Kennedyitis

The Patrick Kennedy story is a sad one and – even with the obvious prevarications – my reaction is just to shake my head for all of us, particularly for my generation. We have been living with the strange saga of the Kennedys all our lives. In a sense we have been enablers of it in the all-too-human need for celebrity/royalty. (And of course book publishers have thrived on it – and will again). I remember one commenter on here took me to task just a couple of months ago for raising the spectre of Mary Jo Kopechne in reaction to Teddy’s over-the -top interrogations during the Judiciary Committee Hearings. The commenter is a younger person, so I excuse him, but you must understand what a morally complicated event that was for people my age. People like me who wanted to support the Kennedys and what they stood for in those times had to suspend our own values then in a way it is impossible to forget. It haunts our lives in a small way and is brought back larger when incidents like this occur with other members of our low rent House of Atreus.