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Getting Mean and Distinctly Ugly (Free Republic Dissed as 'Chappaquiddick-Type people')
The Ottawa Citizen ^ | Friday, August 28, 2009 | Janice Kennedy

Posted on 08/29/2009 2:01:07 PM PDT by kristinn

Two kinds of people reacted to news of Ted Kennedy’s death last week. The first — not all liberals, either — spoke of Kennedy’s hard work in the United States Senate, his dream of universal healthcare, his commitment to working people, civil rights and equality.

This “most imperfect man,” wrote analyst William Bradley, was also a powerful advocate for progressive principles. Barack Obama predictably (though accurately) observed that “for America, he was a defender of a dream.” In another variation on the visionary theme, Joe Biden said of his old friend, “He was never small.”

The other kind of reaction to Kennedy’s death could be summed up in one word: “Chappaquiddick.”

Not “vision” or “health-care reform,” not “peacemaking” or even “Camelot.” Just the controversial 40-year-old event, the ugliest single moment from the late senator’s 77 years on Earth, nearly 47 of them in public service. The small souls who spend their days hanging out in discussion forums at Free Republic, one of the U.S ultra-right’s more popular online homes, greeted news of Kennedy’s death characteristically, flinging around words like “traitor,” “coward,” “disgrace”— and, yes, references to the 1969 event. Chappaquiddick minds in a narrow, ungenerous world.

But the Chappaquiddick faction is not limited to either the United States or the senior senator from Massachusetts. It’s a state of mind, a summation of everything that is small and cribbed and contemptible — not unlike the sour (and embarrassing) one-line statement of perfunctory condolence on Wednesday from our own prime minister.

Chappaquiddick-type people possess a meanness of spirit that goes beyond simple politics. They’re responsible for a creeping diminution of vision and values. In Canada, which used to appreciate largeness of soul, they even have a government platform, thanks to Stephen Harper and company.

Consider the dramatic case of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, picked up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan at 15, or child-soldier age. When Harper’s government announced last week it would appeal — again — a ruling that it demand the Canadian-born Khadr’s repatriation, lawyer Dennis Edney said he wasn’t surprised. “We are used to this mean-spirited approach.”

But this government’s disgraceful stand on Khadr — the only Western detainee still in Guantanamo — is just part of it. The limited worldview, the impulse toward whatever is most ungenerous, is how it operates.

SNIP


TOPICS: Canada; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: chappaquiddick; drunkenfeloniouslout; freerepublic; maryjosmurderer; nowaitresssandwich4u; swimmer; tedkennedy
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To: kristinn

” Largeness of Soul “. ???

Holy Crap.!! I’m staying out of Eastern Canada.


21 posted on 08/29/2009 2:08:09 PM PDT by Pompah
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To: kristinn

Oh Janice, you have a misdemeanor mind in a felony world.


22 posted on 08/29/2009 2:08:14 PM PDT by GOP_Raider (Save the Earth, it's the only planet with beer.)
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To: kristinn
Just the controversial 40-year-old event, the ugliest single moment from the late senator’s 77 years on Earth, nearly 47 of them in public service.

The term, "Public service" has taken on a whole new meaning in the past decade or so. Hard to believe they're still using this term, that is about as accurate as the term, "Public servant".

23 posted on 08/29/2009 2:08:37 PM PDT by dragnet2
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To: kristinn

Our culture has a frightening capacity to overlook character altogether when idolizing role models. Elvis was a weak, self-indulgent bum, and Michael Jackson was a drug addicted child molester, but these failings present no impediment to their being worshipped like living gods. When did we quit caring about character?


24 posted on 08/29/2009 2:09:10 PM PDT by Spok
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To: kristinn

I’m sure Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Chavez, Hussein and all other marxists, who are not as well known, are all sincere in their true belief in marxism just like Kennedy, but don’t wait for me to feel sorry when a marxist leaves this life to stand in front of Jesus to be judged for all eternity and has to explain himself.


25 posted on 08/29/2009 2:09:12 PM PDT by rigelkentaurus
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To: _Jim

One might almost call it jackbooted.


26 posted on 08/29/2009 2:09:13 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Barack Obama is a political suicide bomber and the Rats are political arsonists.)
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To: kristinn
Chappaquiddick-type people possess a meanness of spirit that goes beyond simple politics.

They're not the ones who drove the car into the water and then waited hours before reporting it.

