The comment was probably in reference to the incident at Chappaquiddick rather than a suggestion that one would be more effective at saving lives as a lifeguard than as a Senator wielding enormous influence.
In the version of events most favorable to Kennedy, he suffered a tragic lapse in judgment (failing to summon aid) which compounded the results of an unfortunate auto accident, and a young woman drowned as a result.
The version which is more charitable to the truth and less charitable to Kennedy: He was drunk driving late at night on an isolated road with a young woman who was not his wife. He got into a car accident, which involved his car falling into the water with the two of them in it. After extracting himself from the car, he went home, went to sleep, woke up, talked to his political advisers, then called the police and informed them that there had been an accident.
For normal Americans, that would have resulted in an investigation followed by manslaughter charges. Kennedy was never a normal American. He got off with a wrist slap after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.
The whitewashing of this incident has always been a stitch in the craw of his political opponents. His political supporters say some variant of the following every time it gets brought up: mistakes were made, it is long in the past, nothing was ever proven, and now is not the right time to mention it.
I'm sort of unsure about the etiquette myself. What's the polite way to say "Ted Kennedy was a man who did many things unrelated to causing the death of his paramour in the cause of protecting his political career"?
I wasn't aware, Jacques, that it was our responsibility to be aware of every tragedy and every death in the history of mankind.
I could spend years studying every genocide, every cruelty, going on in the world today, all of which are worse than a single drunk driving accident. I could spend years and plummet into the darker parts of the world. I choose not to.
Not knowing who Ted Kennedy is an ignorance that can surely be forgiven.
But if someone insists on having a strong opinion on something without studying it and then uses the 'before I was born' argument to be excused I think that's pretty weak.
The fact that a man has died is no reason to drop objectivity about that man.
There was plenty good about Ted Kennedy, there was plenty of bad stuff too. Like almost any human being alive today, I'd imagine.
Some of the stuff he did was at best misguided, at worst criminal neglect. He seemed to have been more protective of his career than of the life of a human being when it mattered most. I know politicians are 'survival masters' but that particular incident should have cost him his career and some jail time at a minimum.
What kind of an example does that set for 'lesser' mortals ?
Not a flattering portrayal at all of Kennedy the man. Then again, not a great legislative record either - from Reason - Ted Kennedy and the Death (Hopefully) of an Era: http://reason.com/news/show/135658.html
