A Cynics operative who lives near Mass General reports seeing nothing out of the ordinary apart from a larger-than-normal police presence at the hospital.  I wonder when the inevitable press campouts and looneybin candlelight vigils will begin.

Wow, Val Kilmer has really let himself go.

hi nojo!

thank you for saving us with your magic tekmologies

@nojo - I thought it was Brian Dennehy myself.  Who should play Ted in the inevitable biopic, IMHO.

@Hunter Walker: Aw shucks, I’m just a simple country hamster who doesn’t know the ways of your big-city programming…

(Thanks also to Monk for the shoutout. Any problems, report ‘em now before Uncle Greg takes back the keys…)

So one fine spring day in 1980, Candidate Ted is scheduled to give a speech on the lawn outside my dorm in Eugene. Don’t remember much about it, except that we were instructed to keep our windows shut — with the implication that Secret Service snipers would take us out if anyone tried to get funny about it.

And hey, who remembers Senate Bill 1? Fun times!

CP Fashion Critique:  Sen. Kennedy, horizontal stripes make your ass look larger.  Vertical stripes are slimming.

We haven’t seen Hilbot in swimwear yet.  We have seen Unicorn *sigh* in his swim togs.

@nojo: Mr. SFL is now asking me why water is coming out of my nose.  Nice one.
Good job on the website tune-up, too.

@AARPrick: “We haven’t seen Hilbot in swimwear yet.”
Uh, yes we have. Remember this “romantic” scene on the beach during Bubba’s presidency?
http://www.nohillaryclinton.com/blog/blog_images/billHillDance.jpg

GAH!  That picture.  Get me a picture of Sarah Palin in a two-piece, with one piece missing.  STAT!

P.S.:  I still can’t figure out how to switch up my avatar.  Fucking thing SUCKS!  (Or, alternatively, I do.)

@chicago bureau: I’m tempted to take advantage of my CP Backstage Pass and set up a Gravatar-instruction page — although enough folks have encountered problems that I’m not sure the step-by-step would help. (My original notes are buried in a comment somewhere.)

But, to run the checklist: Did you use the same email address for Gravatar that you used to sign up for CP?

Bullshit.  Everyone knows Kennedys don’t die of natural causes.

@SFL  I knew that comment would come back to bite me in the ass.  I remember something vaguely about that,  justl like my recollections of my middle aged parents, when I was young, being romantic.

@chicago bureau: And here it is…

Cynics Party Avatar Guide

It’s also now in the left menu, just above the Archives. Until Uncle Greg catches me modding his SUV, anyway.

Boy, I have no recollection whatsoever of my middle age parents being romantic.  But once, when I was about 12, they left the bedroom door cracked and I heard things.  Horrible things, and I remember so distinctly this sound, like a boot being pulled out of deep mud, a wet slurping sound.    Now that I am all growed up and have experienced all kinds of sex, I have still never heard that sound again.  Maybe I should have repressed that memory.

Ted, you fat fuck!

Fucking die and make room for the next asshole senator from Massachusetts!

@nojo: I laughed! I cried! Well done, sir.

Nojo, your technology is unstoppable. And I think you were instructed to keep your dorm windows shut because Kennedy wind is like a hurricane.
 
 
@prom: In my neck of the woods, if you haven’t heard the wet slurping sound, you can still claim virginity.
 
 
 

Also, if Ted can live to eighty with all his bad habits, it gives Hope to people like me. Of course, he’s probably had the best liver transplants and dialysis available to humankind.

Aside those availed by Keith Richards of course.

To all you cynics, and you FCS, you might be too young to know what Ted means to those who lived through the deaths, the assasinations, of his brothers.  He is the last living link to a time when being a liberal, being hopeful that rational and sane government could do real good in the world, was not a shameful dirty belief that has to be cloaked in this worldly faux cynical attitude just to be expressed at all.  That we call ourselves cynics is a crime, a result of the ascendancy of the evil and truly cynical worldview of the  conservatives who are the apologists for the military-oil-industrial junta that has controlled our country ever since they destroyed the soul of liberalism by assassinating the Kennedy brothers.  We are giving in to the fascist conspiracy that killed John and Bobby when we adopt this cynical attitude that allows us to have our cake and eat it too, to profess sincere liberal belief but do so ironically so we don’t have to be embarrassed at being so idealistic.  Does anyone see how wrong that is?  We call ourselves cynics, but I know for a fact that everyone here I have come to know in any real way is not a cynic at all, just heartbroken, sad, beaten down optimist, who pretends to be  a cynics, and cloak their optimism in deniable postmodern irony so noone can call them naive idealists.

