The Lion Roars No More

Senator Edward Kennedy from Massachusetts passed today from brain cancer, the first Kennedy in a while to actually die from natural causes, and I have mixed feelings about his passing. I really tried to like the guy over the last few decades but there was just something about him that I could never really warm up to.

It isn’t the fact that he hauled ass from his car accident in 1969, leaving his mistress for dead. That happened a few months before my birth and when the Apollo astronauts were on their way to the Moon, or in the middle of filming the event if you are a conspiracy theorist douche. It is reprehensible that he got off solely because he is a Kennedy, but having a powerful last name and a shitload of money has always been the “Get out of Jail Free” card.

I checked his voting record and although he has missed 97% of the votes in the current Congress he pretty much voted along party lines most of his career. The last time he voted was 4/2/2009 and he has only casted 8 votes this year. I think that voting record is appalling and would elevate him to douche bag status if it weren’t for the fact that he was in such poor physical condition. Still, he missed a lot of votes and I just went back to the middle of 2007, long before his brain tumor was discovered (May, 2008). Kudos to him for getting his fat ass out of bed to make a speech at the 2008 DNC to give his support for Obama.

For the record, I do cling to the old fashioned belief that politicians are put in office to serve and part of their service is voting on things that will make our lives better or protect us from someone else’s bullshit. I am sure there are other politicians who have similarly shitty voting records but they are not prominent dead leaders of their party, and therefore I have not had the inclination to research their records.


Looking back on Ted’s life as a politician I can only say that whatever good he could/did/should have done was overshadowed by his personal life. He was a contentious drunk and I recall seeing his rosy red cheeks on many occasions. We had a saying in the Navy that went, “One ‘oh shit’ will wipe out 100 attaboys”. So true with Ted over the years.


James Quinn summed up his feelings on Ted's passing:

He killed a woman, leaving her to die in his car and not reporting it. He was a drunk. He divorced his wife. He was a Catholic that supported abortion. He spent taxpayer money on the welfare state like no Senator in history. He helped cover up a rape by his nephew. He began the scorched earth policy of nominees for the Supreme Court with his lies during the Bork nomination. He was a small man who spent your money like a drunken sailor. Without his Kennedy connections, he would have been a nobody. His life was one of decadence and failure.

See? Most of it from Ted’s personal life.

I am not in the habit of mourning crusty, drunken, douche bag career politicians and I will not start with Ted Kennedy. But I can bring forth enough civility to send my condolences to his family.

Rest in peace, butt hole.