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
This Janice Kennedy woman has real psychological problems. Her negative animus has turned her into a raging lunatic...lol.
“A woman possessed by the animus is always in danger of losing her femininity...” —JUNG, CW 7, Par 337
Well, Jan, I never drove someone into the water and left him to drown, while trying to figure out a way to get away with it. Probably no big deal to you anyway.
Anyone posted the GOOGLE EARTH location of the Chappaquiddick Bridge?
Chappa...whatever...di
Waitress sandwiches
and a powerful progressive
You know what...I don't care what anybody else thinks anymore. I am done with it, tired of it, and fed up.
Kennedy was a powerful progressive, silver tongued snake oil salesman that helped ochestrate the communist/marxist/fascist takeover of America. America didn't lose some great visionary representative of the Republic, the progressives lost their patriarch and that is not such a bad thing to lose in a Republic.
I just sent Janice a little history lesson on Kennedy’s own brand of mean, nasty take-no-prisoners politics. Of course, she’s blinded by the image of “Camelot.”
Well, there's always the cheating at Harvard and the lack of a share the family wealth, not to speak of the vision of no windmills offshore of his property.
lol, you're the Space Odyssey Right
When a conservative criticizes a liberal, the conservative is told to ‘shut up’.
When a liberal criticizes a conservative, the liberal is exercising free speech.
I already live there. I regret that I have to share a region with this “writer”.
Chappaquiddick is the one irrefutable point about Kennedy’s life and character. It summarizes what the man was really made of. This is why the mere mention frosts commie-libs since they can’t refute it.
Given how obsessed the Left was with Bush’s DWI arrest and his National Guard service, there’s no doubt they would have been over-the-top ugly had Bush killed a girl the way Teddy did.
They were a damn fine generation. Lately, I always have the feeling we have let them down. That we should be fighting harder to save our country.
My dad was an interesting guy-come to think of it, my dad was a DINO up here in Massachusetts. He was an extremely conservative guy but knew you couldn’t win up here as a Republican, so he was a Democrat. But he was one of the plank-owners for “Citizens for Limited Taxation” up here, and made a lot of enemies while on the school committee and as a selectman, because he was always paying attention to how it was going to be financed, if it was really needed, and if so, was it the right solution.
He used to get some pretty nasty calls at home.
Anyway, it was his generation that grew up in the depression and fought through the wars, who came home, used the GI Bill to get some education and raised familes, really took our country to the next level.
And we are letting it slip away.
Actually, I think I’d rather be called a “Bork-type” thank you very much.
Curious indeed. Chappaquiddick was an accident - one unfortunately with an outcome that could have been prevented. But why clutter reality with fact.
Otoh, the left rarely speaks of former Vice President Cheney without mentioning the hunting accident. An accident that didn't result in death at least in part because VP Cheney didn't flee the scene and pretend it didn't happen. But hey, I guess it's time to drop the judgementalism.
Did you watch Glenn Beck this week?
I must write “”Chappaquiddick-type” on my white board.
Until the end of WW2, most young people grew up with hard work. My father was born in 1936 and was doing farm work by the time he was 8, except when he was in school. He’d finished high school (senior class of 7 students) by 16 and was a full-time truck driver. Some of our folks out in Missouri are still Democrats, because that gives them a better chance of election for some offices.
“People need to pay attention to attitudes such as these, because they highlight the typical liberal conceit.”
Do we really have to listen to them?
Can’t we just institutionalize them like we did in the old days?
Yeah!
Darn right.
I hope the Canadian newspapers are dying off as fast as they are in America.
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