Edwin Forprogress helpfully comments on one of my postings about Edward Kennedy and briefs us on the legacy of the great man:
Gee, thanks Edwin. But rather than sharing with us Democrat popcorn, pl attempt to answer the question I posed, namely how to assess the morality of building all those dreams on the reality of Mary Jo being left to drown. Which ends justify which means?
Here is a good account of how Senator Kennedy grappled with his gnawing conscience:
Having provided his constituents his self-serving account of the accident, Kennedy pretended to throw himself on their mercy:
The people of this State, the State which sent John Quincy Adams, and Daniel Webster, and Charles Sumner, and Henry Cabot Lodge, and John Kennedy to the United States Senate are entitled to representation in that body by men who inspire their utmost confidence. For this reason, I would understand full well why some might think it right for me to resign. For me this will be a difficult decision to make…
It has been written a man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles, and dangers, and pressures, and that is the basis of human morality. Whatever may be the sacrifices he faces, if he follows his conscience — the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow man — each man must decide for himself the course he will follow.
The stories of the past courage cannot supply courage itself. For this, each man must look into his own soul.
Looking deep into his soul, Edward Kennedy bravely decided to … continue to build his own career, by pumping out legislation. But which of these many laws have really made a bad situation notably better?
Kennedy was, in the turgid term regularly applied to him, the "liberal lion" of the Senate, a principled and unyielding advocate for bigger government, higher taxes, more business regulation, you name it.
Yet many of his signature accomplishments—No Child Left Behind and the Americans with Disabilities Act, for instance—were not pushed through along partisan lines. In each instance, he worked with the respective President Bush and a slew of Republicans at the time to ensure passage.
Which brings me to the second point: The legislation for which he will be remembered is precisely the sort of top-down, centralized legislation that needs to be jettisoned in the 21st century.
Like Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.) and the recently deposed Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Kennedy was in fact a man out of time, a bridge back to the past rather than a guide to the future. His mind-set was very much of a piece with a best-and-the-brightest, centralized mentality that has never served America well over the long haul…
As the world looks aghast as the US government struggles to pay its way well into the future, maybe some of this Dreamy legislation will come to be seen as just a bit too Real?
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