Yesterday's (yes, I just got to it today) Best of the Web from the WSJ contains a vicious, by which I don't mean undeserved, attack on Ted Kennedy. I suggest readers pick up a copy of the late Michael Kelly's Things Worth Fighting For and read the essay on Sen. Kennedy. It will be hard not to have contempt for him after completing that essay. Here's what Best of the Web had to say:
A Degenerate Dynasty
Ted Kennedy's latest rant got us to thinking about the contrast between the two greatest American political dynasties of the past half century, the Bushes and the Kennedys. Look at the two most prominent members of each dynasty, and in both cases you will see a study in contrasts.
The first President Bush was a decent man but decidedly not a visionary. His most famous rhetorical moments are anodyne tributes to American goodness ("a kinder, gentler nation," "a thousand points of light"), a blustery promise destined to be broken ("Read my lips"), and a promise that was kept, but only just ("This will not stand," referring to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Indeed it didn't, but Saddam kept standing for more than a decade).
George W. Bush, on the other hand, was called by history to do bold things, and answered with possibly more boldness than history had expected--more, certainly, than some of his supporters are comfortable with.
Now look at the Kennedys. John F. Kennedy's presidency is hard to evaluate because it was so brief, but he is best known for the soaring rhetoric of his 1961 Inaugural Address:
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
This much we pledge--and more.
Kennedy's brother Ted, whose 15,423 days of service make him the second most senior U.S. senator, is best known for driving off a bridge and leaving a young woman to drown. His attitude toward America's role in the world is the opposite of his brother's; it's best summed up as an inversion of FDR: We have nothing to offer but fear itself.
Here he is yesterday at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies:
The war in Iraq has become a war against the American occupation. . . . The U.S. military presence has become part of the problem, not part of the solution. . . . The first step is to confront our own mistakes. . . . No matter how many times the Administration denies it, there is no question they misled the nation and led us into a quagmire in Iraq. . . . As in Vietnam, truth was the first casualty of this war. . . . As a result of our actions in Iraq, our respect and credibility around the world have reached all-time lows. . . . Never in our history has there been a more powerful, more painful example of the saying that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. . . . The nations in the Middle East are independent, except for Iraq, which began the 20th century under Ottoman occupation and is now beginning the 21st century under American occupation.
And on and on and on. That last sentence we quoted is really something when you realize that the 21st century began more than four years ago, when Iraq was under Baathist occupation.
And the idea that "the nations in the Middle East are independent" really sums up the EMK worldview. Terror-sponsoring tyrannies are just peachy, suggests brother Ted, so long as America does not have to pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe.
Such harangues are to be expected from the malignantly magniloquent Massachusettsan, but why now? "It's remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election," said Republican spokesman Brian Jones in a statement. "Kennedy's partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush's vision of spreading freedom around the world."
But that's exactly the point. A successful election in Iraq will be a triumph for the Bush doctrine and the strongest rebuke yet to those Democrats who learned from Vietnam that America is a force for ill in the world. Ted Kennedy is, as The Wall Street Journal puts it today, "cheerleading for America to fail" because his ideology leaves him unfit to cope with American success. If he has his way, democracy in Iraq will suffer the same fate as Mary Jo Kopechne.
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