R.I.P. Ted Kennedy
Senator Ted Kennedy passed away early Wednesday morning. He had been suffering for over a year from the effects of brain cancer. Kennedy was a fixture in Congress, where he was known as the “Lion of the Senate.” He was a great champion for those causes he believed in. To me, Kennedy’s is a story of trial, struggle, and personal redemption. I cannot imagine the agony of losing two brothers, and that loss is made particularly bitter by the fact that Robert and John Kennedy were both taken by assassin’s bullets. Ted’s own career was not without its share of controversy; the low point coming when he drove a car off of a bridge in a stupor. That accident which took place in July of 1969 caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year old woman who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s Presidential campaign. Since that time, Ted Kennedy went on to be a prominent Senator. He took an ill-fated run at the Presidency in 1980 when he ran against the Incumbent Jimmy Carter. Carter won the Democratic nomination handily but went on to lose badly to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s Kennedy seemed to become embroiled in one embarrassing event after the next – all sexually tinged and apparently fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. Frankly, in reading through the litany of minor and major personal scandals Kennedy was involved in, I’m surprised he could have held a position as the local dog-catcher – much less serve in the Senate for 46 years! But I digress. Somehow, during the Clinton years, Kennedy managed to reform his image as a lecherous boozer and continued to be a prominent champion of the Democratic Party. Through it all Kennedy was vastly productive. His influence is imprinted on tomes of legislation. A few lasting pieces include Title 9, which granted women’s athletics in schools the same resources as their male equivalents, the vote being extended to 18 year olds, and an array of civil rights legislation. In recent years he stood against the Iraq War and was an ardent advocate for healthcare reform. Along with Eunice, Ted represents the passing of a generation of the Kennedy family.
Obama – Multi-Tasker in Chief
President Obama boasted during his campaign that he would be able to do more than one thing at a time, and to a degree I’d have to say he is keeping to that promise. In the midst of the raging health-care debate, the Obama administration decided to jump into the controversial torture debate. By releasing classified documents that detail the torture techniques employed, the administration has enflamed passions on both sides of the argument; the liberals are seething about the human rights abuses, and the right-wingers are pissed off about the release of materials that they feel compromises American security. The most prominent proponent of the harsh interrogation techniques, former Vice President Dick Cheney, went on a speaking tour before the release of the memos; stating his opinion that, from the interrogations, the Bush administration was able to glean actionable intelligence that saved lives.
Give Me Liberty, but not if it’s too Scary Out There!
Senator Ted Kennedy passed away early Wednesday morning. He had been suffering for over a year from the effects of brain cancer. Kennedy was a fixture in Congress, where he was known as the “Lion of the Senate.” He was a great champion for those causes he believed in. To me, Kennedy’s is a story of trial, struggle, and personal redemption. I cannot imagine the agony of losing two brothers, and that loss is made particularly bitter by the fact that Robert and John Kennedy were both taken by assassin’s bullets. Ted’s own career was not without its share of controversy; the low point coming when he drove a car off of a bridge in a stupor. That accident which took place in July of 1969 caused the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year old woman who had worked on Robert Kennedy’s Presidential campaign. Since that time, Ted Kennedy went on to be a prominent Senator. He took an ill-fated run at the Presidency in 1980 when he ran against the Incumbent Jimmy Carter. Carter won the Democratic nomination handily but went on to lose badly to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s Kennedy seemed to become embroiled in one embarrassing event after the next – all sexually tinged and apparently fueled by copious amounts of alcohol. Frankly, in reading through the litany of minor and major personal scandals Kennedy was involved in, I’m surprised he could have held a position as the local dog-catcher – much less serve in the Senate for 46 years! But I digress. Somehow, during the Clinton years, Kennedy managed to reform his image as a lecherous boozer and continued to be a prominent champion of the Democratic Party. Through it all Kennedy was vastly productive. His influence is imprinted on tomes of legislation. A few lasting pieces include Title 9, which granted women’s athletics in schools the same resources as their male equivalents, the vote being extended to 18 year olds, and an array of civil rights legislation. In recent years he stood against the Iraq War and was an ardent advocate for healthcare reform. Along with Eunice, Ted represents the passing of a generation of the Kennedy family.
Obama – Multi-Tasker in Chief
President Obama boasted during his campaign that he would be able to do more than one thing at a time, and to a degree I’d have to say he is keeping to that promise. In the midst of the raging health-care debate, the Obama administration decided to jump into the controversial torture debate. By releasing classified documents that detail the torture techniques employed, the administration has enflamed passions on both sides of the argument; the liberals are seething about the human rights abuses, and the right-wingers are pissed off about the release of materials that they feel compromises American security. The most prominent proponent of the harsh interrogation techniques, former Vice President Dick Cheney, went on a speaking tour before the release of the memos; stating his opinion that, from the interrogations, the Bush administration was able to glean actionable intelligence that saved lives.
Give Me Liberty, but not if it’s too Scary Out There!
This kind of gets under my skin; what Cheney and company are proposing is a sort of “smoking gun” scenario. The example I hear time and again is this: “what if your mother or sister were kidnapped, and you were able to grab one of the kidnappers? If the lives of your relatives hung in the balance, would you torture the kidnapper to get information?” It is such a disingenuous argument on so many levels. By claiming we are at war with this amorphous group of people called “terrorists” who are purported to be always plotting the death and destruction of Americans and America, the right-wingers have essentially declared that there is a constantly smoking gun, and that the kidnapped sibling scenario is always in play. Following that logic through to its conclusion, there is no reason for them to draw a line anywhere. They are suggesting that they have the right, no, the obligation, to stop at nothing to insure the security of Americans from an eminent threat of attack. It is a stunningly dubious proposition.
The torture of foreign “enemies” is one thing; the abridgement of our fundamental rights here in the U.S. another. Our founding fathers were not interested in limited freedom depending on the circumstances of the time. The founding fathers knew that there was a risk that came with being a free people – and that risk was so great that it often involved death. But they were willing to die for the cause they believed in.
Don’t let the bastards scare you.
madbob@madbob.com
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