Ted is a mensch.  How many of us could go on as he has after all the tragedies of his life?  Oh, he’s fat, oh, he drinks, Fuck you, I am fat and I drink too.  I didn’t have all my brothers killed by fascist elements of my own government.  Many of us here talk about having to drink just to survive watching the descent of the country we love into fascism.  He’s got more reason to drink than any of us.  He’s the only real liberal left.  I pray he gets well and continues until the day the dream if his brothers some how revives in the people of this country.

Sorry, Ted kennedy is one of my heros.  Flawed as all fuck, but goddamn, a cynic above all should be able to undrestand that personal moral failings have fuck all to do with a person’s work, and Ted has never given up the fight.

Now I will go back to pretending like everyone else here that I am just cynically amused by all the shit in this world, wars and famine and ignorance and poverty, because god forbid anyone should see me thinking that there is anything to be done about it.

I can’t wait until the cynic convention in santa fe.  I want to see how unfeeling and cynical you all you are, I am betting we will cry like babies just to be, for once, among people who  truly are not cynical, who do really believe in the hope that people acting together (good government) actually can do something about all the fucking pain and evil in the world.

Okay, fine. But no group hugs.

@Prom: Amen, brother. Preach it. Given my white trash/black Irish roots, I have a soft spot for the crazy Kennedy clan.  I wouldn’t have a liver left if I went through Teddy’s family trauma, and of course, don’t forget Ted’s lobotomized sister and long-suffering mother.  The Kennedy men die young, the Kennedy women endure, and then there’s Uncle Teddy holding that clan together.
He’s too ornery to not stick around for the inauguration of a Democrat.

@Domo Kun: You are sincere in your cups and I respect that. Ted has been a good friend, yes. But I don’t hold with the glorification of the Kennedys, as so many who were born a mere decade before seem to.
 
JFK and Bobby had their good and bad points. Let them rest. No need to drag them up now.
They are a dynasty. We don’t need more of them in public office. I am sorry for Ted’s current travails, but I don’t think for a minute that he wouldn’t sell us all out for the next campaign contribution.
Please. He’s a good guy, as far as politicians go. But his brothers, FSM bless their souls, were also politicians, and they did dirty deals as easily as you and I would unconsciously fib on our tax returns.
Ultimately, the Kennedys are no more pure than the Clintons.
 
 

And I DO hope Ted sticks around for the inauguration of a Democrat.

@promnight   yadda yadda yadda, he still left a girl to die in his car at the bottom of a river, while he was busy trying to get somebody else to take the rap.  And yes, John and Bobby were liberal heroes as well, but they killed Marilyn, no doubt in my mind. She was eccentric, she was complex, but there is really no indication that she was suicidally depressed.
I would vote for any Kennedy over any Republican, but I am disturbed by the fact that these are the best heroes we’ve got.

@guru: No need to take the low road, though it’s appropriate here. Bay of Pigs anyone?

Great. Now you’ve got me Googling the Missile Gap…

Robert McNamara: “it took us about three weeks to determine [that] yes, there was a gap. But the gap was in our favor. It was a totally erroneous charge that Eisenhower had allowed the Soviets to develop a missile force superior to the U.S.” (CNN interview, June 1996)

Bobby Mac goes on to say that Jack was working from Air Force intelligence in his campaign charge against Ike, that the CIA had the better info, and that the real culprit was poor coordination among intelligence agencies.

And where do I get “Bobby Mac”? Neighbor’s mom in the ’80s was his squeeze.

@nojo: Of course I treat Robert McNamara as a truly undiluted source. MILF makes it more relevant. “Bobby Mac” just makes me shivverry.

poor coordination among intelligence agencies

Where have we heard that before / recently?

@Pedonator: Yeah, I figured I’d leave the “poor coordination” line hanging there…

As for Bobby Mac’s Fabulous Contrition Roadshow (opening for Holbrook’s Mark Twain in major cities), I don’t have the time to judge. Although I liked the Errol Morris movie.

