Over the last week I’ve read various essays and blog posts on Ted Kennedy. I watched HBO’S, Teddy: In His Own Words. I’ve talked to friends, and family, many having grown up in New England during the time of “the incident only mentioned in passing”, and most (though not all by any means), extremely liberal.
I commented on a Kennedy post at Blogher earlier this week. The original title of the post was something like Things you haven’t read about Ted Kennedy. The post contained links to various essays, but it was also a tribute of some sort — made clear by the rest of the content of the post. From the aforementioned post I was led to a Joyce Carol Oates piece I really liked. The post also directed me to a paragraph the author of the BlogHer post seemed to like, from an essay written in the American Prospect. The paragraph….
Give me a fighter over a saint any day. Give me a man or woman who has stared their imperfections in the face, who has seen the other side of great expectations: profound disappointment. Give me a leader who knows that humans are flawed, that social change is messy, and that we do it all, each and every day, anyway. When it comes to health-care reform, give me Ted Kennedy instead of Mother Teresa.
I commented of my hesitancy toward accolades, and that I couldn’t help but think the word “murderer” should replace the word “fighter”, even though I felt guilty for thinking that way. The post was removed and rewritten today, in a similar form, with (I believe), a different title. Not certain why, not because of my comment, which unfortunately was posted twice due to the first one appearing not to take. I’m too weary to write another comment just to have it deleted when the author decides to rewrite the post, so I’m writing here instead.
Admittedly I am not as familiar with the time of the Kennedy’s as one who lived through them, but I don’ think that lessons the validity of my opinion. I have an open mind, and I’ve made and effort to buy into the for the greater good philosophy, yet I still find Joyce Carol Oates essay more compelling than the one written at the American Prospect. I can’t get my head past the “if he were not a Kennedy” question. If he hadn’t ended up as a king of progressive legislation, whether due to destiny or penance, what would the essays say then? The elitism of the Kennedy’s is so much of what progressives fight against, how is it they can look past so much to advance their agenda? Is ignoring so much for the cause (a cause negated by the very privilege taken by the Kennedy’s in the Chappaquiddick case, the very privilege progressives supposedly oppose), the right way? When do we stop?
Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is a greater good. Obama throwing Reverend Wright under the metaphorical bus, for instance. The Reverend is not dead though, and the greater good has to have some moral demarcation. Doesn’t it?
These are questions I struggle with, and why I suggested replacing the word fighter, with the word murderer, in the above paragraph”? I don’t think it’s inappropriate to suggest pondering the meaning of the paragraph if the word was changed. It’s something we, or at least I, need to think about. He was not a kid. We can sometimes forgive youth all sorts of evil by calling it something else, and had he been 19, even a Kennedy at 19, I may not be thinking this right now. But he was in his late 30′s. Wasn’t he? My understanding is that he waited some time before calling the police, that he called his lawyer first. I can’t reconcile this. These are the things nibbling at my brain cells, refusing to latch on tight enough for me to form a coherent opinion.
I don’t know where the moral line is, but from everything I have read the Kennedy incident steps on, if not over, the border. How convenient to have it not “forgotten but remembered as part of a man”, to say “to write people off is its own form of blindness”, when if it had been an economically, socially, or lineage, challenged John Smith from Mississippi/Missouri/Ohio, the very people progressives fight for, he would have been written off a long time ago.
These thoughts don’t appease me. I’ve been struggling with them this past week, and will continue to struggle with them.
Disparage me if you must, this blog has never been more than a haven for catharsis. If not for that, what?
I see the better course and approve of it; I follow, alas! the worse!
OVID
peace
I have never held a disdain or reverence for Ted Kennedy. That’s probably why I don’t think he should be remembered either way. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll be remembering him at all.
Most celebrities don’t register enough with me to hold them him in memory, and good ‘ole Ted isn’t the exception to that rule.
.-= mojo shivers´s last blog ..Something So Strong, Could Carry Us Away, Something So Strong, Could Carry Us Today =-.
One of my 5th grade students posed a like question to me last week. More in the way of “can you can do bad things if you then do good things “. I thnk he had been listening to his parent’s dinner conversation.
it’s not somethign I could answer, morality isn’t what I teach and I think the boy had already heard his answer from his parents and was trying to verify it with me.
It’s a hard question to answer.
