On the death of Senator Kennedy.

There are two events that happened in the last week that I think public reaction has been appalling.  First, the Scots released the convicted Lockerbie bomber who killed 270 people.  Then to make matters worse he received a hero's welcome when he arrived back in Libya (who could expect any less from pigs), much to the dismay of politicians in both the US and England.  William Wallace must have turned over in his grave at the appalling lack of courage from the leader of his beloved Scotland.

But the media in the US was not to be outdone when serial philander, alcoholic, accident scene leaving causing the death of  a young woman, Senator Kennedy died the airwaves filled with those singing his praises.  Now some will say this is harsh that he did accomplish many things in his life this is true, but not all of them are things to be proud of and many of his "accomplishments" have hurt people as well.  He voted for CAFE Standards - result between 40 and 80 thousand additional traffic deaths they have been implemented.  My real reason to be upset with this is he never "paid for his crime" unless you think, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and not reporting it for 10 hours should result in only a 6 month license suspension.

For those who don't know about Mary Jo Kopechne you should take a look.  We could and some did blame her partly for her plight after all her and her five friends where partying with 6 men 5 of whom were married, and they knew they were married.  However, immoral behavior should not result in the death peanlty.  Some will also say Kennedy was young and made some mistakes, beg your pardon by the time you are 37 you should have some idea of the proper behavior for a man.  They say as many as 40 percent of the population are unaware that Senator Kennedy killed a young woman and was not really punnished for it at all.  As a matter of fact I have told a few people and they where shocked that he had done such a thing and was not punished.  

At any rate I don't blame them for not trotting this out while his family is mourning his passing, after all they  are not and can not be responsible for the sins of their father or uncle.  We know that many people even though their parents or grandparents have done some not so good stuff that they contributed much to and sacraficed much for our country.  Take for example "Butch" O'Hare who won the Congressional Medal of Honor (citation can be found here  http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2923/o-hare-edward-henry.php ).  His father was the lawyer for Al Capone and for many years helped him escape punishment (info here http://www.newcriminologist.com/article.asp?nid=661 ).   So lets hope that one of Ted's children or grandchildren might do somthing that will amelorate the evil he did to Mary Jo and her family forty years ago this past July 17th.  

So when they are singing the praises of the Senator keep in mind he was a deeply flawed, and that he went virtually unpunished for what was either murder, negligent homicide or manslaughter.