@nojo: Bobby Mac was a fighter. He fought for our rights, even when he didn’t. He was a superhero for the rights of all of us…or some of us. Rest in peace, Bobby Mac, you did some good.

godammit, can i please keep the shred of sanity i posses?
i’ d like to believe that jack and bobby didn’t know of the plans  to off marilyn. i like to think lawford was complicit in that.
i like to think JFK and RFK were truly good guys and that is why they are DEAD. teddy? comical, and more so as his brain descends into senility and body grows to jabba the hut size.
(his senile rants on c-span are quite entertaining)
he’s the last of a dynasty that could…could remember what the fuck this country was supposed to be.
can you even imagine shrub/cheney/rummy dealing with the bay of pigs? and JFK fucking everything with a pulse, no one cared. i see the impeachment of bubba as a significant turning point, when the discussions of color coded terror charts were conceived for our future fascist state.
and when the next generation of kennedy’s stop driving into walls on ambian and raping the neighbors, maybe another bobby or jack will emerge. kathleen maybe?
prommy, you are right. we all know it. or we wouldn’t be carrying on the way we do.
“a cynic is a heartbroken idealist”

p.s. i am not naive or stupid, i know all about joe sr. rubbing elbows with hitler, blah, blah. the simple fact that jack and bobby are DEAD by very unnatural means is proof positive that they were not following in daddy’s footsteps, and that was not going to be tolerated. their untimely demise is the result of going against the agenda of those really in charge…whose names we will never know, those who really pull the strings, and why i have big tear soaked bucks on a mcMethusala win.

garuk,
don’t you think covering up an accident differs from covering up intentional assisinations?
what reason would the horny boys have to kill their marilyn toy?
it came from higher up.

baked.  And that is why I (we) are cynical about the survivability of the Unicorn.  Those who truly try to bring social change to the masses dies.  ML King, Gandhi, Robert Kennedy, & the list goes on.  An Obama/Edwards ticket I think would be doubly threatening to the powers that be.
I am an idealist from the Camelot years also.  I like to know that my “heroes” have flaws.  It makes them as human as us.  But they transcend their flaws to do what is exceptional.  It inspires me as I have been ground down by life and times, that if I just pick myself up one more fucking time, push my tired ass one more time, maybe just fucking maybe, it will matter, it will help, I will make a difference somehow, some way.  All heroic figures in literature and life exhibit flaws.  Even Jesus Christ showed his human flaws and weaknesses despite his “divinity”.  So we should maintain being cynical, but not indifferent and uncaring.  That is the provenance of the pigfucking neo-cons.
 

AARPrick,
sometimes all we can do is help each other pick up our tired ass asses and carry on…even if it means shunning by my 3 dimensional friends. you and i, and many here can scream bloody murder, only to called “silly children”.
i got your back aarp, you get mine. hope floats, and screams the truth. too bad no one is listening to us but our own merry band of subversives. we will always mentally side with the angels, you and me. and many here. we laugh an awful lot around here. tears of righteous clowns.

“…Bobby Mac’s Fabulous Contrition Roadshow (opening for Holbrook’s Mark Twain in major cities), I don’t have the time to judge.” - nojo

No problem Noj, I I do, particularly since it is raining and too cold to fish, and I am  cutting and pasting from an old post on the subject.
You are, of course, referring to  Robert McNamara  writing in his 1995 memoir “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam“, where he revealed that as early as 1967 (with 25,000 American dead) he no longer believed that America could win the war in Vietnam, and as a direct consequence of expressing that view, resigned (or was fired) from the LBJ administration. The relevant McNamara quote:

“We were wrong, terribly wrong… Enemy morale has not broken . . . . It appears that [the enemy] can more than replace his losses by infiltration from North Vietnam and recruitment in South Vietnam. . . . Pacification has if anything gone backward. As compared with two, or four, years ago, enemy full-time regional forces and part-time guerrilla forces are larger; attacks, terrorism and sabotage have increased in scope and intensity. . . . In essence, we find ourselves–from the point of view of the important war (for the [hearts and minds] of the people)–no better, and if anything worse off. This important war must be fought and won by the Vietnamese themselves. We have known this from the beginning . . .” Robert McNamara -”In Retrospect” (pp. 262-263).

