Also fewer women need to worry about drowning now that he is gone.

The man has just died, stinkcat - it's far too soon. And, as a citizen of MA, I was proud to have him as my senator and I think he did all he could to atone for that particularly awful failure of judgment. I might ask you, what's the worst thing you've ever done? How would you like to have people making glib comments about that the minute you shuffle off instead of remembering the finer things you've done?

It is never too soon to forget that his own reckless behavior caused the death of someone and then attempted to escape taking responsibility. There worst thing I have ever done doesn't come close to killing someone.

Concerning Senator Kennedy, he did have some substantial issues regarding personal conduct, as do many of our elite. Unfortunately Kennedy was not the only politico/elite to have been associated with unfortunate incidents arising from deaths and automobiles. And others have quite blithly shot people with little or no consequence. So getting too fixated on that issue is a problem, obviously what occurred was wrong and immoral-but if it is to be brought up so then must the wrongs of like kind committed by others of our elite, right and left. And that could be a very, very long recital.

That stated, politically Senator Kennedy did attempt to serve the needs of the common people, and did so quite well in various manners. For example he was one of the very few in Congress to have the courage to speak out concerning the repeated abuses inherent to government and corporate student loan conflicts of interest, including the 9.5% scandals. And he, unlike many of his compatriots in the Senate, did speak clearly about the abuses directly applied students and families for which the edudebt companies are so noted.
Even if Kennedy had done no other act, his stand agaisnt the usurors would have been enough to grant his tenure some major credibility.

And I'd also imagine that the best thing you've ever done doesn't come close to helping the number of people, personally and politically, that Kennedy did, either. I might point out that Mary Jo Kopechne was also drunk and perhaps some of the responsibility must lay at her feet too. But that doesn't sit well with me either, frankly. My point is your complete lack of charity and humanity. He was a person too, you know?

I'm starting to think that Ghilarducci writes this "stuff" for the express purpose of raising my blood pressure.

Sorry young lady, but I suspect that (even) you realize that Teddy Kennedy spent the greater part of his life as a drunken, philandering cheat.
Would you want one of your daughters married to a Teddy Kennedy type? jms---H.R.I.M.

He was a person. You win that point.

On the personal level, his behavior was reprehensible, vile, unjust, dishonest, and stupid.

He was an incredibly flawed, pretentious, arrogant, self-absorbed, hypocritical narcissist, whose "public service" was a means of telling others how they should live by standards of conduct that he refused to apply to himself. For example, had he lived, and if healthcare passes into law, he would not have been a part of the same plan he wrote for other Americans. Arguing the he brought peace to Northern Ireland by pressuring American Catholics is more than a bit vacuous as well, inasmuch as Kennedy was not a Catholic in good standing, according to the dictates of his own faith. He was a proponent of the right of women to terminate the life of their unborn children. So, scratch upholding Catholic principles and his defense of the defenseless from the list.

Justice? Ted Kennedy is the one who brought the most rancorous, honorless behavior to the confirmation process in his personal, ad hominem attacks on Judge Bork, who by the way is a brilliant jurist who happens to be conservative. Since the Bork confirmation hearings, the very process of confirming federal justices has been corrupted - by Teddy boy himself.

Further, poverty is not caused by a low minimum wage. Raising the minimum consistently reducing the number of jobs available to the very people who both need them and can benefit from them. I know this by personal experience as one who has worked minimum wage jobs and who now hires people. Fairness, union thugs disrupted my family's life on more than one occasion, nearly killed a police officer friend of mine, and are responsible for becoming the personification of the worst in close-mindedness, thoughtless, and plain stupid human behavior. Show me a union leader and I can show a dishonest person who hides behind a mob.

Kennedy was a talented legislator; if one judges talent by backroom deals that serve first of all, the dealmakers personal interests.

Despite all this, I am not glad he is dead. Because now his family must cope with the loss, and Teddy has to answer to God.

It does seems unfair to revisit the "bad" things about Ted Kennedy, and not give him his due for the good things. Apparently this is a common thing in humans. Even as far back as the writing of "Julius Ceasar"...in Anthony's oration "The evil men do live after them; the good is oft interred with their bones."

In other words, it is ok to kill people when you are drunk as long as you have good intentions when you are sober?

This may be the most disgusting and offensive comment posting I have seen in the Chronicle.

Personally I believe Mr. Kennedy's life was full of transgressions, some maybe criminal. I also believe fully in the power of redemption. It appears Mr. Kennedy fro the last 15+ years understood his personal demons and strove to live differently. He lived a different life after the terrible decision in the early nineties.

I cannot say how I would behave if my three brothers were killed early in life, with the the burden of my family, and all of this in full view of millions of people. Knowing and feeling the loss of a brother at a young age, it is confusing and earthshattering and I did not behave properly.

Recognize Senator Kennedy's shortcomings and terrible behavior, but recognize his faith, his redemption, and his personal conversations with his church and family. And most definitely recognize his tireless and sincere desire to make a better world for all, especially the working people in our country.

May peace be with Mr. Kennedy.

Thank you, grantjspu, for your statement of balance and perspective.

Ted Kennedy, with all his personal flaws, was one of the great historical figures of American history, and has some claim to being the greatest Senator the chamber has seen--certainly in our generation and lifetime. The vindictive, childish commentary here from the rightwingers is pathetic, full of misrepresentations and outright lies. This is the standard bombastic right wing arguing style--and to refute each lie they tell would take far too much time, and even if that's done, they happily lurch on to another, leaving poor liberals or moderates who believe in honest discourse constantly trying to keep up in a one-sided "debate" which the right has no intention of honoring. This style, pioneered in this generation by Newt Gingrich and coupled with anti-intellectual and the paranoia of the Limbaughs, Becks, and Hannitys, has poisoned American politics and civic discourse. Ted Kennedy's memory and place in history is immune to this pathetic nonsense, but it holds back American social progress.

Is it a lie that he drove a car off a bridge, killed a woman and then left the scene of an accident? Please, provide the evidence that this is a lie.