OBSERVATION: Life and death in Camelot

Within two seemingly unrelated events, I found an interesting common thread.

The first was the highly coveted endorsement bestowed on Barack Obama by the distinguished senior senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy. Media affection for all things Kennedy assured this event would receive maximum publicity of the most favorable kind. The second event was the tragic death of television anchorman, Randy Salerno.

What possible connection?

Salerno was accidentally killed while riding on a snowmobile driven by his best friend, Scott Hirschey. Hirschey had been drinking. The badly injured and overwhelmingly remorseful life-long friend was charged with a number of civil and criminal offenses, the most serious of which is vehicular homicide – murder, more simply put. He faces the potential of decades in prison.

Kennedy did far worse. The inebriated playboy senator, carrying an expired drivers license, drove his car off the Chappaquiddick bridge in Martha’s Vineyard late one night, abandoning a potentially still alive young woman, named Mary Jo Kopechne, to the last breath of oxygen in an air pocket just inches below water. Testimony suggested that she may have survived up to two hours on available air. Uninjured himself (forget the “for show” neck brace), Kennedy left the scene of the accident to confer with family and aides in an attempt to escape both the scene and responsibility. When that was impossible, the Kennedy machine went into action, making the Watergate and Lewinsky cover-ups look like an episode of True Confessions. Every step of the way was marked by fabrications, payoffs and terminated investigations. Kennedys are never brought to justice in Massachusetts.

One man’s life in ruins and another is formally addressed as “the honorable and distinguished.” I just ain’t right.

Obama expressed great pride in the endorsement from Kennedy. Perhaps the deadly philandering sot of a senator is in good company with Obama's indicted wheeler-dealer pal, Tony Rezko, who helped launch the Senator's career with jobs, money and introductions. They both put themselves above the law.