Posted on 08/26/2009 5:17:57 AM PDT by bmweezer
Ted Kennedy has died after a long battle against brain cancer. While this site - and many Americans - will not mourn this loss, we still extend our condolences to Kennedy's family. Losing a brother, uncle, cousin or friend is never easy and we pray that Kennedy's family will find comfort in their time of sorrow.
With that being said, Kennedy's death drops from the scene one of the more horrific and needlessly glorified politicians of the past forty years. If ANY of his brothers would have outlived him, Ted's political career would have been moribund at best. However, after one brother died in World War II and two were assassinated, it fell to Ted to carry the Kennedy mantle, something that the media was more than willing to help accomplish. Never very bright in his own right, as compared to his brothers, the youngest of Rose and Joseph Kennedy's children went to Washington as a Senator in 1962 and never left. While his first term in Washington was remembered more for him playing the role of mourning brother, the 1969 Chappaquiddick incident involving Kennedy and the death of one Mary Jo Kopechne, forever soured Kennedy to at least half the country, who saw him as nothing more than a murderer. Despite this, Kennedy moved on by being one of the Senate's most liberal members and course, by being a Kennedy.
In 1980, despite Chappaquiddick, Kennedy made his play for the White House by taking on then-President Jimmy Carter in the presidential primaries. Although Kennedy lost, his run set the stage for Carter's defeat and for a time brought back memories of Camelot for those that appreciated such a thing.
Thereafter, with his goal of following his brother into the White House gone, Kennedy continued to serve in the Senate, nine terms in all, became known as the Lion of the Senate and continued his push for more liberal, socialized programs. In between, Kennedy divorced his wife, became a drunk, and from time to time was caught having fun with women who were the age of his children.
For the past decade, Kennedy's main push has been for universal health care, which if passed, he would have been excluded from, but which he had deemed appropriate for the masses. No doubt Kennedy's death will give President Obama one last weapon in his push for ObamaCare. Of course, only with Democratic presidents could one put forth the death of an old, rich, murdering Senator who sought private and experiential treatments to extend his life, and try to make that death a rallying cry for socialized medicine, which would have excluded the type of treatments that Kennedy's sought and received.
Ted Kennedy, RIP
Ted Kennedy lived a good life...and longer than Mary Jo. RIP anyway...his soul is in God’s hands.
Or the other guys hand.
Shame on you. The man is dead. If you can’t say something polite and sympathetic, than shut up.
He is looking up from where he is begging for forgiveness.
True....
I hope he burns in Hell for what he did to Mary Jo - waited something like 9 or 11 hours to call the police, while she drowned - and the Mass. police never did a thing to prosecute him....the man was a failure, and worse, a liberal. Rot in Hell, Teddy!
He did live longer than Mary Jo Kopechne.
He did not live a good life.
His greatest evil was the 1965 Immigration Act. The legislation that set America firmly on an inevitable path to third world status.
If we couldn’t say anything bad about the dead there would be no history.
Ted Kennedy’s “good life” was one of wealth, power and fame, not one of morality and humility.
Looks like I can change my tagline now.
This might hurt his re-election prospects. However, I believe he will be able to overcome it by the next election.
I feel no more sorrow or sympathy for Ted Kennedy than I did for Saddam Hussein.
Kennedy was one of the “all enemies, foreign and domestic...” that I swore to defend our constitution from.
Question for you: Reagan wasn’t even cold before they started a re-critique of his presidency and practically blamed him for shoving AIDS-infected needles into black infants (e.g. Ted Rall). How long should I wait before I can call Kennedy’s past into question?
Today might be a good day for you to avoid FR then.....
It’s hard for me to summon up any empathy for the Kennedy family. If you look at the whole picture they were a seriously dysfunctional bunch. Jack Kennedy had so much potential, but he got assassinated. And then, over the years, we found he had the same problem with his zipper that Teddy had. Teddy, of course, was the epitomy of the spoiled rich kid who did bad things and got away with them. The philanderer even killed a young woman, cowardly did not report it for over 8 hours and then got away with that. It also doesn’t say much about the Kopechne (sp?) familiy who allowed themselves to be bought off.
I guess Robert was the most stable of the three brothers and he, too, also appeared to have much potential to do good. But he covered for his brother and there is some evidence that he also was less than he seemed. His assassination, before he became president, pretty much removed him from further public scrutiny.
In the end I think it says a lot about the state of our country that Ted Kennedy, a philandering killer, will be lauded over the next few weeks as “The Lion of the Senate” by people like John McCain.
I personally tend to speak ill of many dead people: Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, etc. Some men live such reprobate lives that many cheer their passing on as an improvement in the world.
I’m sorry, but that is the way it is. The Bible does the same.
Don’t get me wrong though. One can carry it too far. Ted is in God’s hands now and I actually hope there was a death bed conversion.
That way they don't have to report on the deficit or AKA Obama's crashing poll numbers.
Instead we'll have to watch Chis Matthews drool all over himself....maybe even get another thrill up his leg.
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