What a journey! MPSIMS to Great Debates, and then to The Pit!
Are we finally home?
At first I read this as “Dennis Haysbert didn’t kill anybody,” and was wondering why anyone would think that he had.
That’s right, he pleaded guilty. So now you’re saying that it’s only necessary to apologize if you actually get found guilty in court?
Dude, you’re the one who brought up the Bush AWOL scandal as an attempted parallel to the Chappaquiddick scandal. If you’re now arguing that they should be treated differently because Bush didn’t actually do anything wrong, or hasn’t been actually found guilty of doing anything wrong, then you shouldn’t have tried to compare the two. I really don’t think you could find anybody on the planet who would argue that Kennedy didn’t do anything wrong in the Chappaquiddick case, so your complaint about Democrats “giving him a pass” is invalid.
The point, however, is that he admitted to wrongdoing, and the case has since been thoroughly hashed over in the courts, in the media, and in public opinion. That’s why Menocchio says that it’s not “covered up” and that anybody who brings it up now in response to criticisms of more recent wrongdoing by other officials is just desperately flogging a dead horse.
Bush, on the other hand, still denies any wrongdoing in the National Guard case. You seem to be arguing that it should be overlooked even if he did do something wrong, because it’s so comparatively minor. I’m just noting that if he wants to put his mistakes behind him, he first has to admit that he made mistakes. (As he has done, btw, in the case of his “youthful indiscretions” of alcohol abuse and reckless alcohol-related conduct, which I think was the honorable thing to do.)
If, on the other hand, Bush wants to continue to deny any wrongdoing in his National Guard service, without providing convincing evidence, then he has to put up with continued criticism from people who think he lied about it and is still lying. In other words, that horse ain’t dead.
What further “change in behavior” are you suggesting is necessary in Kennedy’s case? Is he still killing passengers in car accidents and neglecting to contact the police about it? Or are you objecting instead that he wasn’t adequately punished? You may be right, but I think that whatever punishment he received, it would still have been incumbent upon him to make a public apology for what he did.
He was saying that an apology doesn’t mean too much if you only admit you
If he’s not telling the police, then how would I know about it? 
For example, if he’d made a special effort throughout the rest of his life and career to fighting drunk driving, that’d make a difference to me. He hasn’t, as far as I know - and I doubt he’d ever admit that he was driving drunk, even though it seems very likely.
We’ll say that part is beyond his control - he probably got off lighter than other people would have, but
I’m not objecting to the fact that he apologized. That’s fine. I’m just saying that I’m not obligated to put any stock in the apology.
CRUD. He’s saying the apology doesn’t mean much because Kennedy already had to admit wrongdoing in court.
In 24 universe anybody kill Dennis Haysbert!
As you said in the first paragraph, there are some actions for which an apology simply isn’t sufficient. This is one of them.
No, I’m saying it is not a virtue to seek an apology for an act that you have been convicted for, especially when that apology actually helps your career rather than hurting it. He was forced through circumstance to apologize for what he actually admitted to, in order to raise his own credibility. Why you should think that absolves him of anything baffles me.
Who said I think it “absolves” him of anything, or that it counts as a “virtue”? All I’m saying is that an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and an apology for it is a necessity if you want to have even a chance of putting your past misdeeds behind you.
Which is one of the reasons that your analogy between Chappaquiddick and the AWOL scandal wasn’t very convincing.
See how well the Shays’ spin worked? Sam Stone jumps on board, and now the whole thread is an argument about Bush and Teddy, who was worse, why it matters. Page scandal? Was that what we were talking about? Hastert? Who’s he?
Brilliant!
Well, what do you expect? Supporters of the contemporary version of the Republican Party don’t have much that’s admirable to point to these days. They basically have to fall back upon fear, smear, and changing the subject.
(Mind you, supporters of the contemporary version of the Democratic Party don’t have much that’s admirable to point to these days either. But at least they can fall back upon the fact that they’re not Republicans.)
