Thursday, August 27, 2009

Voting for Ted Kennedy

The Kennedy tributes continue to flow. You get the feeling that the liberal media has to continue to lay it on thick so that the underbelly never shows.
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But there is a undeniable resentment to Kennedy that the media is pushing past.
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I remember years ago, when I was skiing at Attitash in New Hampshire and going up the ski lift with a talkative New York guy. We introduced ourselves after getting on the lift and I told him that I was from Massachusetts. The guy immediately went on a diatribe regarding Ted.... Chappaquidick.... yada, yada, yada.... then asked how we in Massachusetts voted for him over and over again.
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A lot of what he said was pure logic. But I told him that I had voted for Kennedy on any occasion that I saw him on the ballot.... even though I substantially agreed with the points that this New York skier made.
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Though I had never examined the reason before, I told him that I voted for Ted Kennedy, not because of him, but because of the promise that the Kennedy's brought. For his brothers John and Bobby, for my Irish Catholic parents who sat at the kitchen table crying as I came home from school in the sixth grade during November and found out that President John Kennedy had been shot that day. For the incredible speech that Ted Kennedy made at St. Patrick's Cathedral at the occasion of Bobby's funeral. These are the reasons I voted for Ted Kennedy.
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Like a liberal, I voted for Ted because of emotions and feelings of what could have been.... not because of the facts.
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But despite the dark mistakes, the tragedy that beset this man and his ability to remold, and rebuild, and help people on an individual level has made his life a tough loss.