When Ted Kennedy redeemed himself

Exactly. Thanks for posting this, Rod.

Thanks Rod - the quote below - coming from the Frum article - always seemed to me to be a very real experience for Robert Kennedy when he quoted it. Perhaps for his brother Ted too.

And even in our sleep,
pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart,
and in our own despair,
against our will,
comes wisdom to us
by the awful grace of God.

I have always found this quote to be so powerful - and so full of truth. That it comes from a pagan Greek - Aeschylus - makes it even more striking.

The Kennedy's were fond of quoting poetry - LOL - truly - a habit not often seen anymore. And how many now could quote from the Greeks?

Listening to the radio - I heard a Rep Senator - forget his name - from Missouri I think - he spoke graciously and with evident sadness about Kennedy. I was especially struck though when he said that if Kennedy had not been so ill, that he would have brought everyone together over health care reform, they'd have a bi partisan bill, and it would be passed by now. While that is a great testimony to Kennedy especially from a Rep - what does it say about the Senate that there is no one else who can do this? Makes you realize how big a loss this is.

Eric, I don't suppose you could be more specific?

You've got to read about the amazing grace Kennedy later showed that revolutionized Frum's opinion of the man.

Which goes to explain why some of us have such utter contempt and loathing of George W. Bush. In the aftermath of 9/11 the country was united in a way not seen since Pearl Harbor (before my time of course).

You'd have to dig deep to feed any prominent liberal outside of committed pacifists who did not support the invasion of Afghanistan.

The political calculations of ginning up the base that Bush utilized in the 2002 and 2004 elections and the run up to the Iraq war shattered that solidarity. Especially as those of us who had supported Afghanistan were now called traitors and worse for asking why we were taking our eye of the ball for this new adventure.

While I could never in my life be brought to vote for a Republican, I could have seen the possibility in the aftermath of 9/11 where I could have lived with neutrality. I am more angry with the ineptitude shown in fighting the Iraq war and the decimation of our armed forces than I am with the decision to invade.

Were there to be another 9/11 sized attack on our homeland I daresay I could not image a similar suspension of politics and unity for Obama from the right. What you didn't hear on 9/12 were demands of how Bush could have allowed this to happen and calls for impeachment. What you did hear were calls for exacting both revenge and justice from just about everyone.

Rod,

Thanks for bringing to our attention Frum's comment about Kennedy's private correspondence with the Olson family following the death of the wife on 9/11.

Thanks also for Erin Manning's insightful post at 3:55 PM.

I apologize for my brittle comments in a previous thread. Growing up in New England it is hard to come away with a dreamy view of the Kennedy family or the way they operate. Moreover, shouldn't we take a dim view of any politician who thinks they're winning favors in Heaven by pretending to "help the downtrodden" by grabbing money out of other people's pockets. If Kennedy felt guilty about his wealth, then he should have given it away.

If any Kennedy deserves to be eulogized, it would have to be Eunice. What she did with the Special Olympics was absolutely spectacular.

Richard - do you think perhaps you may have missed the point of this post? George W. Bush is a man. He is extremely fallible, I disagreed with many of his policies, including the Iraq war. But I think the idea of this post was to challenge us to see that human beings with whom we strongly disagree are still complex human beings with their good and admirable qualities like anyone else, and they are not simply the sum of their political positions.

I can think of a lot of politicians with whom I disagree, whom I think are harming the country by advocating evil policies, are arrogant and venial or just plain stupid and get on my nerves. But I can't think of any for whom I "have utter contempt and loathing." I was actually shocked to see this David Frum person say that he "despised" Ted Kennedy. What the hell? I must be missing something, because that just strikes me as bizarre.

Hattio--the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom Catholics believe was preserved from the stain of Original Sin from the very moment of her conception, and thus lived her whole life free not only from sin but from any attachment to it whatsoever.

and we even used the same moniker (Catholics have about one million ways of naming Mary - Star of the Sea, Hope of Christians, The Blessed Mother, Seat of Wisdom, Mother of the Poor, Our Lady of (Fill in the Blank), Queen of the Angels, and on and on.)

Re: I know the Orthodox disagree on this next, but incidentally this strange mixture of goodness and evil in all of our lives is one of the reasons I think the Catholic Church is correct with the whole notion of Purgatory.

There are some Orthodox who oppose Purgatory simply because it is a Roman Catholic doctrine. More generally though the Orthodox Church simply holds that our knowledge of the afterlife is very limited and we ought not dogmatize unnecessarily on it.

Re: And yet, can we believe that anything less than perfection can stand in the presence of the Beatific Vision?

If Heaven synonymous with the Beatific Vision? I may be wrong but I thought the latter was reserved (in the present Age) for a select few saints who truly had risen that far, but that Heaven was nonetheless home to vast many others who had not.

