Apparently from the way Sen. Edward Kennedy’s passing and subsequent funeral was treated by the media, he was as big a star as Michael Jackson! I haven’t seen a U.S Senator’s death treated with so much reverence and affection since Jesse Helms died. My 9 year old son, watching a little of the show (very little) on TV with me, assumed it must be President Kennedy that was being buried, since it resembled President Reagan’s funeral to him (he still remembers me forcing him to watch that at age 4).

The rosy and heartfelt depictions of “Teddy” this week have seemed to me like intercepted transmissions from an alternate universe, where infidelity, drunkenness, cowardice, and saving your own sorry ass at all costs are virtues. Alec Baldwin even went so far as to assert that Sen. Kennedy might have been as great a legislator as Rep. Barney Frank. While that might seem ridiculous to the people in Massachusetts who keep voting for Barney year after year, I just took it as the usual hyperbole that mourners indulge in while grieving the death of one of their heroes. But a couple of statements by Teddy’s apologists took me aback:

Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?

— Joyce Carol Oates

So it doesn’t automatically make someone (aka, me) a … troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it. — Melissa Lafsky

Let me get this straight, Joyce: Mary Jo Kopechne’s life was not as important as Sen. Kennedy’s subsequent career? And furthermore, Melissa, correct me if I am misunderstanding you here, but Mary Jo might have felt that her life was worth forfeiting so that Teddy could go on to co-author an education bill, or to destroy the career of Robert Bork, or to protect the rights of women to abort unwanted fetuses?

I seem to remember a certain female reporter remarking, after the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal broke, that she would be willing to perform a “Lewinsky” on Pres. Clinton simply because of his stand on abortion rights. But I suspect that, even for her, suffocating in a submerged car for four or five hours might just be a Martha’s Vineyard bridge too far.

From what far-flung galaxy does this kind of thinking emanate? How can seemingly sensible, articulate, and intelligent people argue that the death of an individual due to the recklessness, cowardice, and selfishness of another person might be “worth it” because of the politics of the perpetrator? Does the fact that Kennedy supported liberal policies in the years after he fled the scene of an accident and allowed a young woman to die redeem him?

And for someone seriously to posit (obviously without consulting the victim, since her un-televised funeral occurred about 40 years ago) that Mary Jo might have been willing to take one for the team — to give up all the possibilities of her life fully realized, the offices she might have attained, the children she may have had, the lessons she may have taught them, the achievements they might have accomplished, every single unpredictable aspect of her life erased — in order to protect the political career of Ted Kennedy? As if — let’s be realistic–the Senator who might have replaced Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, after he had been (rightfully) incarcerated and his political career (rightfully) ended, would not have supported the exact same policies? Like the voters of Massachusetts who have effectively bestowed lifetime legislative careers upon Barney and Teddy would suddenly have sent us a Jesse?

But then I realized that this mindset is not from an alternate universe. It is from ours, and we have seen it before. We have seen it in godless countries like the USSR, and Cambodia, and the PRC, and in Nazi Germany. We have have seen it everywhere that individual human lives have been deemed expendable, and that all decisions must be made based on how they affect the State.

If one does not believe in a divine aspect to each human life, then any particular individual’s life is expendable if it serves the “greater good.” Furthermore, if we are not creations of God, then the greater good is determined by whatever political policies one happens to support. In other words, if there is no sacrosanct belief that an individual human life is a gift from a Creator, then any inconvenient life is expendable as long as it serves the current political will.

Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Castro, Idi Amin, Hussein, Guevara, and all the countless murderous dictators and thugs throughout history who have held onto power by murdering inconvenient people have made the same argument: the murdered were expendable, unimportant, and the greater good was served.

Is there now any wonder why most Americans do not want Statists like the deceased Sen. Edward Kennedy and his apologists and supporters in charge of our most vital commodity, our health care? If an individual human life is evaluated by its worth or cost to the State rather than by accepting its part in a plan far beyond our earthly understanding, then all of us are negotiable and, ultimately, expendable. And to their credit, it is logically consistent: if we are detrimental or costly to the State, and there is no divine reason to respect us, then we should be killed or mercifully given a cheaper pain pill if it serves the greater good.

But thankfully, not all of the things we learned about Sen. Edward Kennedy during his three day beatification were so serious. It seems that Teddy himself, magnanimous, glamorous party animal that he was, had a light-hearted side. Good old Teddy reportedly loved him some Chappaquiddick jokes. That crazy rascal was always asking if anybody had heard any new ones! What a great, funny, self-deprecating guy that Lion of the Senate was! Well, I guess he wouldn’t mind if we tell a few now, in remembrance of his endearing ability to laugh at himself.

My personal favorite Ted Kennedy joke is dated, as it pertains to the First Gulf War, in 1991, when America and its allies won the war in a few days, with almost no casualties:

Q: What’s the difference between Ted Kennedy and the Iraqi army?

A: Ted Kennedy has actually killed somebody.

What a good one! Boy, I sure hope that good old Teddy Kennedy got a chance to hear that gem before he met his Creator. If he did, I’ll bet he just laughed and laughed.