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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009
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 OPINION 
9

Media Airbrush Did Kennedy No Favors: Hitchens

Camelot replay overshadowed real accomplishments, redemption

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(Newser) – The Kennedy “legacy” is not pretty, precisely because it requires so much media “airbrushing” to stay intact. “One of the many dreadful aspects,” Christopher Hitchens writes for Slate, “is the now-unbreakable grip of celebrity politics, image-doctoring, stage management, and ‘torch passing’ rhetoric in general.” But even the venomous pundit saves his harshest words for Ted Kennedy's hagiographers.

Think, Hitchens writes, of “Walter Cronkite referring deadpan to the ‘driving accident’ that had kept Kennedy away from the Senate” and the “ingenuity” it took from the networks to “airbrush the fascist sympathies and bootlegging background of Joseph Kennedy Sr.” And yet last year, appalled by “malicious” campaign ads, Ted Kennedy “withdrew his support from a candidate whose victory would have meant the continuation of the dynastic politics”—and that’s worth something.

The cover of the most recent
The cover of the most recent "Newsweek."   (AP Photo)
Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1972.
Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1972.   (AP Photo)
Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2006.
Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2006.   (AP Photo)
Sen. Edward Kennedy speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill Feb. 9, 2009.
Sen. Edward Kennedy speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill Feb. 9, 2009.   (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
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People do instinctively respond to redemption, atonement, the making up for missed opportunities and squandered time. Call no man happy until he is dead, as the Greeks had it. Kennedy's very last year was quite possibly his best. - Christopher Hitchens

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9 comments
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JonmarkP
Aug 31, 09 2:41 PM CDT
How unseemly it is for Hitchens to turn on a fellow barfly! Reply
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reasonator
Aug 31, 09 2:46 PM CDT
Never stopped him before. At least Hitchens revels in it. I like me some Hitch.
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Reader64481089
Aug 31, 09 2:49 PM CDT
The last paragraph in the original article was the most telling and most meaningful...."It is true, then, and not just in America, that people do instinctively respond to redemption, atonement, the making up for missed opportunities and squandered time. Call no man happy until he is dead, as the Greeks had it. Kennedy's very last year was quite possibly his best, and how many men or women will be able to say that?"....how very true
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timeandagain
Aug 31, 09 3:02 PM CDT
I thought Teddy was buried two days ago... Can we forget about him now? Reply
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polstroad
Aug 31, 09 3:04 PM CDT
Ted K had the grace to admit he was far from perfect, and he seems to have made a point of trying--bless his wife--to redeem himself. Most of us know about his drinking, and the Mary Jo death and his father's background (what has that to do with anything), and yet, how many sinners have done so much good in a lifetime? As for the bad parts of his life, the conservative bloggers have made sure we are reminded of it, even as they overlook what their pals in the congress have done to marriage vows. Reply
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