---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jeff Jacoby mailing list <l...@pundicity.com> Date: Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 8:48 PM Subject: Jeff Jacoby: The true believer / 8-27-2009 To: t.ma...@gmail.com
<http://www.jeffjacoby.com> Jeff Jacoby <http://www.jeffjacoby.com> [image: Pundicity] <http://www.pundicity.com> The true believer *by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe<http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/08/27/the_true_believer> August 27, 2009* *http://www.jeffjacoby.com/6147/the-true-believer* Send <http://www.jeffjacoby.com/article_send.php?id=6147> RSS<http://www.jeffjacoby.com/jacoby/rss.xml> *On the morning after Senator Edward Kennedy died, the Boston Globe's op-ed columnists were each asked to write a short piece reflecting on his life. My contribution appears below. To read the others, by Joan Vennochi, Derrick Z. Jackson, and Scot Lehigh, as well as guest columns by Alan Wolfe and Martin F. Nolan, please visit* *www.boston.com/opinion*<http://www.boston.com/opinion> *.* BY MY LIGHTS, Ted Kennedy was wrong about most of the great issues of our time. Abroad, he failed to take seriously the stakes in the Cold War. "Today, with the exception of East Germany, Russia has no more satellites," he wrote in 1968, the year Soviet tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring. He hailed Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet dictator, as "a warm individual . . . completely committed to peace." He fought to cut off aid to South Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975 -- aid that might have prevented a horrific communist bloodbath. In recent years he was willing to consign millions to the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, opposing not only the 2003 liberation of Iraq but even the 1991 campaign to roll back the occupation of Kuwait. In domestic policy, too, Kennedy supported much that I thought misguided, especially the burgeoning of the welfare state, the reckless expansion of entitlements, and the vast growth in federal power. Once I asked him if there was any legislation he regretted having supported. Yes, he said -- he no longer favored some of the deregulation he had voted for. "The natural progress of things," said Thomas Jefferson, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Over the course of -- and in great measure thanks to -- Kennedy's 46 years as a US senator, the yardage gained by the government was immense. Yet I have always admired the power and sincerity with which Kennedy pressed his views. "Give him this: He knows what he believes in and doesn't hide it," I once wrote in a column. "Kennedy rarely frets about whether his stand on an issue is politically popular." Born into riches and influence, Kennedy could have lived a life of ease, indulging his appetites and paying scant attention to those far less fortunate. He chose a different life, and became a prodigious advocate for the deprived, the disabled, and the dispossessed. I didn't always like his answers, but I honor him for caring so greatly about the questions. (*Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.*) You are subscribed to this list as *t.ma...@gmail.com*. To edit your subscription options, or to *unsubscribe*, go to http://www.pundicity.com/list_edit.php To *subscribe* to the Jeff Jacoby mailing list, go to http://www.pundicity.com/list_subscribe.php *Pundicity* <http://www.pundicity.com> -- "no cause is lost if there is but one fool to fight for it" ~Will Turner~ ~Pirate's of the Caribbean @ World's End~ www.moliberty.org http://417-political-pundit.blogspot.com The power to tax involves the power to destroy. ~Justice John Marshall~ Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! -Pericles (430 B.C.) A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law. ~Justice John Marshall~ http://www.radiofreeliberty.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ This is a Free Speech forum. The owner of this list assumes no responsibility for the intellectual or emotional maturity of its members. If you do not like what is being said here, filter it to trash, ignore it or leave. If you leave, learn how to do this for yourself. If you do not, you will be here forever. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
