Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Best Wishes to Ted Kennedy

RSI wishes Ted Kennedy the best in his treatment for brain cancer.

I have to admit that I haven't been a fan of the Kennedy family since I was a kid. It's not like President Kennedy didn't do some admirable things. Getting the country through the Cuban Missile Crisis without a shot fired was certainly remarkable. But time has revealed that the Camelot aura was more a product of celebrity fluff and media promotion than anything else. The towering political figures of the sixties were Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson.

But I still have a soft spot for Ted Kennedy.

Having been given unlimited opportunity, Ted Kennedy finally started cashing in on his second chances later in life and really became what John McCain today called "the single most effective member of the Senate."

Good for him! In the final analysis, Ted Kennedy will probably emerge as the most significant of the Kennedy brothers.

I'd just like to live in a society where everybody got as many chances as Ted Kennedy.

3 comments:

Cecil said...

I second your sentiment.

People here in Massachusetts are in shock about the whole affair.

Ric Caric said...

No surprise about the shock in Massachusetts. Either Teddy or his brothers have been in office there since the fifties.

Anonymous said...

Teddy is the best of the lot. His older brothers were not impressive (though I quite agree about LBJ and MLK.) He is without question one of the greatest Statesmen to serve as a United States Senator.

The only real mistake the man ever made was very recent; his endorsement of Barak Obama. Perhaps a side-effect of the brain cancer and I do not say that jokingly. It was an odd irrational choice but one could hardly fault him that one error stacked against a lifetime of devotion to the country he so loves.

Ted Kennedy's country still needs him. He is not done yet and so my prayers and thoughts are with him.