Patrick Kennedy, Nuts? Or, Right on Target?

I don’t know Pat Kennedy, the Democratic Congressman from Rhode Island and as regular readers of this blog probably realize, I was no fan of his Dad.

I do know his brother Ted Jr., however and he is one of my favorite people. I only wish he would run for office someday. We would all be lucky to have him. For those who don’t know him personally all you have to do is watch the footage of the eulogy he gave at Ted Sr’s funeral and you will know him. He is as genuine as the speech he gave. Unfortunately, Ted, Jr. lacks the one thing requisite of all successful politicians; he’s never had an ethical bypass. Therefore, we may never see him chase public office.

Patrick unlike Ted Jr., has inherited a lot of the curse of the Kennedy clan; he likes his booze, (although a currently recovering alcoholic) he also likes his women, and Paddy boy is no stranger to pile of white powder and a rolled up C-note, possibly neatly perched on the mid section of a high class prostitute.

That said, regardless of my disdain for the Lion of the Senate, I have to give his kids the benefit of the doubt based on my experience with other members of the family. Even Patrick deserves a little break given what he grew up with. I know, I know, filthy rich and famous he has no excuse, but think of the psycho crap that went on around him.

If you have seen the footage of Pat’s tirade in Chambers last week, you like me, may think the lad is all kinds of crazy and perhaps there was a little Chivas left over at the Hyannis Compound and Pat may have had a few tosses on his way to DC that morning. Here is the vid in case you missed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_szCWi4Sr8

The main part of the video we are worried about here, is Kennedy’s admonition of the press in covering the war in Afghanistan, it happens right at the end of the video. Forget his crazy notions about how the war is being fought and blah, blah, blah. That is another blog post entirely.

Congressman Kennedy’s assertion that the coverage of the Afghanistan War is abysmal is right on target. He brings up the example of Massa and how there is 24/7 coverage of that fiasco, whilst barely anything of substance on the War. Kennedy asserts Congress like the masses that elected them, are only interested in salacious topics that really have no consequence at all except for political ammunition.

Does anyone really care about Massa, or any of these people engaging in what are acts of human foible? Well, we assume these people are human and subject to the same weirdness in compulsions as the rest of us. For some reason, we hold these people to a higher standard that on its face, just doesn’t exist. I mean we have seen the ultimate in scandal; blowjobs in the White House and semen stained Gap dresses and yet we got over it. These indiscretions are so unimportant in the overall scheme of things.

Meanwhile, we have young people dying across the world trying to ensure we can continue to live in the lifestyles we have become accustomed to, albeit in the last year at seriously diminished levels. Coverage of what is happening in Afghanistan has disappeared into the background.

Think about this for a second, when is the last time you really heard anything about Afghanistan? The State of the Union, maybe? Before that it was probably back in September when Lord Falderal stonewalled the world on how he intended to proceed with troop levels and pull out dates. Other than that, there is rarely a headline of any significance anywhere. Even Fox News who took to the airwaves and blasted Kennedy with claims they cover the War extensively are full of it. Fox may cover it more than the other media outlets, but just by a smidge. What they do cover one has to question the reasoning behind it.

The situation Lord Falderal has created in Afghanistan is rancid. His solution to send in more troops with the goal of pulling them out by July of 2011 is ludicrous at best. The truth is if we pull out without demolishing al Qaeda first, they will take over and become stronger in Afghanistan. Lord Falderal’s strategic thinking with the military is like his thinking with the economy; he doesn’t use the math the rest of us do. In Falderal’s world 1+1=3 somehow, and he will explain how it works. Unfortunately, too many people will believe him!

The reason we don’t hear about the War in Afghanistan in the press is that it is still not Falderal’s War, it’s still Bush’s War. Back when it really was Bush’s War we heard about it incessantly. Nary a day went by when not all of the national and international media had something to say about the way things were being handled.

For some reason the press has been reluctant to cede over the command of the War to Falderal, in the press anyway. It should be very obvious why this phenomenon is occurring. Unlike most of the voting public who are going through buyer’s remorse with Falderal, the media apparently doesn’t want to let go. They would prefer not to label Afghanistan as Falderal’s War. It just doesn’t fit into their ideology and they fear being the ones to call anything he does a failure. They are still holding onto Health Care for fuck’s sake!

So, as crazy as Patrick Kennedy may be, his passion is appreciated and he is ultimately right. This country needs to get back to the basics that matter: protection of our way of life, decent foreign relations, and a sound infrastructure. We have none of that and when the press decides not to cover the issues that relate to those things, as a Republic we tend to forget.