One of the more annoying aspects of the week's assorted encomiums to The Lion of Limousine Leftism is the assertion that The Squire of Hyannisport "achieved far more" than either of his elder assassinated brothers.
Well.
If one defines achievement as the expansion and nourishment of the elephantine welfare state, then sure, Ted Kennedy achieved much more than either Jack or Bobby. Ted Kennedy did more than anybody else in his family to try and turn the U.S. into a Scandinavian-style socialist state. There was no appetite for government largesse, no complaint or claim of victimization that he would not endeavor mightily to sate and salve with somebody else's money. Ted Kennedy was the very personification of Thatcher's quip that " a socialist is somebody who's extremely compassionate with other people's money." But in the liberal mind, such redistributive behavior constitutes monumental heroism.
I would merely point out in defense of the elder Kennedy who actually occupied The White House that Ted's "achievements" pale in comparison to the following achievements of JFK...
1. He saved the world from nuclear war...TWICE...first in 1961, then again in 1962...
Ponder that for a moment...you're all walking around breathing because of how JFK handled unprecedented and unrepeated nuclear confrontations in the summer of 1961 and the autumn of 1962...Teddy would never have gotten to set up all of his ineffective and expensive programs for various derelicts if we all got blown up in the early 1960s...
2. JFK prevented the Communists from winning the Cold War in the early 1960s...