This isn’t the first time the Pubbies have used this one. A bumper sticker from 1974:
“Nobody Drowned at Watergate.”
Sam’s favorite, no doubt. Not to mention that the Mass. voters have had several opportunities to give Ted a message by voting against him. Guess Sam hates democracy too.
While we’re talking apologies, how about apologizing for 100K - 400K Iraqis being killed? (I can change the subject, just like Sam.)
Sam,
So, basically, you are saying you like Republicans better because they get away with shit more often?
Whatever.
Tris
Sam Stone
There’s another small matter to be discussed. How did Dubya Bush manage to get in “the Guard” at a time when it was extremely difficult to do so? Wealth, power and influence are not the exclusive domain of the Kennedys.
Hang on, Sparky. Just for the record, I think Foley’s a scumbag, and that Dennis Hastert should resign, and so should anyone else who we find out knew about this behaviour and hushed it up. And not only that, but the Republicans like Shays who are trying to deflect the blame onto the Democrats or anyone else deserve to be booted out of office too. Screw 'em.
Furthermore, the Republicans are corrupt, bereft of ideas, have sold out their principles, and deserve to be roundly spanked in this next election. I hope they lose both houses of Congress.
Not that I think the Democrats are any better, but they weren’t in power, so the buck doesn’t fall on them.
My discussion of Ted Kennedy is a complete side issue. And if it’s getting in the way of throwing more heat on the Republicans, I’ll gladly drop it.
So, do you like Marion Berry? He’s been re-elected by the voters too. Does that make his character above reproach? How about David Duke? I seem to recall he won an election or two along the way. You don’t like him? How come you hate Democracy?
What a stupid argument.
Change the subject? Isn’t the OP actually about this? What, in a thread discussion Chappaquiddick we’re not allowed to talk about Chappaquiddick?
Look, I’m not calling for Kennedy’s resignation or a special prosecutor or anything. I realize that, being a Kennedy in Massachussetts he could probably rape a puppy on TV and still get elected. I’m merely pointing out that Kennedy is a scumbag and a hypocrite.
But the Republicans have elected their share of scumbags too, and I’ve heard the same lame rationalizations for it that I hear from the Democrats with Kennedy. This isn’t a Democrat or Republican thing - it’s politics. And the partisans on both sides enable the scumbags to stay in power and even rise to the top because they’re so willing to overlook the character of people who smile at you and promise to bring your district a bridge to nowhere and a thousand jobs to go with it.
One thing that strikes me as odd about Edward Kennedy, is that he did not start downing brandy in large quantities. That would have been sensible.
Another thing I know, is that when one runs into strange circumstances, one does not appear to act rationally - for example when I chased a burglar out of my flat it took be over an hour to telephone the police - since I knew they would never catch him, it was only after an hour that adrenalin subsided and I thought that they might be able to correlate his movements.
I can think of a number of times when strange things have happened and everybody else acted like brainless dorks - kind of makes up for the times when I’ve been incompetent.
If I had been amongst Edward Kennedy’s friends, I would probably have extracted the facts from him, shoved a load of witnessed hard spirits into him, and called the emergency services - rapidly followed by calls to his ‘minders’.
If I had been Edward Kennedy I would probably not have been able to think straight for at least 24 hours.
Bringing up old stuff is little more than playground name calling.
Hastert didn’t kill anybody. And Kennedy didn’t start an unnecessary war where at least tens of thousands were killed, maybe hundreds of thousands.
If that logical fallacy somehow excuses Hastert, then Kennedy is exonerated by Bush. Hell, Kennedy could have drowned 29,999 secretaries with his bare hands and still be pure as the driven snow since we have something worse to compare him to from his opposite political party. That’s how it works, right?
Hitler would have sent Foley to a concentration camp so if you attack Foley, you are helping the Nazis.
Yep. All we have to keep score of is who killed more people in the last 40 years. Nixon, Johnson or Bush? Then we’ll know who the one person we can judge is.
Well, not Ted Kennedy, at least.