.-= kait´s last blog ..Loro Piana =-.
Good luck to you with those 5th grade questions.
I admit I get a little confused about political ideologies but I doubt that a coherent progressive would argue against people using their gifts for the greater good, even when those gifts come in the form of hereditary wealth. For liberals and conservatives, there’s a problem when people are blocked from doing what they can and should, so neither group should have blocked Kennedy.
As far as “if he were not a Kennedy,” I’d say this- if he were an inarticulate, unferocious or lazy Kennedy he might still have died last week as a Senator, but we’d only be talking about Chappaquidick (however you spell that) and smart young women wouldn’t be finding themselves sorting these things out.
As to the sad death of Mary Jo Kopechne, I don’t think there’s a way or an advantage to reconcile that. That was at least an appalling failure and many lesser men would have acted better.
.-= Doug´s last blog ..Une Nocturne Bananoise =-.
You’re right of course.
I’ve been on a sailboat all day drinking beer (as a promotion because I purchase the liquor), and that makes this a harder question than it might be. I don’t know the answer, hardly know the question. Does it have to be asked? I don’t know. I’ll let you do the agonizing. It’s something you do well, and are willing to do. I can’t figure it out now or maybe ever. I see throwing people under the bus as a necessary evil, maybe letting them off the hook is too, I don’t know where the line is anymore.
Can a man who can do great things be forgiven unethical or criminal behavior? Probably not now, but then, it sure looks like it. I am not going on I am getting confused.
I’ll get back to you on this.
.-= g´s last blog ..Old School Friday =-.
Lucky you.
Having lived in New England, having done more than a little bit of research on the Kennedy family, having worked on a couple of Kennedy political campaigns and having known a few members of that family, I can say with certainty that some of the stuff written about them is on the mark and some is way off base.
They are at times presented as saints when in fact they are imperfect to the core. That includes the recently departed Senator.
Ted Kennedy got passes that regular folks would never get. That includes Chappie-quidick and West Palm Beach. But people are often wrong in forming their opinions about how Ted Kennedy got away with the death of Kopechne (if that’s the proper wording). He got off easy not because of anything he did that night or the day after, but because the local sheriff ran interference for him.
But Ted Kennedy wasn’t the only imperfect Kennedy. I’ll skip over Skakel, the drug overdose of David Kennedy, and the substance abuse problems of his own sons, but I will not skip over the sorry excuses Ted Kennedy made for nephews Joe and Michael. Joe who wanted to annul his 1st marriage after his wife birthed twins (this contributed greatly to his leaving congress) and Michael who had an affair with the 14-y.o. babysitter (and fortunately for the family ran into a tree while on the ski slopes not long thereafter).
If Joe thinks he’s going to be the 2nd coming of Ted Kennedy, he’s got another thing coming.
I could go on and on but let’s just say that with the exception of the past half-dozen years, the Ted Kennedy in the Senate Chamber was never the same as the Ted Kennedy outside of the Senate Chamber. Inside, he was a brilliant legislator. Outside, he was often a drunken cad.
.-= sauerkraut´s last blog ..Mock the Week: Brits take on American Healthcare Reform =-.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
I wrote a post today partially about how I disdained him then. But I turned 19 that exact day and was rather strident in my beliefs
I don’t know if he would have gotten a pass or not if he weren’t a Kennedy but that goes to the greater question of worshiping celebrity and letting them get away with things that most of us wouldn’t.
He did get away with it. He became an exceptionally effective senator–though he refused Nixon’s health care proposal and lived to try to amend that
We allowed him to have power after Chappaquiddick and he used it wisely
.-= pia´s last blog ..How I grew to respect Teddy Kennedy and more =-.
I just read The American Prospect and found the last paragraph wonderful
But what Oates forgets is that writing people off is its own form of blindness. One of the most gracious qualities of humanity is our capacity to change, to forgive, to recover from the most painful of tragedies. It is often the seat of our most transformative wisdom. (Of course men with money, particularly with a Kennedy name, are the most likely to be redeemed. This is another tragedy in itself.) To me, Chappaquiddick need not be forgotten, or even forgiven for that matter, but understood as part of Ted Kennedy’s path, part of what made him the leader he became.
.-= pia´s last blog ..How I grew to respect Teddy Kennedy and more =-.
I still lean toward the Oates piece myself.
