Well ... There's THAT Part of The Legacy, Too ...

If almost right on cue.

In the waning, dull, Dog Days of August, and, somewhat ironically, in the middle of the molten hot Healthcare battle, Senator Ted Kennedy has passed away, ending his fight against brain cancer.

There'll be lots of paychecks and other perks, to interrupt the vacations of the masses of babbling heads, to rush into the nearest cable studio (or, if they are heavy-duty talking heads, they might have the weight to do a remote) and start blathering away, from the headline stories, to insider anecdotes, ending, of course, with whispers during the wall-to-wall coverage of the upcoming funeral.

Local news here in Boston will even surpass all that.

Yes, he was the "Liberal Lion", and did a lot of good things during his time in the Senate (perhaps SCHIPS, and burying Bork among the top)

But one thing won't get mentioned, or, if it does, ever so briefly, a blink, and then, used as a launching point to herald some tale of pulling himself off the floor and rising to great heights.

We speak, of, naturally, Chappaquiddick, and the unfortunate death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

And that brings us to one of the greatest satires in history, run by the National Lampoon, back in 1972.

Riffing off a Volkswagen ad of that time, they put this out there;



From Wikipedia;

The case resulted in much satire of Kennedy, including a National Lampoon page showing a floating Volkswagen Beetle with the remark that Kennedy would have been elected president had he been driving a Beetle that night; this satire resulted in legal action by Volkswagen, claiming unauthorized use of its trademark.

(You can go HERE, to see both, the original VW ad, and the satirical one)

In today's corporate-owned media, I don't know if there is a publication out there that would have the balls to do something like that today.


Bonus Links

Senator Kennedy from Cindy Sheehan

Jack Newfield: The Senate's Fighting Liberal

Martin F. Nolan: Kennedy dead at 77 ...Liberal lion of the Senate, symbol of family dynasty succumbs to brain cancer

Joan Walsh: Ted Kennedy's last battle

And, a "Must-Read", from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, over on The Moderate Voice;

Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne