It’s hilarious. I’m too drunk to recreate it for you, but basically, Ted Kennedy, the most sad-sack figure in history—because his political successes were utterly overwhelmed by loss and sadness and alcoholism and tragedy and a puffy face and [insert one or two more free-floating pejoratives here]—has died at his house in Cape Cod…
Christopher Frizzelle was The Stranger's print editor, and first joined the staff in 2003. He was the editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2016, and edited the story by Eli Sanders that won a 2012 Pulitzer... More by Christopher Frizzelle
What’s interesting is that, in the end, Ted accomplished more in his life, than his better known deified brothers (and, screw you, trolls:)
“Ted Kennedy, however, gets labeled a drunken philanderer, despite having spent the past forty years pushing through every piece of progressive legislation that really mattered. The 1965 immigration reforms, the post-watergate campaign finance reforms, COBRA, ADA, Family and Medical Leave, SCHIP: you name it, he helped pass it. He almost single-handedly saved us from Associate Justice Robert Bork, was perhaps the first major national Democrat to support marriage equality, and had the balls to call for a nuclear freeze and oppose the invasion of Iraq when few others did. But, you know, there was that Chappaquiddick thing, so screw him.
…But damned if he didn’t do more to improve the lives of America’s poor than anyone else in government. And damned if most of the too-few positive aspects of our nation’s health care system can’t be laid squarely at his feet.”
http://minipundit.typepad.com/minipundit…
http://www.tommcmahon.net/2009/06/the-19…
@53 – thank you.
TED KENNEDY WAS A WOTHLESS DRIED UP PIECE OF CRAP. ALL HE WAS FOR, WAS BIGGER GOV’T AND MORE CONTROL OVER THE PEOPLE. HE WANTED THE RICH RICHER AND THE POOR POORER.
but doesn’t that pretty well sum it up? alcoholic, harvard expelled, manslaughterer of pregnant young mistress, drinks himself to death? waitresses in DC will no longer have to fear being vomited on. what’s not to like?
what’s so great about the “immigration reforms”? we have the russian mafia, vietnamese street gangs, the tong and MS13 as a result of that. they make the italian mafia look like romper room.
not to mention 20 millions illegals sucking up public funds and having anchor babies trying to stay here. what the heck did we need people from non-northern european countries to flood our shores for? where’s the advantage in that?
and what’s so great about progressivism if it leads to marxist socialism and tax and spend bullshit?
i fear that YOU are the troll here.
53. And what’s funny is that the next time a Republican gets caught drinking heavily, most of the liberals on Slog will slam on him/her for being a drunk, after telling us to deify a Democrat while overlooking the fact that he hit the bottle harder than Ike hit Tina every Tuesday.
I mean, not to insist on vilifying Ted. I don’t, and actually, I totally understand if you don’t think we should vilify him at all provided he has a productive track record. But if you’re going to absolve Ted Kennedy’s drinking problem, don’t rush to vilify your enemies the next time they get caught pounding the bottle, because that only makes you look as retardedly hypocritical as the average Republican nutbar after insisting we give Ted Kennedy’s legacy a free pass. Be consistent with your cracks and criticism, and this is the route you choose to take, stick to criticizing other people’s decisions, not their tendencies with alcohol.
What a lot of emotion! “Liberal Democrats” are “deifying” Sen. Kennedy. “Conservative Republicans” are calling him nasty names. I’d love to see a news article or obituary that said “He did this this and this good thing” but “he did this this and this bad thing.” Life isn’t just black or white. Yes there are Hitlers and Jeffrey Dahmers, as well as Mother Theresas and Dalai Lamas. The reality is that 99.9% of us are somewhere in the middle, include Sen. Kennedy. Elvis Presley had an abysmal personal life, but no-one denies his talent as a singer. Ted Kennedy has an abysmal personal life, but no-one should deny his ability as a legislator. Certainly Sen. McCain and many other (Republican) senators don’t. Let’s get some perspective here, people!
Umm, #52. . .I thought it was patriotism and democracy that created America. My bad.
Seriously, why did it used to be “Democracy vs. Totalitarianism” and now it is “Capitalism vs. Communism”? I am more interested in how I am governed and how much I can think, than whether or not I can make tons of money. Guess I’m just not a good American.
Here’s what I want to know:
How many more seniors are going to have to keep their jobs well into their 70s, while dying of brain cancer, because we do not yet have universal health care coverage?
I used to watch Fox all day while working but since Fox publicly chose to not cover one of President OBAMA’s speeches I stopped watching and won’t allow it in my office. I want my news unbias. Fox has drawn a line in its own republican sand. I am no longer republican and I am no longer Fox.
