August 28, 2009 - The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Ted Kennedy lost his year-long battle with cancer this past week. No matter, the political differences, death is always sad to report.

Nicknamed the “Lion of the Senate”, I’m always struck how only the certain “positive” facts are cited.

All the cable news channels are running round the clock tributes to Kennedy. Yes, he was a great spokesman for his constituents, but he wasn’t MY Senator and he didn’t represent my interests. Nobody is asking how the Kopechee’s or Robert Bork are handling Kennedy’s passing.

As a reminder, here is what Kennedy said on the Senate floor within 45 minutes of Bork’s nomination to the US Supreme Court in 1987.

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy...No justice would be better than this injustice.”

Nice rhetoric.

Additionally, the contradiction between his support for abortion and his divorce, and his very public Roman Catholicism are glossed over.

I feel the passing of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver two weeks ago, had more of an impact based upon her decades of public service outside of the political arena. At any rate, I had Mr. Kennedy in my Derby Dead Pool.

I’ll provide a points update when the new standings come out.