Cecelia, thank you for clarifying your original comment. I, too, see that my "gentle suggestion" might have been a little less... passive-aggressive, maybe? ;-)

The difference, AML -- and I remind you that I am a pagan and not even an ex-Christian -- is that I grew up with Catholics, I live amongst them still (in an area where they are a majority religion and key community members), and I really couldn't care less about your cynicism.

I don't have a rational answer for why I choose to go to a church for this. I do have a feeling that it is the right way to do it. In my spiritual community, offering energy to another -- something that has a slightly wider scope than Christian prayer and differs in some important ways -- is never done without the intended recipient's permission. Knowing Catholic tradition as I do, and being confident in that knowledge, I believe that I've covered both my personal desire to offer something and my belief system's ethics.

I'm afraid you'll just have to be satisfied with that answer.

He wrote a letter...with all do respect.....Rumsfeld risked his life on Sept 11 to go back into the building and save other peoples lives and I am sure many of Kennedy's fans don't consider him redeemable.

Isn't it curious how none of editorials lead with how Ted's actions and words were intergral to creating an abortion culture..apparently this isn't something worth noting or to be proud of. May God have mercy on us all, including Ted and may He have more empathy for us than Ted did for the unborn.

AML: "Surely T.K. had no particular attachment to the Catholicism except for show."

I couldn't agree more with this comment. Kennedy's personal misconduct over many decades testifies to this. Likewise, his refusal to support even a single measure that would have restricted the most egregious abortions (reference his votes on partial-birth abortions) marks him as someone who did not take to heart the teachings of the RC Church on this issue.

Measured in any way that you wish, he was a secularist. His traded his Catholicism for political success.

so did the Liberal Lion of the Senate ever send a letter of apology to Judge Bork?

why should he have sent a letter apologizing for telling the truth? Bork's record supported every word Kennedy said. I thought at the time that Kennedy's comments were spoken less discretely than the language used at that time - but now of course we call our President a nazi - so Kennedy's comments re: Bork don't seem so tactless anymore. Tactless or not - they were factual.. Bork was a creationsist, he had ruled against civil rights every time he had the opportunity, he believed that illegally obtained evidence should still be allowed in court, he was opposed to laws prohibiting discrimination against women. So why would an apology be necessary?

Unfortunately where Mr. Kennedy now resides they don't have scotch on the rocks and it's hotter than hell. You can't be a catholic and support killing unborn/defenseless babies in the womb. Ted just arrived and looked around and he saw Peter Hennings from ABD daily news. This guy looked for atheist in Israel. God wasn't happy with that. He also saw Michael Hackson. He might have liked little kids in special ways no one is for sure.

Well now. You do get judged in the end now don't you.

IMO TK's entire adult life was spent chasing redemption. His was a life of catholic liberal guilt caused by:

1. His father: made millions as a criminal (bootlegger) and bought his way into politics where he was a nazi sympathizer (prior to 1941) an anti-semite and a bigot.
2. His brothers: Both smarter and much more charismatic than TK. Although their murders were not his doing, IMO he suffered from "survivor's guilt" which is a well know phemonena.
3. Mary Jo Kopeckni. Certainly manslaughter, or perhaps negligent homocide. He was drunk and frightened; he saved himself but not her. Period. And then he lied about it to protect his political amibition and the Kennedy name.
4. A life of drunkeness and adultery. A family trait apparently; there was something fundamentally sick about JFK and RFK too.

TK was an emotional disaster. His pathological quest for redemption took the form of trumpeting the most radical causes on behalf of the poor. Too bad TK didn't realize the damage his policies were doing to the other 90% of the population and, ironically, the damage the policies did to the poor as well. Of course he wouldn't have cared anyway; you see it wasn't really about the poor...it was really all about Teddy.

Revisionists are already creating the Ted Kennedy Legacy. Only those over 40 remember he was kicked out of college for an honor violation, his unforgivable cowardice at Chappaquidick, his alcholism,his lack of courage in supporting civil rights until Pres. Johnson led the way for all Democrats, and finally his treatment of Judges Bork and Alioto during their confirmation hearings. Kennedy should be mourned as any other who dies but he certainly merits nothing of the sort that will occur. Why is this the case?

Some say Ted Kennedy was a drunken baffoon spreading his drunken dereliction around on the Senate floor 24/7.

Well Yeah,

"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, children could not be taught about evolution." If that's what the majority in a state decided, wouldn't he support their right to do most or all of that? Or would it even have to be a majority? Would he overthrow Baker v. Carr (1962 decision requiring state legislative districts to be of approx. equal population) if he could?

Our democratic republic was created explicitly on a balance between individual rights and majority rule. If I had a dollar (adjusted for inflation) for every time someone shouted "rights and liberty!" or "we voted for that/him/her!" in isolation... I'd be rich enough to run for the US Senate. ;-D