Everything Matters

Kennedy’s Death Brings Admiration – Most Overly Generous

Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy’s death is being met today with showers of praise from the media and his fellow politicians. But let’s be completely objective about this. Senator Kennedy was no saint and associating him with principle may be a far-flung stretch.
Kennedy, the liberal senator from Massachusetts, succumbed at the age of 77 after a 15-month battle with brain cancer. Kennedy had a career in public service like his brothers.

He was in the United States Senate for 47 years and distinguished as one of the most effective and hardworking senators in Washington. He was a zealous congressman that wasn’t afraid to reach across party lines in order to get things done.

During his years in office, he wrote 2,500 bills, although only a fraction of them were passed. As a member of the Senate, he served as a chief force for social legislation. He was a promoter for health care, immigration, civil rights, education, and more. He has been distinguished as one of the most capable members in the history of the Senate and a subject of passionate interest for students of political science.

With that shining gloss-over of his career, we can really discuss Ted Kennedy. He was successful largely because of the sway and power his family held. With the Kennedys’ rise to influence, many Americans came to think of the Kennedys as a visionary King Arthur over a modern-day Camelot which in the end makes Ted, as the patriarch of the Kennedys, the rightful ruler and dynastic heir to the presidency. What a crock!

Here are the facts, which paint a clear picture of his contentious history. He managed to get in trouble, but always seemed to come out on top because of the clout his family had. In his early days, Ted was thrown out of Harvard for dishonesty. He only got back into the school years later because his daddy pulled some strings and gave some incentives to the “top dogs” at Harvard.
However, Kennedy was just beginning his long-running affair with unethical behavior.

In 1969, he was involved in an accident famously known as Chappaquiddick. Kennedy had a few drinks and had driven off a bridge. The young lady with him, a former aide to his brother and his alleged lover, died in the wreck. Kennedy managed to pull himself out of the wreck, leaving the young woman in the car, and save himself, but he did not notify authorities for 9 hours. Are you freaking kidding me?

It sounds like he was worried about his career, his marriage, and only came forward because he knew that eventually people would find out and he would really be in trouble. Plus if he came forward, he would be able to give some excuses why he didn’t report the happening, and buffering himself from the criminal charges that should have come his way and hampered his political aspirations. Ted was a real gentleman that never believed or acted like he was above the law- or quit planning for his future.

Americans knew that Teddy had deep pockets along with being a womanizer and a heavy drinker. He didn’t win the Democratic primary in the 1980 presidential election because the American people remembered the skeletons in his closet and didn’t want the Kennedy family money and clout again in the presidency. Despite how tragic the circumstances were, one Kennedy as president was enough. Even the Democrats had to admit that Kennedy’s lack of morals or judgment would kill their chances at the White House.

After Chappaquiddick, his life started to decline. He and his wife divorced in 1982, and, by 1984, Teddy knew that he would never succeed in a bid for the White House. Plus, he was probably anxious about whether he would be assassinated just like his brothers. So he decided to focus on the only thing he had left, his career as a senator.

Because of the efforts of his two older brothers, Ted was able to get on the fast track in politics. Although his turbulent background did hamper his attempt for the White House, it didn’t seem to be an issue for the constituents he was representing in Massachusetts.

Years after his demise, Sen. Kennedy will remain a subject of curiosity for political pundits and political science students alike in both his successes and his indubitable mistakes.

Obtain pragmatic information about genealogy – read this webpage.

Tags: Politics
Posted in Politics · April 5th, 2010 · Comments (0)

Why GOP Health Care Reform Lies Will Lead To Big Losses For The GOP In 2010 & 2012

After over a year of battle with the Republicans, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party were able to make Health Care Reform the new law of the US.

It’s pretty difficult to exaggerate the importance of this victory for Obama and the Democrats. It is a legislative victory so big that it propels President Obama into the debate about the top Presidents of the past 100 years. Universal health care coverage has been a goal for forward thinking Americans since Theodore Roosevelt first proposed the idea about 100 years ago.

And as big as the win is for President Obama, it’s just as big of a loss for the Republicans because they put all of their chips in on trying to defeat the bill and they got beat. Far right wing GOP Senator Jim Demint said that he thought the Republicans could “break” Obama if they could just defeat his health care reform bill. He said it could be his “Waterloo” but instead as former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum noted in a recent column, it is now the GOP’s “Waterloo.”

The reason for this is because all of the outrageous lies that the the Republicans and the health insurance industry told about health care reform only “work” if the reform never becomes the law. In that case they can say that they “defended America” from something and since it was never realized there’d be no solid proof that they were lying. This is how Newt Gingrich and the rest of the Republicans won huge in 1994 after beating President Clinton’s attempt at health care reform.

But luckily for America health care reform is now law and average Americans will inevitably find that they actually like the changes made by the bill because they are very positive for the vast majority of Americans.

The Republican party is now campaigning for the November elections with the preposterous slogan “Repeal and Replace” but this slogan will seem increasingly ridiculous as everyday folks find out what a huge positive the reform really is in their own lives. A majority of the American people will realize that the GOP has done nothing but tell lies about health care for months on end and this will probably lead to a very good November for the Democrats this year.

Tags: Democrats, Health Care Reform, Politics, President Obama, Republicans
Posted in Politics · April 1st, 2010 · Comments (0)