End of an era!

A bad, bad era.

I pay as little attention to electoral politics on this blog as possible, but some things can't be escaped or at least - as in this case - deserve a good swift kick in passing.

This week the last Kennedy in public office announced that he's hanging up his top hat. The newsies can't get enough of the story.

Guy's 42 years old. His daddy bought him a seat in the Rhode Island HoR as a college graduation present, got him into Congress six years later, where the only thing he was good at was bulldozing metric shit-tons of pork to Rhode Island. He's a drunk, a drug addict, a mentally-ill woman-abuser. Any decent politician - if you'll forgive the oxymoron - with his personal deficits would have been quietly shuffled off by his party ten years ago. But he's a Kennedy, so bring on the crocodile tears. How ever will we get along?

What I do find a little sad - to the extent that I can muster any feeling for the guy at all - is that he apparently never wanted to be there in the first place. His dad's barely cold in the grave, and his first public statement in, like, ever is that he's not going to run for re-election. Imagine a person so empty of self-worth that the top priority of his life is keeping Ted fergoshsake Kennedy happy with him. Yeah, that's sad.