Neither McNamara nor LBJ chose to share that insight with the American public. Ultimately it took 50,000 American lives for a majority of Americans to learn that their government could not be trusted on the reasons for, nor the “light at the end of the tunnel” progress in, Vietnam. It is reasonable to posit, that if McNamara had recognized in 1968 that his loyalty was owed first to the American people, and second to the LBJ administration, and had communicated what he knew then to the American people, we might have seen a better end, a quicker end, and fewer deaths and casualties in Vietnam.

Which brings us to Iraq. One can speculate who will fill the “Bobby Mac” role when the definitive Iraq history book is written. Will it be “Donny Rum”?  Who told Chris Mathews that he was never asked by GWB whether we should actually invade Iraq, laying the foundation for the always popular “Just following orders” defense.
Or  will  it be “Colly Po” who enabled the administration to garner the public support needed with his stirring United Nations speech? I suspect that “Colly Po” wins, who out of misplaced loyalty, like Bobby Mac, makes the wrong decision and does not disclose it to the American people until years later. He has already intimated in subsequent interviews that he knew that the Iraq occupation was a wrong policy.  Perhaps the difference is that the blood on his hands is only for the four years it took him to tell us. McNamara OTOH, has blood on his hands for every day that passed between the time that he recognized the mistake and the day he finally came clean with the American people 37 years later. There is a special spot in Hell reserved for them both to compare notes.

amen string sarah,
i agree with all you wrote. colin in particular makes me ill to think about…how he knew and chose to sneak quietly out the back door. bobby mac, i know mainly from reading about, we watched colin’s fearful silent escape with our own eyes.
oh yeah, those two have bunk beds reserved in hell.

@String Bikini Theory: I was wondering whether to draw out the Rummy comparison — like Bobby Mac, a highly intelligent man (his Soliloquy on Epistemology is a classic); unlike McNamara, not a shred of decency in his soul, latent or otherwise. (Bobby Mac was already apologizing by the mid-1980s, which doesn’t mitigate your point.)

But you’re right: Colin Powell is This Administration’s Model, placing loyalty above duty, and violating his own clearly stated Doctrine in the process. I’d call him a tragic figure, but given the ongoing consequences of his actions, I’m not sure he merits the formal sympathy. He knew better.

@prom: sure, I hear what your saying, but the guy has occupied a seat out of dynastic entitlement and his ‘leadership’ in all that time amounted to parroting his interpretation of the programmatic liberalism of 1960s. Last thing the states needs are political dynasties and fossilized ideas. Hey, you want fossilized leftism, try Greece. Two real Communist parties - and one of which is hard-core Stalinist led by 100+ crazy people and their progeny.
During the 40+ years that Teddy sat in his Senate seat, I am sure the Commonwealth could have produced a number of authentic leftists and progressive thinkers with catalyzing ideas. Instead, Massachusetts has been saddled with a stand-up comic that the right wing could use to discredit liberal politics, whatever that means.
Time for the crazy old fuck to die and to make room for someone who merits the recognition and authority to lead by dint of independent achievement - is that such an unAmericanish concept. Anyone who drinks the way he does (after his teen-age years) doesn’t want to live that long, anyway. 
 

Oh, and to set the standard: LBJ is the tragic political figure of our era. Never forget the other V of his tenure — the Voting Rights Act.

@nojo  I have a theory about that.  It goes something like this.
LBJ:  Now, Earl, I’m sure you understand how important it is to wrap this report up and put this whole incident behind us.
Earl Warren:  Mr. President, are you actually suggesting that we should do less than a thorough investigation?
LBJ:  I’ll give you all the civil rights legislation you like.
Earl Warren:  How soon do you want it?
 

“I was wondering whether to draw out the Rummy comparison…” - nojo

Yeah, I got a bit obsessive (as is my wont) about the comparison in ‘06 with a series culminating in this post shortly after he got canned.

@guru:  That’s pretty much how we got Nixon to make the EPA(different crimes, different bribes; democracy in action).
For the record, Edward Kennedy is one of a handful of objects in the known universe older than the Psychogeezer.  On the upside, I just got the ‘Obituary Archive’ Goooogle ad.  Win!

@FlyingChainSaw: At least you have an experienced Kennedy with powerful committee positions and real influence on his party in the Senate. If he goes, I’m betting there’s one of the younger generation ready to step into his shoes.
I, too, am a child of Camelot. I was born right after JFK’s inauguration and his funeral is my earliest memory (my grandmother and our African American maid watching it on TV together and crying.) We cynics of a certain age can’t let go of Jack and Bobby because they’re the last politicians we believed in. I’m with AARPrick - I fear for Obama. I just saw one of his campaign ads on TV (our primary is Tuesday) and it literally gave me chills. I’m just begging to have my heart broken.

