieberman almost ran with McCain in 2008, he was only somewhat aligned with Democrats and is largely the reason we didn't get a public option. I'd like to see things move further left, but as you can see the current makeup of Congress doesn't allow it.

That was 50 years ago, and not at all uncommon of a feeling during the time. It's a product of his time, just look at how much worse it was across the isle. I don't think it should be held against an 80 year old when they have largely left those feelings in the past. None of us can know what thing future generations will judge us about in 50 years. Now someone of that age range that continued to feel that way you can judge. Personally I think it's wrong to continue to judge someone for their past actions once they correct it. You should incentivize people to change. If you endlessly criticize them it'll just make them stay the course and only associate with like minded people.