27 posted on 08/29/2009 2:09:27 PM PDT by TwelveOfTwenty (Hey Nancy, how many jobs have been lost since you and the Democrats took Congress?)
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To: kristinn
According to one of Teddy's biographers, Teddy liked to hear the latest Chappaquiddic jokes. So Teddy, this cartoons for you...way down there wherever you are......


28 posted on 08/29/2009 2:09:44 PM PDT by AdvisorB (Obamatude could be defined by Blago as something tangible, but not quite as tangible as JJJ's offer.)
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To: dragnet2

Servicing the public like a bull services a cow.


29 posted on 08/29/2009 2:10:14 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Barack Obama is a political suicide bomber and the Rats are political arsonists.)
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To: kristinn

Janice Kennedy - just a bitter nagging shrew


30 posted on 08/29/2009 2:10:20 PM PDT by VRWCTexan (Obama-scare is the "real" Cash for Clunker Program!)
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To: kristinn
controversial event (that could have been prevented) = vehicular homicide

doubtful that even today Ted would face charges

Ted has gone to meet his maker... Be interesting to know if he gets a pass for Mary Jo's death, Joan's despair, alchoholism, womanizing, abortion facilitator, changing Catholic church rules to suit his own purposes, etc.

31 posted on 08/29/2009 2:11:45 PM PDT by xtinct (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: kristinn

I actually had a moderator remove one of my own posts last night.

There was no profanity in it. There was nothing untrue in it. I was simply angry at having lived my adult life with this man as my Senator the entire time, and the heat of it came out in my post.

I guess living up here, seeing and hearing the hagiographic platitudes about him has been a trial.


32 posted on 08/29/2009 2:11:52 PM PDT by rlmorel (Mary Jo Kopechne is now available for comment.-August 26, 2009)
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To: kristinn; All
---This “most imperfect man,” wrote analyst William Bradley, was also a powerful advocate for progressive principles.--as was Adolph Hitler--
33 posted on 08/29/2009 2:12:16 PM PDT by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the MSM tells you about firearms or explosives--NRA Benefactor)
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To: kristinn
But I've never even been to Chappaquiddick! How can I be a "type?"

;-)

34 posted on 08/29/2009 2:12:25 PM PDT by Allegra ( Socks)
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To: kristinn
The taking of a human life is just a blip on the author's radar, and the cowardly way he acted apparently speaks nothing of his character to the author.

Ideology is all that counts, and apparently it forgives all sins.

35 posted on 08/29/2009 2:12:41 PM PDT by CaptRon
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To: kristinn
The author must never have gone to democraticunderground.com if she thinks Free Republic is bad. Those are the nastiest most foul mouth bunch I have ever seen. Free Republic can't begin to complete with them.
36 posted on 08/29/2009 2:12:41 PM PDT by Ditter
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To: Spok

Hollywood, a group which today complains bitterly about being pirated while itself being a product of pirating, has brought us the culture of celebrity. The image that flashes by on the screen or stage is all that matters. Pay No Attention To The Monsters Behind The Curtain!


37 posted on 08/29/2009 2:12:48 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Barack Obama is a political suicide bomber and the Rats are political arsonists.)
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To: kristinn

These people do not grasp the reality to what demented, wicked souls they are. There is not an untruthful word in the assessments made of Ted Kennedy. He was a very troubled man of extreme privelege and partisanship who did everything to hold onto power and there are countless examples of the hateful words spoken by Teddy that tossed around malicious slanders at Reagan, Bush and anyone who dared have differing political views. There are those on the Republican side who do not want to focus on the true character of the man and what he meant and their way of doing things is to build someone up and say the most overly gracious, even to the point of lying, things about him. To each their own, but if anything it is damning that they find these things said about him so troubling when he was a supposedly ‘great’ man and these things are the literal truth about this ‘great’ man. The man was troubled and does not deserve to be called a hero or great statesman.


38 posted on 08/29/2009 2:13:22 PM PDT by bushfamfan (United States of America: July 4, 1776-November 4, 2008)
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To: SueRae
Is the author a relative or a wannabe relative?

Why can't I meet a Kennedy??

39 posted on 08/29/2009 2:13:54 PM PDT by KosmicKitty (WARNING: Hormonally crazed woman ahead!!)
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To: kristinn

A President covers up a small break-in to the DNC. BIG DEAL. A Senator is responsible for the death of a woman. NO BIG DEAL.


40 posted on 08/29/2009 2:14:28 PM PDT by central_va ( http://www.15thvirginia.org/)
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