FCS, its not Ted himself, its what he represents to me.  And fuck 60s leftism, we need 30s leftism in this country, the policies and ideals of Roosevelt.  He softened and reigned in the worst of capitalism, turned traitor to his class and is still hated for it, and invented the liberal state that most of europe is doing very well with while we have abandoned it in favor of a corporate oligarchy fast sliding into fascism.  Ted has been for 40 years fighting a rearguard action just to preserve ideals and policies Roosevelt put in place, and he has been effective. 

@nojo:  No group hugs.  I want one on one boob-crushing hugs with groin grinding, too.

This isn’t great news.  For all his flaws, at least he’s been mostly true to his beliefs.
 
 
 
Why am I here so early and not hiking?  The weather sucked.  I can deal with cold or rain, but I discovered I don’t like both.  More importantly, today I slipped and twisted my ankle early in today’s hike and had to hump 8km (5 miles) of rough terrain on a gimpy ankle while my camping buddies humped my 45 pounds of equipment and food (Took 4 hours instead of the usual 2 1/2.)  Despite it all, I lagged behind everyone while I pushed off my makeshift crutch.  Going downhill was the worst.  Last year’s hike into the interior of Algonquin was full of bugs.  It got to the point where I actually missed being bitten by bugs.
So here I lie on my couch with a Gin and Tonic in my hand and an ice pack on my right ankle.

I am alone with noone to talk to and my mind is filled with random shit, as always, so here is a completely random post.  Whatever happened to Tyrells Long Flat Red?  It was my favorite cheap wine for years, used to be 5.99 a bottle, a wonderful Rhonish a aussie blend.   And the best thing of all about it, was the modesty about it. “Long Flat Red?”  And to make it even better, there was a latin motto wrapped around a fake crest, it said “Nil magnum, nisi bonum.”  Not great, but good.  Thats some beautiful honesty.  And its gone, I am sad.

And whats with this movie “There Will Be Blood?”  Day-Lewis is certainly creepily wonderful and deserved the Oscar, but God, its ponderous, and so self-consciously intellectual, can I please have my references a little less obvious?  The music, godawful.  No fun at all. 

How in the fuck has Coca Cola convinced people to pay for Dasani, tap water?  They have pulled off the ultimate in marketing and brainwashing, they have found a way to sell coke bottles filled with tapwater for the same price as coke bottles filled with coke.  Its like DeBeers convincing people to pay $20,000  a carat for coal.  Its a symbol of all thats wrong with this fucking country.  Come to think of it, its like a music publisher selling Britney Spears as a singer.  God we are fucked.

@promnight: My completely random thought for the day is why, when I’m out walking the neighborhood on Sundays, do I always run into Andrew Sullivan? Are we on the same shopping/walking/brunching schedule? It’s very strange.

hey, Cynica, you saw that video clip of Fuckabee at the NRA, right?  Top notch rightwing humor.

I’m gonna try to link to that video.  Did it work?

My random thought from yesterday, I think, is that I’d be OK with Pres Hillz just to see JMC get beat by a girl.

@Cynica - Exactly, someone will come to fill his shoes. And those committee positions aren’t really worth much until the GOP is super-majority-ed out of relevance.
Oh, I remember that time, too, and I never understood the cult of JFK or the Kennedys, a really nasty crowd if you ever got close enough to actually see them in action. JFK’s greatest achievement was what? What, exactly? I’ll tell you. He kept the peace (at least during the Cuban missile crisis) and thwarted the crazies (same ones that Ike feared) that wanted to go nuclear, a fact that only recently came out, was hardly discussed and which really described a guy at work in the job of the president. Keeping the peace is actually in the job description and, in that time, wow, woah, can you imagine how easy go-to-war, how inevitable in perception, it could have been? All the other crap, inspiring, leading, oh, fuck, please, please don’t hang the office with stuff that is really all about the personal needs of a population whose gods have been murdered. These characters are so compromised by the time they reach office, asking them to inspire people in any dimension would be like asking a lap dancer to promote the ballet. They guy was the son of a Hitler-hugging speculator turned diplomat who invested his ill-gotten gains into a presidential run for his boy (think Tagg, about 2021) who, like his predecessors, foolishly embraced covert action, casually tossed the US into a civil war in Vietnam, siding with a twisted dictator for the entertainment of junior-achievement imperial pretenders in his government and gave some nice speeches. Then he died. 
The team that is supposed to take out Obama may have already been hired, I have to agree. Huckabee may have spoken from what may be common knowledge among GOP principals the other day when he joked about the Unicorn diving for cover after seeing the big red dot hit his chest. There is nothing beyond this crowd. It is way sicker than anything you grew up with. Bush I brought in a lot of covert action types and the RNC never looked back, basically transforming it into a dirty-tricks operation that viewed elections the way the CIA viewed an orchestrated coup - just a bit of theater and stage-management which sometimes required political assassination. 
I don’t think Obama and Kennedy are comparable characters, though both at critical points in the development of their careers owed their advancement to Illinois Democratic Party machine politics. Still, the guns will roar for a lot of the same reasons.

