Ted Kennedy's America

I awoke and saw that after suffering from terminal brain cancer, Senator Ted Kennedy has assumed room temperature. This long term senator from Massachusetts was in no way a political friend of myself. I did not wish for his death, except perhaps as a release from the pain of cancer, which I can only assume is exceptionally painful. The pain that the rest of us feel, however, is how others have used his death for their own purposes.
I find it funny that after someone famous dies, their legacy and life are scrubbed clean, and anything negative that they did in their lives is forgotten for a short time, and if anyone brings it up, then they are a cruel and evil person who is chided by those who praise the person to the rafters. There is a point to being respectful, but stating the truth about someones life is never disrespectful. I would think that glossing over some things would be more disrespectful. Even more so would be to use this temporarily untouchable person to advance a political agenda.
For someone my age, I remember Kennedy for two things, Chappaquiddick and Robert Bork.
Why these two things? To me, they show much more about the double standard that exists between Democrats and Republicans in the national media. Chappaquiddick smells like a rotted fish, and it is difficult to see if Kennedy had been a regular joe that he would not have been charged with a serious crime. The media, forced to mention this incident because of the importance of it, for years refused to press and connect the dots. At the very least, he was responsible for that young woman's death, and this has never been acknowledged.
Bork shows the other side. In an admittedly graphic and persuasive speech, Kennedy painted a picture of Robert Bork's America, a post-apocalyptic hell hole locked down underneath grime and oppression. Even though Senators are protected on the Senate floor against speech restrictions, if such a speech had been printed in the newspaper first, it would be a pristine example of libel. The newspapers dutifully reprinted the speech, calling it news and thus avoid libel. Borking, which is character defamation in the extreme, became standard practice for Supreme Court nominees by Republican Presidents, especially if those nominees would be originalists.
Why are these examples of a double standard? I would be hard pressed to see a Republican get away with a suspicious death, especially since they get pushed out of office for having affairs (i.e. Sanford). Now, both sides seem to have troubles, but it is the Democrats who stay in office (Rangel, Reid, William Jefferson (until recently), Frank), and the Republicans who are forced out. Now, Blago and Spitzer are exceptions in a way, since why they were pushed out was hypocrisy (Spitzer made his name on fighting prostitution in his early days) and blatant law breaking (Blago was unapologetic in soliciting bribes). Republicans have to leave for saying nice things (although politically incorrect) about an old man at his birthday (Lott), tapping their foot on a bathroom floor (Craig), and malevolent false and continual ethics charges (Palin). On the other hand, when it comes to Democrats, one cannot point out the truth about what they have done, much less lie about it or stretch the truth.
Is this the legacy of Senator Kennedy? No, but I don't feel the need to talk about it at length. For me, briefly, his legacy is only a long service to the state of Massachusetts. That's it. Kennedy is just a shining example of the hypocrisy of the current media bias, and that some people truly have no soul.
I ain't talking about Kennedy with this last point. I am talking about those who immediately following his death in their first press statement call for the health insurance reform to pass immediately because "That's was Ted would have wanted.". Now, this is disrespectful and disgusting. Even if it were true, law should never be enacted because a primary supporter has passed on. If this were the case, I want to go back and eliminate the income tax because Ronaldus Magnus, Ronald Reagan the Great, would have wanted it. If I proposed such a thing, there would be rightful calls that I was being disrespectful of the dead, but most of those would be from hypocrites.
Lastly, we should all pray for Kennedy's family. Losing a family member is always hard, especially when they are a public figure. For their sake, after the official mourning of such a long term public servant, we should leave the family to their grief. There is no torch being passed here, no new brother of the Kennedy's (yes, Chris Matthews is an idiot, and a moron. There isn't enough derisive words to describe that bloated bag of feces). There is just the ending of a life.