1- Mary Jo Kopechne is 100% fair game and relevant
2- that Chappaquiddick should become a legal term for “not guilty by reason of being a rich white male with family connections”
3- Her name should be carved into his headstone
That said, I hate the smug “look at me being all iconoclastic” posture some editorialists/pundits/whatever-the-hell-Henry-Rollins-is-considered-these-days/cartoonists seem to be striking. Do they really think they’re the only ones to think of it?
What’s especially irritating are the ones who seem to think they’re playing Che in a new production of EVITA (“Sing you fools cause you got it wrong…”) and denouncing the outpouring of condolences and lauds from the powerful of both parties. Has there ever been a longtime important and influential politician (which love him or hate him or indifferent to him you must grant his importance and influence) whose death received “X expresses condolences to his family though says ‘about damned time what took so fookin’ long?’ for the death itself” press release from one powerful American politician for another regardless of party affiliation? (I’m sure Nixon and Truman probably would have if not checked by their keepers and I’m sure all presidents and power brokers have thought it, but there’s a reason we call politics an art.)
In fairness, his lay got out alive. I guess that’s the advantage of being a few years older.
Jeebus, that’s tasteless (the one in Timchik’s link). The OP cartoon OTOH is more like the sort of commentary that I could reasonably expect as contrary reaction to the general apotheosic retrospectives, can’t get too het up about it.
Huh. I was about to say that I wouldn’t expect any original wit or humor from the guy who writes The Duplex. I once bought a collection of it for a buck from one of those wholesale book discount joints and, after reading, felt like I overpaid.
You know, that probably sounds a bit ruder than I’d intended, so let me apologise to RikWriter straight away. I am genuinely puzzled, though - isn’t that phrase a contradiction in terms?
Yeah, did Teddy ever refer to her that way? It seems a low blow to characterize his attitude towards her death (and his stupid behavior) so cavalierly when there’s no indication he ever did so after that fateful, tragic night.
While OJ was the Jackie Robinson of entitlement not-guilty verdicts, he severed his white family connections (all over the place it seems).
It’s mostly a rhetorical question rather than actually asking anything. There have been several editorials and TV/radio appearances and phone-ins in which people have criticized Obama (of course) and others of both parties who have made “Ted Kennedy was a great man” type statements of condolence for not mentioning Chappaquiddick and his other scandals. My comment, more readably phrased, is "I doubt there’s ever been a president or senator who upon learning of the death of a longtime powerful and influential colleague, even one who was a political enemy, released a statement to the effect of ‘my condolences to his family I suppose, but as for the death itself no Kleenex needed here, it’s about freaking time’. Politics is no different from showbiz when it comes to the need for masking evil little grins with somber sorrowful expression upon occasion, and a funeral isn’t the time to disparage somebody’s life or legacy no matter how valid the comments.
Yeah… folks may blabber on in message boards about looking forward to pissing on the graves of people they find reprehensible, but if you look around you realize that socially, it’s just not done in polite company, and even less by the people in the same sphere of action as the departed. Denouncing that eulogies and messages of condolences whitewash over the deceased’s sins is damn easy because that IS what you do in a eulogy or letter of condolence.
When they write their memoirs, Obama and Biden and Kerry and Hatch and Brokaw and the others can write in the chapter about Kennedy about how they weighed his moral failings v. his personal and political virtues, with all the explanation they may deem worth it (For which some people will still be unsatisfied if it’s not an unconditional denunciation and censure.)
That the exaltation is at times being laid on kind of thick upon Ted, and not only from the fellow members of the power caste but by other influential segments, well, that’s a valid observation that even those of us on “his” side of the greater debate can appreciate. It will be dealt with, I’m sure, in due time.
When he was hale & hearty, I’d happily disrespect him all the live long day. Right now, I wonder if, with his apparently active Catholic piety, he also had second thoughts about that one issue in which he is most at odds with his Faith-
the American 2245 lives daily taken with his political support. But as I’m writing this, his funeral Mass is occurring and I can take refrain for a couple more days not to play pinata’ with his corpse.
If you would read the thread for content before posting, you’d find very little that could be characterized as “so upset” regarding the Kennedy/Kopechne cartoon. But that would interfere with your ability to be smugly dismissive, wouldn’t it?
Likewise, I’m sure.
It would be funny as a parody of right-wing political cartoons, such as appear (or used to) in “The Onion.” Sadly, taken in the context of the rest of the cartoonist’s output, it appears not to be intended as a parody.
As a big fan of Ted Kennedy, and a die hard liberal Democrat, I say let the pubbies have their happy dance at the news of Kennedy’s death. Nobody said Ted was a saint, but I truly liked him and thought he was doing everything he could to get a decent health care package passed, right up until the day he died.
My guess is when Cheney, Rove or Bush dies, there will be some happy dancers on this side of the fence as well.
