Quote:
Originally Posted by UGAalum94
KSigRC,
Thanks for pointing out that a complete reaction to Ted Kennedy's death might not simply involve hagiography.
|
Maybe I'm giving people too much credit, but I think people fully understand the flaws in Kennedy's background, the dark parts in his past. People understand about the cheating at Harvard, Chappaquidick (and the lack of reacion afterwards), the William Kennedy Smith trial, etc. In each of the retrospectives I've seen on Kennedy's life (both on TV and in the news), those topics have been addressed.
I think the other side to it is addressed in comments like buck1, and comments I've heard from friends in conversation, on Facebook, etc. The whole of his life wasn't the mistakes, just like the whole of his life wasn't the work he did in the Senate. I think the problem is when people say "Well, Mary Jo died, so nothing he did since then is important."
My feelings? As I said above, although I didn't agree with a lot of his political stances, I think that the work he did for Massachusetts was pretty incredible, and I don't know that anyone can ever fill that void. His work for the Commonwealth, for me, epitomized how an elected official should look out for their state/city/etc. At the same time, I'm (and I think, everyone else in this thread is) fully aware that Kennedy had some dark areas of his life that shouldn't be forgotten.
Threaded Mode
