40 Years Later

If you know me personally, you probably know that I HATE politics and anything that has to do with it. This blog is one about my life, and light-hearted subjects that have to do with fatherhood and just being a regular 'dude'. However, something struck me in the head this morning (metaphorically speaking).

Ted Kennedy died last night. I am not one to rejoice or take glory in anybody's death. I think that life is precious and, when someone dies, it affects the people around them. I hope that Ted's family will handle this well. When I found out that Ted Kennedy had brain cancer, I felt sorry for him. I never really agreed with any of his policies while he was in the Senate, and we probably wouldn't agree on any issue if we were to debate each other, but that is beside the point. He is still a person, a brother, a father, and a friend to many. I was reading articles this morning about him and his legacy. One thing stuck out to me that has disturbed me.

This 'thing' that has disturbed me is the condition of the 'human condition' in these articles about his life. Many of the articles written described him as a well loved politician and colleague that stood up for his principles and how he lived with the death of his brothers and tried to be the best 'public servant' America could ever want. The radio was buzzing in my truck discussing whether he was the greatest Senator of our generation. But what was that 'thing' that has disturbed me so much.

Well, I did some research, and read up on an incident called the Chappaquiddick Incident. There are many accounts of this incident but it so happens that on a night in July of 1969, Mr. Kennedy's car ran off a bridge into the water. He escaped but there was a female passenger in the car that did not survive. Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in that car. Seeing that I was far from even being born at the time, I can just read the reports and stories of this incident. The word is that Mr. Kennedy may have had too much to drink, and/or took the wrong turn. He was charged with leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury and received a suspended sentence.

Leave it at that and I wouldn't be writing about this story. But the problem I see in all of these articles is NOT the sadness or remembrance of Mary Jo, but the writer of most of these articles mention this incident not in sorrow for the deceased, but in sorrow that the incident prevented Ted from winning the White House. Not being President? That is what our media is remembering? They pave over the fact that somebody's daughter was killed in a car that was slowly sinking into a body of water. And the REAL tragedy is the fact that Ted Kennedy just could not get into the White House?

What has happened to us? Is it just the media? Who realizes that there was a woman that died in a horrific accident 40 years ago? Maybe I have just gone crazy and need to get MY priorities straight and morn the loss of the Presidential bid in 1980 of Mr. Kennedy just like everyone else who likes to write articles about this story.