@FlyingChainSaw: Back in the day — must have been early ‘95, given the context — I asked Pete DeFazio (D-Bluejean) what practical difference there was being in the minority party. Those committee chairmanships, he explained — you get to set the agenda.

Made sense at the time, and you don’t need a supermajority to make some noise and pound your shoe on the table. All it takes is, oh, I dunno — backbone, perhaps.

FCS, gawd, there’s no need for a fucking critical review of the JFK presidency (though I am amused that you only grudgingly give credit for that small little thing about preventing nuclear armegaddon.  MacNamara, for all his superficial resemblance to Rumsfeld, was dealing with a world at a time when the soviets really were a threat to us, really were powerful, belligerent, and even technologically ahead of us in ways that truly spooked the powers that be of the time, like sputnick, it had nothing to do with orbiting a satellite, it had to do with showing us their ICBMs could reach anywhere.   Rumsfeld is really just a nostalgic cold warrior who wishes he were the MacNamara, but there is no such threat now, so to have his glory Rumsfeld and Bush have had to exxagerate and inflate a fluke act of terrorism into the existential threat that the soviet union really was in the 50s and 60s.

But fuck all that, we are intelligent people who could debate the kennedies all night and never agree.

It is sicker now, much sicker, Its almost hopeless.  And JFK and Bobbie were the last true hopes of my life, after their killings I have to live with, as you obviously do also, the thought, the perfectly rational thought, that any inspiring democratic leader who emerges, will of a matter of course be killed.

We all lived through those assisinations, which were not just the killings of two people, they killed our dreams, our belief that we live in a democracy, and damaged our hopes that politics can ever move us back from this ugliness. 

I will always regard JFK as a hero for nothing more than making the dream of space travel, for a brief moment, a reality, the moon  landing is my strongest, proudest, most sincere and achingly now lost feeling of pride in my country.  JFK did that.

I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if it were also your brothers killed, and not just your heros, even if they were not worthy heros. 

Say what you want about Ted.  I like to shock as much as you, but wishing him dead, thats beyond the pale.  It truly is.  There are many people whose death would improve the world, and he most definitely is not one of them.  Thats just wrong, to suggest so.  Who would mass.  vote for to replace him?  Another fucking Romney?  Fucking what the fuck are you thinking? 

Political messianism is always a bankrupt pursuit and obscures the important work of any executive. Worst of all, it ties the ideal to the man or woman and that is when the bad guys really win. Remember, you are Spartacus, too. 
It wasn’t grudging recognition - the guy got it right, hugely right, when getting it wrong would have been the absolutely easiest thing in the world to do, inevitable, undeniably reasonable and, practically, the only way left, all the usual lies. Much bigger deal than going to the moon, given the consequences of getting it wrong - and it was all completely in his hands. 
US went to the moon because as a counter-Soviet stunt which killed the interest in real space exploration almost as soon as it was achieved. If JFK really gave a shit about space exploration, he would have funded NASA and research centers for space exploration, including how to make it a rational business, at big universities. But there was no real intrinsic interest in it. Shame. The big downside of JFK’s early demise and NASA’s development is that LBJ repatriated mission control to Houston when it probably would have been at the east edge of the MIT campus - in a set of squat towers called Tech Square. In that environment, with that curious set of skills, wow, who knows what could have happened. . . 
The Commonwealth is resourceful and tends to send progressive minded folks to Congress (including some Republicans). It also tends to populate its State House with a horrifically corrupt Democratic crew which from time to time it balances with a Republican governor to keep watch and apply gnoogies at appropriate intervals. Romney was one of those. The dynamic that put him in the governor’s office is not the same one that sends people like Ted Kennedy, John Kerry or even Ed Brooks to the Senate. I am quite sure the Commonwealth would provide a progressive Democrat and if it did, almost anyone it sent to DC would have more novel ideas to cultivate than this drink-addled old man. For progress’ sake, it would be best if he checked out.
 