Not much for politics, and not from New England. I understand his legislation was groundbreaking for the country. Not sure where the line is, but ideologues forgive much to further their agendas. Always have. He was pretty old when that incident happened that is something I wonder about – now that you mentioned it not routinely. Is it worth all the passes he got morally? I don’t know. What are we weighing it against?
.-= jake´s last blog ..This Says It All =-.
yeah really 35 or 37?
I think your character expectation might be higher than most people’s. I question the character, if not the morality, of a man who did what he supposedly did back then, and like you it does give me pause.
Are we to forgive and forget all things for what some call the greater good? Even things that would not be forgiven or forgotten from non legacies.
Allow redemption?
Guess we better start emptying out the prisons.
This is only one train of thought. I have quite a few trains taking off on this track, so I know how you feel.
.-= jacob´s last blog ..And Then There Were Two =-.
How’s the baby?
Yea, this in just one long comment response, because it was more of a what’s I think about post than anything.
I can’t reconcile the different Teddy’s, reconciliation…a favorite event of the catholic church.
I never was a big fan of reconciliation myself. It all seemed too easy to reconcile one’s transgressions in all of ten or fifteen minutes. Way too easy.
.-= mojo shivers´s last blog ..And We’d Still Be Ruled By Our Dueling Perspectives, And I’m Not My Perspective, Or The Lies I’ll Tell You Every Time =-.
exactly
Why is it when Michael Jackson dies, that’s all you see for 5 weeks, but when Ted Kennedy dies, it’s barely covered for 2 days??
But more on point, I have this growing disdain for all things that fall under the banner of political labels. There really are no progressives or liberals, no conservatives… just varying gray shades of self obsessed, greedy, over privileged putzes. There is no bipartisanship. Only unfettered elitism. You can come from nothing and by the time you rise up through our system, you’ve become the same elitist you started out trying to combat. You have to in order to reform from within.
We need a new system. One with more options. Doesn’t Germany for example have something like 5 different political parties?
.-= Dave´s last blog ..Handguns: Nothing Like the Movies =-.
Absolutely on this one. You can’t be President is a good non academic quick rad if you haven’t read it, I think everyone should read it.
There has been a lot of Kennedy stuff on here, HBO is running the Kennedy thing, the cable news covered it for a week and as I’m in the D.C. Burbs we get more of it, naturally.
Media loves potential scandal, and Kennedy’s was eons ago, Jackson’s, now murder, was recent. It’s the same reason the media is covering the debacles at the town halls, even though they are really horrible they are not totally representative by any means, but it’s what the public likes – drama.
I’ve always been a little hesitant with Teddy. One time he came to Carbondale, IL where I got to spend a few hours with him. After I got past the huge historicalness of the man, I just couldn’t help but think this guy has never spent a second of his life poor, without insurance, homeless, paying off school loans, or whatnot. Yet nearly all his legislative efforts are aimed at helping people he has nothing in common with.
At the end of the day when it was time for him to fly back to MA, he commented to me that if it’s something you believe in empathy can be your worst enemy. I still don’t get what he meant but his whole life must have been built around that notion.
Needless to say, it’s hard for me to distinguish between a drunken night crossing a creek and invading a country just for the smell of it.
.-= Chris´s last blog ..Jobs =-.
I guess it’s for larger minds than ours, ones that most likely don’t exist, to decide.
I’m still trying to figure out what the significance of Ted Kennedy in history is.
I’d completely forgotten about his involvement with a murder.
Regardless I still don’t know his significance historically. He was the longest known surviving Kennedy brother of JFK?
From the quick glance all that I can surmise is that he is connected to a wealthy family with lots of avid money hungry butt-kissers.
I could be short sited, & wrong, but I don’t know.
.-= Bennet´s last blog ..Sell Some Crazy For The Hazy =-.
He was the champion of progressive legislation for African Americans,Immigrants, sadly – unions which I question now, gays and lesbians, women, fair housing, against against Apartheid and Vietnam and so on and so forth… a lot of things people in the south probably don’t give to f’s about..;)
I contend if he hadn’t done it someone else would have, but what do I know.
Seriously he did some incredible things ….I just think too much I guess.
That all sounds impressive.
You think too much? I do that too, but it”s probably on less political aspects. Probably less sane too.
.-= Bennet´s last blog ..Sell Some Crazy For The Hazy =-.