Feb 13, 2010

The Last Kennedy in Congress

It seems the universal newspaper lede is that the departure of Patrick Kennedy next year leaves the Republic without a Kennedy in congress for the first time in 60 years. The fact is represented as having staggering import to our future as a nation.

Patrick of Rhode Island, son of Teddy, now has the nation's press straining to find language evocative enough to present him as the latest tragic victim of the Kennedy Curse. (You'll recall that curse was laid on by Barry Goldwater and is renewed annually around boiling cauldrons on the moors by covens of Nazis who, in everyday life, pass themselves off as citizens simply unpersuaded by the Kennedy brand of statism.

I won't beat up on Poor Patrick at length, but it does add balance to remind the Hyannisport groupies that the man was reported to be a drunk, a drug addict, mentally ill, and a bad congressman. Any similarly flawed politician who holds more libertarian or conservative views is pilloried, not wept over.

AP quotes Patrick as saying his decision to quit congress removes a heavy weight from his shoulders.

Ours too .

4 comments:

bdickens said...

A Congress without a Kennedy? Like that's a bad thing?

Anne Toal said...

Patrick himself is not the point. The point is that there's never been a time in the memory of the Boomers when there was not a Kennedy in Congress. It's a reminder that they're getting on in years.

Anonymous said...

Patrick, me boy. you resign that piddling House seat, move back to the Bay State, do some good social things, then you can reclaim what is rightfully ours at the next general election. JAGSC

Jim said...

The point is that Pat, true to the sacred Kennedy canons, thinks he is the point, and high cardinals of modern statism such as Bill Keller are pleased to agree.

Can you imagine the NYT and NBC running a story on a conservative drunken druggie focusing on his not being a "good fit" for politics and boo hoo for that?

(JAGS: Stop it. You're scaring me.)