Kurt
Denver
62
plenty, we hope
Alcoholism and other substance and non-substance is now widely accepted as the result of two factors: a genetic predisposition AND learning the behavior over many sessions. Many of the Kennedys have addictive biological predispositions (they probably did not know it at the time) and they drank alcohol. Those who drank or used drugs received especially power reward to the opioid systems in their brains. One the addiction is entrenched and grows stronger — the circuitry and wiring driving the pathways linking the opioid receptors into superdeveloped pathways (highways) … they never go away. Craving remains high and the Alcohol, Deprication Effect kicks in. Eventually most alcoholics and drug addicts relapse – NIAAA, NIDA, WHO say most do so within a few months of traditional treatment ending…. and this is wht Ted Kennedy and his nephew kept relapsing….. there is a new way from Finland called the Sinclair Method – it was pioneered by the Finnisha Nalional Health Institute by an American neuroscientist, David Sinclair ….. If the recently published book The Cure for Alcoholism about the treatment had been available to the Kennnedy clan — and George McGovern who lost his daughter Terry to alcoholism (she froze to death) …. there is an 80 % chance that neither Mary Jo nor Terry would have died….. alcoholism takes 1.8 million lives worldwide, it costs the US $278 billion annually and takes 105,000 lives according to the AMA… The Sinclair Method is not yet widely known because the medication used as part of the program (3 to 4 months) is generic and there is no pharmaceutical company profit incentive among other things. Besides the Sinclair Method is cost-effective and would probably threaten the $6.2 billion rehab industry in the US …most of us know that traditional rehab fails – it’s a lucrative revolving door ranging from $20,000 to $65,000 (in Malibu) per 28 day talk therapy treatment….. until the US adopts evidence based approaches to addiction it will continue to suffer from alcohol and other addictions at epidemic levels (18 million problem drinkers in the US alone) … all of this is explained in a book on the tried and tested treatment from Finland — The Cure for Alcoholism, Benbella Books, Dallas, 2008
@64 Funny that you would wish anyone should hurry up and die so you don’t have to pay for their ongoing health care, because you’re lucky enough to have coverage from an insurance company (that more or less wishes the exact same thing of you once they have to start paying out).
66
not just funny- hysterical, actually.
i don’t wish they hurry up and die, i just hope they keep working.
i don’t have insurance because i am lucky, i have it because i pay $2200 a month for a policy with a $5000 deductible per person.
i have not and don’t dare use it myself, however, for fear of how high my premiums will go if i ever do.
when i take my children to the doctor or hospital, however, i am lucky enough to be charged three times the actual cost to make up for the uninsured who get their treatment without paying.
also where my luck kicks in is that i get to pay 12.4% of every penny i earn for Social Security and 3% for Medicare, programs that will be long gone and bankrupt before i reach retirement age.
i feel bad for the old folks with brain cancer but they are going to die anyway and i doubt sucking up $435,000 apiece of my grandkids future earnings on their way to the grave does anybody much good.
i certainly think healthcare needs to be reformed.
i hate my insurance carrier with a white hot passion.
but i don’t see how me paying more taxes to throw another 50 million people on the government rolls does me any good.
i am barely treading water and obama wants to throw me an anvil.
so yeah, grandpa, keep that job…
67 addendum
when i say “i am lucky enough to be charged three times the actual cost to make up for the uninsured who get their treatment without paying.” i am referring to the folks on medicare who have a procedure that gets billed at $1800 but the hospital only gets reimbursed $550. a couple of those go thru and then i come along with my kid and my insurance for the same procedure that now costs $3200. and i haven’t met my $5000 deductible yet.
obama wants to tax me to put 50 million more people in a government plan that my hospital will have to accept but will still only pay them a third of the actual cost so when my next kid goes it will cost me $4400.
no thanks.
i’ll adapt to the frying pan.
I love you, unregistered comments off!
@ 67 & 68,
You do know that you, yes even you, will benefit from the HCR don’t you? Your rant is a perfect example of someone that will get help from this bill in regards to the cost being driven down due to less uninsured people having to go to the hospital. Also the competition the gov’t creates will drive the private insurance costs down. The big losers are going to be the insurance companies that make only 200% profits instead of 400%+.
Elderly aren’t the only one’s needing medicare. I’ve worked my ass off in the non-profit sector for years and because of my chosen profession, I am NOT able to afford healthcare. So in turn, when I get sick… I wait… and wait, until I’m either forced to see a doctor or a miracle happens and I get better.This is why I do not have children and will not, until healthcare is reasonable and affordable.
Ted Kennedy is dead. I admired his brother John Fitzgerald Kennedy. They are great, though they show themselves human weaklings. In spite of their weakness they have contributed a mite for the progress of the world. I admire them. I pray for them. When John died, I was a young man. Now I can understand how the glory of the world passes! I would emphasize what they have done for America and for the world. May he rest in peace with God!
Dr.Ivo da C.Souza (Goa, India)
The new meaning of conservatism today:
If you help your neighboor = you communist you.
If you provide health care to all = you communist, fascist, racist you.
If you love your government = you communist you.
If volunteer on your community = you communist you.
If you are in college thru grant = you communist you
If you beleive in gay rights = you homo communist you.
If you believe in minority rights = you communist you.
If you don’t have a gun = you communist you.
If you watch science channel instead of Glenn Beck = you communist you.
Have you ever wonder why they hate our goverment, but at the same time seeking to controll it? For them they are protecting us from ourselves and yet when we want to advance our current national condition, they seems to go nuts.
some of these wing nuts even suggest that we should return to the so called “Original” intentions of the founding fathers. Meaning to reverse all changes that have been made. That includes just the few.
1. Take away the women’s right to vote
2. Take away the G.I Bill
3. Take away our civil rights
Nowadays, I can help but notice that word “Freedom” for the consrvatives only meant for the likes of them and most especially for whites. That word “True American” only applies to those who do have enough pigment on their skin. If your views are different, whether political of in life, then you must be the enemy.
This health care reform whether like it or not, is coming. It is part of the process and it is getting the same reception from the right just during the civil rights act in the sixties. What we, the proponents need to do now is to prove them wrong and at the same time, must put muscle to our owns words.
“Don’t let the olive branch fall off my hands and if it does, run if you can”
“You made me turn to Fox News for a second!!”
Why do we (meaning liberal-minded people) always raise their ratings? Best to just let their ratings sink and not get so damn agitated.