Like many, I spent a decent chunk of my Saturday watching coverage of Ted Kennedy's funeral. That much shouldn't come as a shock - When multiple Presidents are in the same room interacting with each other and it's being broadcast live, I'm totally there. Besides, I can't still be the only one utterly fascinated by the friendship George W. Bush and the Clintons seem to have developed, right?
During the Kennedy party's flight from Boston to D.C., CNN kept mentioning and eventually aired a documentary on the late Senator that HBO had put together in recent months. Staying true to its title, the piece largely relied on archival audio and video. Still, the history major in me found the more recent reflections of his that they employed downright criminal in their inadequacy. This is especially true given his heightened sense of self-awareness - Not only was he terminal ill, but his very public 1991 acceptance of his shortcomings had directly lead to a lot of meaningful work over the past 20 years. Like most, I'm beyond the voyeuristic, downright adolescent desire to find out how immediately and exactly he dealt with the well documented parade of personal tragedies. Still, his ability to capture the imagination of Massachusetts and the rest of the US stemmed from his private ability to grieve healthfully enough to eventually use those painful detours as a means of inspiration; of "picking up the torch" and thriving in a situation where so many others would have not only failed, but also been forgiven for doing so. In that sense, some detailed ruminations on what it actually took to overcome would have been tremendously enlightening.
Additionally, there was a portion of this documentary which was completely new and disconcerting to me - In short, it presents authentic audio clips of Nixon (in the Oval Office nonetheless) conspiring to do a variety of illegal and generally despicable things to a political foe who wouldn't even be running for president for another eight years. Nixon directly suggests pinning the attempted George Wallace assassination on a fabricated connected Kennedy supports. He talks about the existing unsuccessful efforts of Federal agents in his employ to catch Kennedy in a politically compromising situation. The President also expresses his desire to supply the Senator with bogus Secret Service protection loyal to him - "If he gets shot, that's too bad." Regardless of the reader's personal opinion on the Senator's actions in the Chappaquiddick Incident, the fact that Nixon would sink to such depths after an event that (even back then) made him an unrealistic candidate for the Presidency makes it even more petty and revolting.
It's been interesting that despite this illegal and generally despicable behavior that is separate from the Watergate Scandal and apparently has been public knowledge for some time, Nixon still saw some praise this weekend for initiating a "War on Cancer." In this climate, it's been deemed a very early form of overall health-care reform and something that Kennedy had been willing to work with him on. Obviously Nixon did do some good, and even without the help of a wildly popular HBO miniseries (John Adams's Presidency was historically irrelevant before Paul Giamatti portrayed him in 2008), Nixon's Presidency had rebounded over the past decade even in liberal circles. Beyond any sympathy that might have been dredged up by Frost/Nixon, more attention than ever is being given to his un-GOP-like sensitivity to a litany of tricky social issues and disinterest in meaninglessly withholding diplomatic recognition to an emerging China.
If Richard M. Nixon didn't suffer from outright mental illness, he definitely did have a dangerously distracting preoccupation with the Kennedy clan. In addition to the clear differences in ideology and outward appearance/public perceptions, Nixon (as history is proving, somewhat accurately) believed nefarious dealings by Daley in Chicago and LBJ in Texas delivered the Presidency to JFK. It's one thing to wander the halls of the White House in the middle of the night and have conversations with your slain rival's portrait. But it's quite another to abuse the Office to such an illegal and generally unforgivable extent. It goes against everything the Office and the Country stand for.
Our 37th President was the worst President.
Living on Eye Street NW, across Virgina Ave. from the Watergate Complex, I'm not sure I ever appreciated our view and access for anything more than its historical value (however notorious). But in what should surely be a relief to Mustachioed Hostelkeeper, the next time I'm in the mood for that dank Safeway's 10 boxes of Hot Pockets for $10 or Watergate Bourbon (sold in a convenient lightweight plastic bottle!), I'll appreciate it for standing as a living testament to the fact the system works. To not include Nixon's second term in a list of America's darkest hours and the process that began in the middle of the night on May 28, 1972 as one of its brightest is downright foolhardy.
Beyond that unpleasantness, I look forward to heading across the River this week to pay my respects. As a moderate, I can't reconcile with some of Kennedy's political views. As someone who considers himself to be moral, I can't reconcile with some of the things he did privately, and yes, that includes the audacious insensitivity of naming his beloved dog "Splash."
Still, he eventually used what could have been a crippling burden to make a genuine difference. And I use the word genuine because his Congressional support also entailed a strikingly personal attitude towards the people (constituents or not) who would benefit from his work in Washington. Far and away, the most fascinating part of all this coverage has been the individual stories onlookers from Tremont Street in the Bay State to Constitution Ave. here in D.C. have had about rich interactions with him; experiences that made a real difference in their lives. My favorite had to be those folks who simply said "Senator Kennedy helped me pick up the pieces and learn to put one foot in front of the other again."
Kennedy also didn't use the legislative branch as his own personal stepping stone to a higher public or more financially lucrative private office, nor was he one of those rightfully loathed, useless career politicians who use Congress as their own personal cash cow. I also kind of dig the fact he ran against an incumbent President from his own party. He did this not because he felt his last name entitled him to the White House or because he had a personal rivalry with Jimmy Carter, but because he viewed the US much in the same way the 1980 election's eventual winner did.
Kennedy, like Reagan, saw an opportunity to reverse the slew of problems that lead to our collective "crisis of confidence." On top of that, his career-spanning mission to overhaul health care had seemed to be shaping up as the most immediate way of putting the country back on track. As much as a kid who was born two years later can gather, it seemed he quickly made peace with the fact the Presidency was - in his own words - "not in the cards." This acceptance, which often comes far too late for a lot of politicians, allowed him to craft the legacy that was celebrated this weekend.
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