Dennis Prager: "There is great benefit to the liberal sinner in being a liberal."

I commend Dennis Prager for being able to write an article like this. No Weiner jokes, just straight-ahead wisdom and truth about the widespread evidence that liberalism enables bad behavior. (Of course I appreciate Weiner jokes as much as the next conservative male....) Excerpt:

Consider the example of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. He had been expelled from college for paying someone to take his exams. His role in the death of a woman with whom he spent an evening would have sent almost anyone without his family name to prison -- or would have at least resulted in prosecution for negligent homicide. And he spent decades using so many women in so public a way that stories about his sex life were routinely told in Washington. Read the 9,000-word 1990 article in GQ by Michael Kelly, who a few years later became the editor of the New Republic.

When this unimpressive man started espousing liberal positions, speaking passionately about the downtrodden in society, it recalled the unimpressive students who marched on behalf of civil rights, peace and love.

It is quite likely that Ted Kennedy came to believe in the positions that he took. But I also suspect that he found espousing those positions invaluable to his self-image and to his public image: "Look at what a moral man I am after all." And liberal positions were all that mattered to the left and to the liberal media that largely ignored such lecherous behavior as the "waitress sandwich" he made in a Washington, D.C. restaurant with another prominent liberal, former Senator Chris Dodd.

Quick Thought on Kennedy's Letter to Pope

Here's a quickie in honor of Ted Kennedy who liked quickies, especially at lunchtime. It's based on this article about "scholars" studying the letters between The Big Guy and the Pope. This is the line that caught my eye, on page 2:

In both instances, only excerpts from the letters were read aloud, so it is not known whether other subjects, such as Kennedy’s support for abortion rights, were discussed in the correspondence.

OK, well I guess they left out all the unimportant stuff. Or... maybe Teddy knew the real Third Secret? Unclear.

When I read the letter, my first impression was that it represented a half-hearted grasp of a morally confused, dying man, unconscious of his pomposity and self-importance. This was my second and third impression as well. Possibly he actually thought he was being deeply humble, even as he had the letter hand delivered by the President of the United States. However, God is the ultimate judge, and as always, your mileage may vary, as we say on the internets.

Golf Joke / Kennedy Joke

Oh, here's another good one to add to my small heap from the other night.

Q: Ted Kennedy, OJ Simpson, Heidi Fleiss, and John Wayne Bobbit are playing golf together. Who wins?

A: None of them. O.J. slices, Heidi hooks, Bobbit has no putter, and Ted Kennedy can't drive over water.

(Heh, heh. He said "putter.")

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Couldn't find many good Ted Kennedy jokes online

I was really disappointed, but I found a few. They were from really dumb sites which contained some I didn't like for various reasons, so I'm not going to bother linking them. But since we're assuming Ted went to Heaven (right?) we know he'll be laughing at these. Let's laugh along with him, shall we.

Ted Kennedy has been sober since August 25, 2009.

Q: Why did Teddy Kennedy's staff call him "Mr. Bookmark"?
A: He can most often be found wedged between two pages.

Ted Kennedy had a plan to stimulate the Auto industry, but his program was called “Cash for Kerplunkers”.

How did people find out Ted was dead? He didn’t show up to the bar this morning.

With news of Ted’s death, the Massachusetts liquor industry is now going to need a bailout.

Q: What did Ted Kennedy's office staff do when they need to refill the
petty cash drawer?
A: Turn in all of Teddy's empties.

If the Liberals can talk about Camelot then we can talk about the Lady in the Lake.

Ted Kennedy never became president because unlike George Washington, he couldn’t cross a river.

Q: What do you call a Kennedy, vodka, and water?
A: A fuzzy recollection.

Ted Kennedy would have passed away a long time ago if only the government could find a safe place to bury his liver.

Did you hear the latest about Iran? There’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that Jane Fonda is going to Tehran. The good news is that Ted Kennedy is driving her to the airport.

Q: How many Kennedys does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two: one to hold the lightbulb, and one to drink until the room spins.

Teddy: The "Third Tower"

From Fred Barnes' article:

Of course, if Obama follows Kennedy's path, he will retain the affection of one important group until the end: the press corps. The senator's death was treated in the media as the tragic loss of an irreplaceable leader of the nation. One journalist reported that on Martha's Vineyard, where Kennedy took his holidays in the summer, "it feels a bit like 9/11... end-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy".

So... where are the truthers? Was Kennedy's cancer an "inside job"? No, don't answer that, please.

Postmortem Rehab Begins

From CNN: "Kennedy called a man of quiet faith". Sure, I'll buy it. But was he quiet in any other aspect of his life? Or was his faith the only thing about which he was quiet?

Damaged III?

