kennedy | 40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50

I have been reading that many wonder whether such a flawed person could have been re-elected so many times in the age of the 24-hour news REcycle.

I would like to believe that we recognize that we all have flaws and moral failings. It is hypocrisy that we cannot abide. And maybe, too, the lies that seek to cover up the hypocrisy.

Sen. Kennedy was human and so he is flawed. He was born into wealth and into the closest thing this nation has to an aristocracy. He lost his brothers by violence, two of them by assassination. The dreams and hopes of a mourning nation broke his shoulders. He also is responsible for the death of a young woman and possibly two passengers on a private plane. He was the adult at a drinking party where a rape occurred. He had affairs and abused alcohol.

He never pretended to anything other than a flawed man and he used his wealth and name to do good for others. He didn’t use others to create his wealth and name. That is why his political career would have survived the 24-hour news REcycle.

Much to my relief, the news reports do not paint a saintly portrait of Ted Kennedy.

Sen. Kennedy was an effective legislator and a champion of causes important to those not born into wealth. He was a complicated man from a complicated family. He lost three brothers violently. First, Joe in the carnage of WWII, followed by John and Bobby by assassination. He drank. He left a woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, to die in the water when he drove his car off a bridge. His personal life seemed out of control, until the 1990s.

People are complicated. When they die, they don’t shed the complexity. Their deaths force us to contemplate the messy wholes that don’t fit well into eulogies.

Elie Wiesel once said that only a victim can forgive his tormentor. He is right. We can laud Sen. Kennedy for all he did to make our nation a more perfect union, but only the Kopechnes can tell us whether on balance his good deeds outweighed his failings.

For me, I hope he rests in peace.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Tag Archives: kennedy

Sen. Ted Kennedy, part 2

I would like to believe that we recognize that we all have flaws and moral failings. It is hypocrisy that we cannot abide. And maybe, too, the lies that seek to cover up the hypocrisy.

He never pretended to anything other than a flawed man and he used his wealth and name to do good for others. He didn’t use others to create his wealth and name. That is why his political career would have survived the 24-hour news REcycle.

Senator Ted Kennedy