Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Teddy Kennedy



Whenever a political figure dies I think half the populous is annoyed that all their misdeeds are ignored and the other half just wants to celebrate the accomplishments. Of course, Teddy Kennedy is no different. Almost immediately I heard people on twitter talking about preserving his memory by getting the Health care bill through, but there were also those pointing to Chappaquiddick and thinking he was not such a great individual. Both are probably right in my view, which was the point of my tweet last night "Politicians do crazy, creepy, unexplainable things in personal lives. I try to weigh that against their service to the country".
I know Chappaquiddick was unforgivable, but I also wonder if we know the whole story. The Kennedy's have a lot of people who really don't like them, as exemplified by the murder of Teddy's two brothers. There has always been rumors of mob involvement...maybe there is more to the story, I don't know??? All I'm saying is that everything is not always as it seems.
I know in my personal life there are people I dearly love who have done some not great things, infidelity, theft, even being involved in murder. But all of them have extenuating circumstances, that I'm sure don't matter to their victims but I look at and think "OK I don't know what I would do in there shoes." and for that reason cannot judge or at least choose not to.
I do think that Senator Kennedy has done a great job as a senator for Massachusetts for more than 40 years and that does warrant some credit. He has worked for this country tirelessly and for that he deserves, in my opinion, to be respected not blindly but wholly as a human being that made some huge mistakes but also did his best to raise us all up.

2 comments:

Donna said...

I agree with you, Elise. We should honor Kennedy's service to his country - it doesn't mean we have forgotten or forgiven him for Chappaquidick.

Unknown said...

Good words Elise!