Death of a lion

Ted Kennedy is gone.

This man did more good for more people than did just about anyone else in the history of the Senate. On issue after the issue, he stood on what I consider the side of right. If you have ever worked for minimum wage, you should know that Ted Kennedy pressed to have more money put into your pocket. He fought hard for the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He began his life-long battle for single-payer health care in 1966. In 1964, he did everything he could to ban the poll tax. Early on, he turned against the Vietnam war. He helped to expand Medicare. He combated apartheid in South Africa at a time when most American politicians made excuses for it. He helped block the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court.

In the days of the ascent of Reaganomics, Ted Kennedy became the living symbol of FDR's legacy.

I will never forgive the conspiratorial right for its incessant harassment of Ted Kennedy throughout the 1970s and the 1980s. For example, one edition of the infamous LaRouche "classic" Dope, Inc. actually intimated that Ted Kennedy helped to engineer the death of his brother John.

I expect to hear much more of that sort of reactionary nonsense in the coming days.

Few people now recall that on June 19, 1964, Ted Kennedy's plane went down after allegedly being struck by lightning while flying in foul weather. Another passenger died in the crash. See here and here and here, as well as the video here.

Was the aircraft struck by lightning? An eyewitness (or rather earwitness) named Robert Schauer, who lived a quarter-mile from the crash site, said:

"I heard the plane before it crashed. It was sounding normal. Then I heard it plow into the hill. I think they misjudged the hill. The plane was on top of the hill when I reached it."

I see no reference to either thunder or lightning in those words. Draw your own conclusions.