I hope we don't see his like again!!! He's been at the public trough far too long - and some of us remember Chappaquidick and Mary Jo Kopeckne.

Unfortunately, there are still alot more like him in Congress - we need to clean the House, and Senate.

The dream of sane people that we never have another Ted Kennedy will never die.

Extremes in the Ted Kennedy obituaries should neither be taken seriously nor given much respect. He had his virtues, but he didn't walk on water. He had his serious flaws, but if we are honest most of us could say, "There but for the grace of God, the gods, or the luck of the draw might I have gone."

For me, the most poignant moment in the television eulogies to him came when CNN (and presumably others) replayed his comments about passing the torch to Obama and another generation to bring about the changes the nation needed and Obama claimed to offer. Change? What change? How sad.

The part that makes me cringe in the coverage is the kidding around about drinking. If this is truly a bygone era, one good thing is that being a serious alcoholic is no longer laughed off like the old boys club did before. It doesn't matter if you're homeless or a king: If you are a problem drinker then you are a drunk. Period. Everything else you do is in the shadow of that fact. Alcohol becomes the main story. I know this culture - these are my people - and alcoholism is a horrible thing. So let the record show that Ted Kennedy was a tragic drunk and there's no doubt it caused great harm to him and his family. When I hear these commentators laughing about how Ted was the last to leave any cocktail party, it just makes me sick. And sad for his loved ones. Too often an alcoholic can't be challenged in life, and then after death we're supposed to let it go out of respect. But we have to talk about it or it just makes the problem worse. Alcoholics are experts at keeping it a taboo subject. Ted Kennedy did great things, but I can't say he was a great man. Sure, he looks that way from a distance, but I bet if you were around him very long when he was completely hammered, you'd change your mind quickly. Especially a few hours after the cocktail party when he was at home. Remember the whole rape trial in Florida with his nephew? I was always saddened by one little detail. That started with the young Kennedy clan members asleep in their beds when Uncle Ted woke them up to go out drinking with him. Pathetic. Don't let alcohol be the story of your life and please skip the stories about how terrific and funny Ted was when he got wasted. There's nothing the least bit funny about it. Yes, he was the Lion of the Senate, but he should have been in rehab.

Bill M; Thank you for your thoughtful comment. In addition to the main point you make we can also see the illusions that are foisted off on the public by politicians and other celebrities with the complicity of what Ray McGovern so rightly calls the fawning corporate media. And in Kennedy's case, his enablers in the senate and the Democratic Party.

If we all truly need another "Kennedy The Lesser," Patrick is available. He doesn't walk on water either, and we don't know if he can swim well, but Oldsmobiles aren't made any longer, and at least Patrick only crashes solo into land based objects while under the influence--thus far. Nothing he seems to do can get him either jail time or voted out of office either.

A promising chip off the ol' block. Maybe one day he'll be the addled Kennedy in the Senate.

Good. Why is it that so many people tend to forget the bad and remember just the "good?" This guy was out to lunch and stayed on way too long

Did any of you ever attend a function with JFK jr.? There was your "Camelot: The Next Generation." This young man had so much going for him it was ridiculous. You saw him and remembered pictures of John-John playing under Jack Kennedy's desk in the Oval Office. Or the classic video of him saluting his father's casket as it passed by. Then you had the movie star looks and charisma. Heck, I've been in banquet rooms with Denzel Washington, Dustin Hoffman, Diane Lane to name-drop a few, and JFKjr. seemed to have more star power than them without trying. He was funny although you could tell his smarts were from education rather than from being naturally brilliant. He did have a preppy vibe. And I know preppy vibes. I attended a boading school and had one of the Shriver kids in one of my classes. At one event I saw a whole bunch of the Kennedy clan - endless kids all very presentable looking. One day we were walking down one of the paths at school and this preppy student guy said, "Who's the chick with (the Dean of Admissions)?" It was Ethel Kennedy. The others from the Camelot legacy whom I met or at least was in the presence of were Pierre Salinger, and John Connally - I waited on John Connally once and stood a couple of feet behind him thinking of the JFK assassination.

  That whole subject set me on my path as a conspiracy buff and I don't rule  out that JFKjr's plane was taken down. They  can do that, you know. One thing is for sure: If he had lived to be a candidate, nobody around could have competed with him.

President Obama just wishes he had that kind of star power.

  So it is very cruel and unfair to scoff at a successor to Camelot. They had one ready to go who could have been the biggest political star out there.

Well said, Patch.

