Processing Teddy's Death

So Ted Kennedy is dead, felled by cancer at age 77.

Let me say up front that I am not pleased in any way by his death. I considered him the poorest form of statesman, and he seemed a man of few admirable personal qualities. But he was, in the end, a man; and I can mourn his death on this basis.

We hear from Shakespeare's Mark Antony that "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." If recent events are any indication (and I'm looking in your direction, Michael Jackson), it appears that this antique approach is long dead. The advantage here, if there is one, is that most media outlets are rolling out prefab encomia, composed during the course of Ted's long and terminal illness.

I know firsthand how popular he was with many of the people of Massachusetts; I know that he will be hailed as a champion of the poor and downtrodden. But what I hope people also remember was that he was a drunken womanizer whose reckless action resulted in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

So let's not get too crazy here. His soul is in God's hands, but his record here on earth shouldn't be scrubbed clean.