yet another political rant

Periodically, I receive a mass e-mail from one of my extended family members about some terrible thing the liberals are trying to do, or how Hillary Clinton personally finances a militant group that wants to return California, Arizona, New Mexico and most of Texas to Mexico, or how we should all write and thank President Bush for protecting the sanctity of marriage. Today I got one from my aunt, who only sent it to her own children and husband (who all have similar views to hers), my sister, and me. I don't know how she chose my moderate-to-liberal sister and oh-so-liberal me, but she's probably trying to help us see the error of our ways. Today's e-mail is about Ted Kennedy and the Chappaquiddick incident in which he left a campaign worker, Mary Jo Kopechne, to drown in the lake while he went to sober up and try to cover his tracks. I think this is a terrible thing, assuming that this is what really happened, and I don't think there's too much controversy surrounding that. People pretty much accept that he did it, as far as I know. (I'm not real clear on how he got away with it.)

But this e-mail basically tried to discredit the entire Democratic Party because of one bad apple, who I think has tried over the years to do some good, even though he hasn't always been successful. It was written in such a way that the poor Republicans let themselves get bullied by this ever-powerful Kennedy, and included criticisms of his views on the Iraq war in the same sentence as a mention of Ms. Kopeche "gasp[ing] for air" in the submerged car. I felt it was disrespectful of Mr. Kopechne's memory. It also lets the "victims" of Kennedy's "rants about deception and moral turpitude inside the Bush White House" off the hook, since he's in no position to judge. Never mind that millions of people across the country feel the same way as Senator Kennedy, and we have not all been involved in a manslaughter-type incident.

I suppose the e-mail is right about the idea that Democrats should find somebody else, say, someone who has not been involved in another person's death, to make such criticisms in the very public way that Senator Kennedy does. Then maybe fewer people would be likely to tune them out.