If, in the future there is a happily married man who does not use tobacco or alcohol (Gordon Smith and Mark Hatfield can't be the only ones who ever won an election to the US Senate) who has such a knowledge of legislative details and a level of trust to work across the aisle and convince his caucus "this is the best we can get this year, we'll be back next year", I believe it will drive some of those critics bonkers.

Do not forget, many of these angry people were angry at Jimmy Carter (Baptist Sunday School teacher) because he was not Ronald Reagan (divorced and remarried movie star).

There is just no pleasing some people.

Are the critics FOR anything?

Some of the comments here bring back memories of a day in November 1963, at Bridlemile elementary school in Portland. Something terrible happened on that day, though I was too young to fully comprehend the gravity. I saw my teacher and fellow students in tears, as we watched the network reports on the wheel-in TV in front of the classroom. I sensed that that day would be of major importance historically, though I really knew very little about our government and the people running it. I also grasped the immense sense of tragedy felt by almost everyone.

As I was ruminating on the situation, an oddball little classmate of mine spoke up, "I don't care, we didn't like him anyway." That statement turned out to be my lesson for the day, that there are beings on this planet who look a lot like us, but are not human.

Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?--Ted Kennedy

Ironic wasn't he?

I forgot to mention I also met and shook hands with Robert Kennedy, Jr. That was very emotional for me as I remembered a picture someone took of the moment they told him about the shooting of his father. It just showed the person who had told him and Robert turning away. Robert Kennedy Jr. has made a great contribution to America - especially his work on the environment and the rigging of Ohio in 2004. Look, I regret the way my first comment has been turned into the inevitable my team-your team crap.

 I'm not trying to use his death as an anti-alcohol thing. I'm just reacting to how these buddies and pundits in the media are using it to make getting hammered seem funny. They're making it a pro-drinking thing. Sure, they talk about it a little but in noble terms like Ted was fighting "demons." He was a drunk. Period.

  Just watch old rat pack comedy and see how far we've come. You might also look at how the offspring or nephews and nieces of these hard-drinking parents fared in the drug age. Robert  Kennedy Jr. ended up on heroin.

  Please don't take my comment as a good play for your football team. This is more important than all that partisan bullshit.

   You want to talk about healthcare? Here's a study from 2002:

    "Twenty-five to forty percent of all patients in U.S. general hospital beds (not in maternity or intensive care) are being treated for complications of alcohol-related problems.

1 Annual health care expenditures for alcohol-related problems amount to $22.5 billion. The total cost of alcohol problems is $175.9 billion a year (compared to $114.2 billion for other drug problems and $137 billion for smoking).

2 In comparison to moderate and non-drinkers, individuals with a history of heavy drinking have higher health care costs.

3 Untreated alcohol problems waste an estimated $184.6 billion dollars per year in health care, business and criminal justice costs, and cause more than 100,000 deaths."

   Please don't use Ted Kennedy's death to teach young people how cool it is to be a drunk. It's not.

Now Democrats are invoking the commands of Jesus as the reason to vote for the Democratic health care scheme.

"Playing off the focus of the Kennedy funeral on the Gospel of Matthew’s parable of Jesus taking care of “the least of us,” Gore thundered that the country has “a moral duty to pass health care reform. This year.”

I thought liberals believed in separation of church and state?

Only when it's convenient, I guess.

Joe, What amazes me is hearing the ring wing applaud George W Bush for 8 years as he used our Constitution for his personal toilet paper. But now - after 8 years of wretched screwing up - your team has been benched and now you're suddenly shouting about abandoning the Constitution. Freedom against tyranny, right? Unless it's your guy. Then it's time to bow down like your right wing thought police tells you, and wait for further instructions.
See John Dean's book about the biological predisposition of conservatives to love authority. Then see if you can say something that hasn't been fed to you as a talking point.

Joe Biden said "I don't think we shall ever see his like again"

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had a slightly different take on it:

"The Reno Gazette-Journal has a sit-down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who addresses the Ted Kennedy question in, um, an interesting way.

Q: How will U.S. Sen. (Edward) Kennedy's death affect things?

A: I think it's going to help us. He hasn't been around for some time......"

from http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0909/Reid_Teddys_death_going_to_help_us.html

Did Harry just put both wingtips in at the same time or what? lol

Steve wrote:

"That statement turned out to be my lesson for the day, that there are beings on this planet who look a lot like us, but are not human."

So instead of rising above your classmate, you actually descended to his level, concluding 'they're not human'.

<h2>No wonder you're a liberal.</h2>