{"id":2602,"date":"2008-05-22T06:55:53","date_gmt":"2008-05-22T11:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2008-05-22T06:55:53","modified_gmt":"2008-05-22T11:55:53","slug":"a-night-at-the-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2602","title":{"rendered":"A Night At The Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had much to say about Ted Kennedy because, honestly, everyone with anything to say has already said it and better.<\/p>\n

Except, of course, for the fact that I’m praying for Mr. Kennedy, and hope he recovers and lives many more years.\u00a0 Life is much more important than politics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

First Ringer has the best compendium of Kennedy’s caree<\/a>r I’ve yet read:<\/p>\n

From his choices in policies to his choices in politics, Teddy has remained the\u00a0well-groomed rebel, the slightly mainstreamed radical.\u00a0 But Kennedy\u2019s flair for risk did not serve him as well\u00a0as it did his brother.\u00a0 Clutching a bare 38% of the primary vote and slightly over 1,100 delegates, Kennedy carried on a quixotic floor fight culminating in his convention address <\/a>that may\u00a0well have signaled the beginning of the second phase of Kennedy\u2019s political career.\u00a0 [He defined] himself as the champion of the \u201cNew Deal\u201d and \u201cGreat Society\u201d liberal Democrats…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ted Kennedy, even when I was a kid, seemed to be the figure in which paleoliberalism showed its age – where the sixties started fraying into the seventies and spun off the rails in the eighties.<\/p>\n

It remains more than a little tempting to ravage Kennedy, who in the preceeding 28 years after that address personified every liberal stereotype\u00a0in the eyes of\u00a0both conservative critics and skeptical independents.\u00a0\u00a0Sometimes a\u00a0parody onto himself, Kennedy would bluster his way on to the national stage for every issue of note, spout the need for some massive government intervention, take a\u00a0hard but blunt strike at Republican opponents\u00a0of the measure and then retreat to Kennebunkport.\u00a0 Often lacking title in the Democratic ranks\u00a0yet still given deference by pols and the media alike, Kennedy\u00a0seemed more like a member of the \u201cPatres Conscripti\u201d of the Roman Senate –\u00a0old men selected by the Roman powers that be, unencumbered by such concerns as elections.\u00a0 Given that Kennedy\u2019s only received less than 60% twice in his Senate career (in 1962 and 1994), the description seems somewhat apt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps.<\/p>\n

I see him more like the British parliamentarians of the 1820’s; elected, but yet sitting in secure sinecures for life, loyal to factions that politically defined them.<\/p>\n

Anyway – best wishes to Senator Kennedy.<\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t had much to say about Ted Kennedy because, honestly, everyone with anything to say has already said it and better. Except, of course, for the fact that I’m praying for Mr. Kennedy, and hope he recovers and lives many more years.\u00a0 Life is much more important than politics. First Ringer has the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-democrats","category-history-and-its-making"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}