. . . Heart touched. A lifetime of inspiration. Though the Herald’s incorrigible Howie Carr can’t help a little tasteful meanspiritedness:

I never voted for Ted Kennedy, not once, and neither did maybe a quarter to one-third of the Massachusetts electorate, although you’d never know that from the echo chamber of the mainstream media since his death in Hyannisport late Tuesday night.

Count me in that quarter to a third. Even in my more ambivalent voting days two decades ago, I always appreciated any underdog willing to take on the Kennedy juggernaut … wackjobs though some of them were. Chappaquiddick didn’t sit right, and voting against dynasty seem like the American th...

. . . Heart touched. A lifetime of inspiration. Though the Herald’s incorrigible Howie Carr can’t help a little tasteful meanspiritedness:

I never voted for Ted Kennedy, not once, and neither did maybe a quarter to one-third of the Massachusetts electorate, although you’d never know that from the echo chamber of the mainstream media since his death in Hyannisport late Tuesday night.

Count me in that quarter to a third. Even in my more ambivalent voting days two decades ago, I always appreciated any underdog willing to take on the Kennedy juggernaut … wackjobs though some of them were. Chappaquiddick didn’t sit right, and voting against dynasty seem like the American thing to do. (I later broke that dynasty principle for Bush, but what the heck, if they don’t have to be consistent, why should I?)

Howie’s just getting started. I though this bit was particularly hurtful:

Chappaquiddick, of course, never went away. But sometimes Kennedy could seem oblivious even to that ultimate blemish on his career. In 1974, when President Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his Watergate crimes, Kennedy issued this thundering statement:

“Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?”

Ouch. Is this really the time to be pointing out the flaming hypocrisy of the dead, as regards the dead? Here’s the Herald’s quick look back at Chappaquiddick, by the way. The Herald also visited the bridge at Chappaquiddick. A poignant mood piece reports the lone memorial to Mary Jo Kopechne is a laminated stack of newspaper articles in the guard shack, kept on hand to spare the gate guard at the Trustees of Reservations property from having to constantly explain everything to the curious.