Political motives lay behind ceremonious mourning of Ted Kennedy’s passing
August 29th, 2009 by Daniel Young | Filed under Politics.The wall to wall coverage of Ted Kennedy’s death gets my goat.
He may have achieved a lot but lets not forget the fact that he was born into a family of immense privilege within the political elite. His brother was President of the United States. Of course, its appropriate to recognise his contribution but I can’t help but be annoyed by the fanfare, the group clapping and back slapping and the self important and self congratulatory tone that surrounds his passing.
I feel that our political leaders are maximising the significance of this event to aggrandise their own significance, to justify their existence and to re-inforce their importance.
They draw attention to the ‘greatness’ of this man and then bask in the reflected glory.
Its obvious that the Democrats have a political motivation. They are taking the opportunity to leverage Ted Kennedy’s commitment to universal health care at a crucial time in the public health debate in the States.
Wait for the: ‘We owe it to Ted Kennedy’ type statements around Obama’s proposed health care reforms.
This might all sound somewhat disingenuous but politicians these days are adept (and I’m afraid shameless) at creating distractions and I believe that the hysteria and sense of tragedy that has been manufactured around Ted Kennedy’s death is exactly that – a distraction.
This is news but it doesn’t justify 5 days of blanket coverage across the media.
I am not disparaging the man.
I can’t be the only person feeling this way, can I?
You may disagree with me. In that case check out this collection of tributes.
Yahoo! News: Political luminaries pay tribute to Kennedy
And you (like me) may know very little about Ted Kennedy. You might find the following useful:
Wikipedia: Chappaquiddick incident
Time: The ascent of Ted Kennedy
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