Via Tammy Bruce. Henry Rollins--the "Lion of the American Punk Senate"--asks "Where's Mary Jo Kopechne's Eulogy?":

Not Far Under The Surface. Let’s say I am driving myself and a passenger in my car at night. I accidentally drive off a bridge into the water below. I am able to get out of the submerged vehicle but for some reason, I am unable to free the passenger. I gather two friends, a relative and my lawyer and return to the scene. We are unable to rescue the person trapped in the car. Several hours later, myself nor the two others I took to the site have called the authorities. In fact, it’s two fishermen who find the car the next morning as even then, no one has been called to the scene. The car is removed from the water and it is determined that its occupant is dead. This tragic incident is made international news by my circumstances. I am very well known, a United States senator. My family is incredibly powerful. There are allegations that I had been drinking heavily hours up to the time I got into the vehicle with the passenger. I deny this for the rest of my life. That at no point did I make an attempt to call for rescue would probably be considered by many people to be outrageous and horrible, perhaps a crime that would carry a prison sentence. Can you imagine what the parents of the deceased would be going through when they found out that their 28-year-old daughter died alone in total darkness? I serve no time. Not inconvenienced by the burdensome obstacle of incarceration, I seek to maintain my elected position. I am successful and remain a senator for the next four decades. Would any deed I performed in that time, besides going to prison for the negligent homicide I committed all those years ago, be enough to wipe the slate clean? After my passing, would you fail to mention the incident and the death of this innocent person in reviewing the events of my long and lauded life? You wouldn't forget about her, would you? That would be negligent.

Poetic.

Don't think Rollins is a Lion? Well, hear him roar.

Crunchy Kennedy Commentary by Pikkumatti

[the following guest-post was submitted by Dallas correspondent, Pikkumatti.]

Nothing livens up the Pauli-blog like a little of the Crunchy One's fine work. Well, down here in Dallas, we are frequently treated by some of Rod Dreher's output landing on our front door step. In today's edition of the local rag,, we get the following moral relativism, Crunchy-style, regarding the Greatest Senator of Our Time:

Today, it's almost unthinkable that a politician could get away with what Ted Kennedy did, which is good. Still, it's worth thinking about how much we lose because a Ted Kennedy is not really possible today.

Whatever their motives, if the people of that era hadn't been so tolerant of a Ted Kennedy's vices, America would have been a different place – and, for liberals, a worse place. Why are so many great men also morally mad? Moralism may make for a more sane politics – it's certainly more sanitized since the day the priapic lion of the Senate roared after whisky-soaked lunches at Capitol Hill brasseries – but it also makes the world safer for mediocrity.

The great thing about writing a blog post about what Rod Dreher writes is that his words speak for themselves.

[P.S. For a description of what Crunchy refers to as "Ted Kennedy's vices", I refer to the GQ article by the late great Michael Kelly. According to Rod Dreher, if only we would tolerate a few "whiskey-soaked lunches" like those described in the article, we would continue to receive the greatness that comes with it. Good thing Senator Dodd continues to serve, or we'd have to muddle along without his great leadership, too (read the Kelly article).]

Ted Kennedy's shamelessness

Even in his last hours, Kennedy was ever the Machiavellian prince. When I read the first part of this Taranto piece to my wife, who's not as political as me, she quipped "These people are like children; they never grew up." Well, yeah, and I guess that their parents are to be found among the citizenry they govern who bear the brunt of their childishness.

Kennedy's shamelessness in urging repeal of a law he himself pushed for was either appalling or admirable, depending on your point of view. To conservatives, it was a pure partisan power play: Kennedy favored whatever gave Democrats a tactical advantage, procedural fairness be damned. To liberals, however, it was an act of idealism: Kennedy had spent a career trying to advance "universal health care"—which to him and them is a matter of basic justice—and the Bay State vacancy could make the difference between ObamaCare's passing or failing. To our mind, the conservatives have the better of the argument, though we must concede that Kennedy's motives likely did have an ideological component as well as a partisan one.

It's also true, as Michael Barone has observed, that "all procedural arguments are insincere, including this one." One could argue that Kennedy's brazenly instrumentalist appeal to Beacon Hill has the virtue of honesty. But democracy depends on procedural fairness and the appearance of procedural fairness, even if all political players have ulterior motives whenever they promote such fairness. By this standard, Kennedy's effort to change the Massachusetts law without even a pretense of concern for fairness was objectionable, and that is true even if we are objecting insincerely.

This is why it's called a machine. Republican in office? throw this switch. Democrat in office? pull it back. Just like a friggin' railroad.

John Kass Says Good Riddance to Camelot

I agree with him; "'tis a silly place".

His is a good article, avoiding invectives and shooting for the almost impossible journalistic objectivity when dealing with the mythologized celebrity of the Kennedy family. His conclusion deals with an image which could have changed our political iconography substantially.

During her interview with White, Mrs. Kennedy also spoke of drama and history in those moments before photographers made the iconic pictures on the day the president was assassinated.

"Everybody kept saying to me to put a cold towel around my head and wipe the blood off. Later I saw myself in the mirror, my whole face spattered with blood and hair. ... I wiped it off with Kleenex. ... History! ... I thought, no one really wants me there. Then one second later, I thought, why did I wash the blood off? I should have left it there. Let them see what they've done.

"If I'd just had the blood and caked hair when they took the picture. ... Then later I said to Bobby -- what's the line between history and drama? I should have kept the blood on."

That line between history and drama for the Kennedys was never very thick, like the line between American realism and our yearning for royalty, and for comforting political myths.

He's right about the confusion of drama with history where the Kennedys are concerned. I'm not sure I "yearn for royalty" as an American, though. To me and many others, the neck brace on young Teddy at Mary Jo's funeral is the best icon of the Kennedys: it’s all about appearances, perceptions of the camera, excuses, an officially-accepted narrative for followers to trumpet and getting people to feel sorry for you when others suffer more.

Ted Kennedy was Pro-life

...until he sold out.

"When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception." - Senator Edward Kennedy, 1971

Source.

More Ted K Commentary

For serious and extensive commentary on the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, check out this Fark page. 1673 comments and counting. Some great pictures, too.