@FlyingChainSaw:
Political messianism
Political cataclysm
horrifically corrupt

Progressive in the end
car bomb until then
Spartacus dead
Inevatable, they said
The nail is hammered
Seize the hand
that wields the hammer
Seize the hand
that wields the hammer

@redmanlaw: Pardon me for the obvious…

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality

I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality

Like Mussolini and Kennedy
I’m the cult of personality

@nojo: I was reading in Revolver a while ago about some band that was on tour in Europe, looking at the graffiti on the bathroom wall.  The question was, “Who is your favorite back metal band?” Someone wrote “Living Colour”.  I thought of that joke today, believe it or not.
Tool, “Sober” (raw demo version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5algZi2GIyw

should be “black metal band”

@redmanlaw: And right on cue, Metalocalypse starts on the Left Coast…

“I had to fly in disguise.  I drew a moustache on my hand.”
-from the new Revolver interview.

It’s interesting how perceptions change over time.  When RFK ran for president, I thought he was an opportunist who was late to the party in opposing the war in VietNam, and that Gene McCarthy was the better candidate.  Well, I was 17, and had a very strong interest in not getting my ass shot off in a worthless war.

@ FlyingChainSaw: Here’s hoping I can become a Masshole writer at MIT.

Hmmm, late to the thread. We’ve had a busy weekend Cynical friends, and all over poor, drink-ravaged Ted. Let’s not let the eventual demise of the Last True Liberal divide us, comrades!

Hey, any chance of getting Bernie Sanders (D - Commie) to address the September convention? Or Jim Hightower? Now that guy could get us going, and perchance Leftie still has some ties back in Texas. Sadly my links to his Ag Commish days have either moved out (an ex) or checked out.

hey chicago bureau! good to see you here on the CP short bus!
i can see your avatar, it’s up, but may take a day or 3 til you see it. gravatar is evil. and as nojo said, and i’m looking at you HW and JS, the trick with gravatar is making sure you use the same email address there as you use here.

@Dodgerblue: Me, too, that Bobby was the opportunist and Gene was the true antiwar candidate.  Never got drafted, though I was eligible.

@raging:  I was in the first lottery and pulled no. 12.  I gambled by giving up my II-S (student deferment) when it was rumored that Nixon was going to suspend the draft for a few months, I think in the beginning of ‘72.  It worked — I did not become a syphilitic drug addict in VietNam, which was Plan B.

@ Dodgerblue: Was Canada not an option?

One summer long ago, I had an intership in DC and I remember standing on the Capitol steps looking at some group of kids getting ready to take a picture. All of a sudden I felt like someone was staring at me. Sure enough it was Teddy. I kept turning around to see what he was looking at because he never acknowledged me and there wasn’t anyone next to me in his line of sight.  The whole thing was very weird, cuz it’s not like I have big boobs or anything and I was rocking the geeked out glasses and oversized shirt that day.

Anyhoo, that’s my Ted Kennedy story fwiw.

@Dodgerblue: I hit the demographic sweet spot — post-draft, pre-registration. But that didn’t stop me from checking the Lottery every year when I was growing up, nor from considering every now and then the fine lifestyle choices presented by British Columbia.

And really, I should have ended up a Chickenhawk. Fits the pattern.

@nojo: I’m from that magical cohort first required to join St. Ronnie’s national war effort through registration for selective service (such a quaint term!). While my buddies dickered about whether they’d actually get busted for not registering, I did the patriotic thing by marching across the river and finding the tiniest post office in the most remote backwater of NJ, certain that my file would get lost if they ever brought back the draft. 
 
Then I went off and herniated my third lumbar disc falling off a painter’s ladder, just to be safe!

@nabisco: One of the rare times Ronnie gets off the