Opening a link to a story about the ‘bipartisan salute’ paid to Ted Kennedy upon his death, I found a real knee-slapper in the first paragraph, although somehow I don’t think that the Washington correspondent for the Financial Times really intended it to be funny:
Edward Kennedy’s death on Wednesday triggered a rare moment of bipartisan unity in Washington at the end of a bitterly rancorous month in which the “Lion of the Senate’s” lifelong goal of achieving universal healthcare had been called un-American by rightwing critics.
Read that last phrase again.
Nevermind the fact that the debate has seen the SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES calling PRIVATE CITIZENS “Un-American”, the author has to portray Kennedy’s party (and more importantly, the party of Obama) as being wronged. Reading on, that’s really what this article is about. Not memorializing the passing of a major (if controversial) figure in the U.S. Senate, but writing a dismal political piece about the health care bill, and more importantly, Barack Obama:
It is unclear whether the outpourings for Mr Kennedy, whose almost half-century tenure made him the third-longest-serving senator, will improve Mr Obama’s ability to sell healthcare reform to an increasingly sceptical public.
This article is the epitome of what modern ‘journalism’ has become. They have taken the death of an important American — one that was a major ally of Mr. Obama — and cheapened it by making it a paltry article about current politics, mixed in a little bit of idol worship of President Obama, and topped it all off with a major distortion of facts intended as a cheap political hit on the President’s opponents. It’s really quite disgusting.
And they wonder why there is such dissatisfaction with the media in the country.
Rest in peace, Senator Kennedy. I can’t say I agreed with you most of the time, but you stood up for what you believed in. May we all find the courage to do the same.