I heard among some of my acquaintances loud harrumphs and tut tuts about how the Edward Kennedy funeral mass was just a huge excuse for excessive personality adulation and leftist political posturing.
Well yes.
As if we have never seen that sort of thing at every other funeral in Mormondom kulchur.
Kennedy’s funeral mass, broadcast live from Roxbury Massachusetts, reminds us that God commands all to worship him and that the publicans and the harlots will enter the Celestial Kingdom before the supposed believers —
providing the harlots and publicans believe in and use the atonement more than the supposed believers believe in and use the atonement.
The organ music at the end of the mass, the organ music heard on TV as the honor guard and pallbearers carried the Senator’s body from the basilica may be the greatest organ musical I have ever heard on live TV.
As to Kennedy himself, his Senate history is a mass of contradictions and ironies.
On the one hand, I really think he should have resigned the Senate when Mary Jo died in his car.
If the people of Massachusetts really did want to elect him Senator, then he should have stayed at most three terms. Massachusetts contains plenty of people who could serve brilliantly in the Senate. Somewhere in Massachusetts live other men or women who could strike deals and make the peace maybe as well as Kennedy did.
Kennedy should have resigned his senate seat last year so that Massachusetts and the United States Senate had a senator in place for the tumultuous days ahead.
On the other hand, the great come once in a lifetime. Someone told Ted that he and Daniel Webster were the two greatest senators in history, and Ted said without no irony, “What did Daniel do?”
Indeed. Webster spoke brilliantly, but the United States was a tiny place in those days. The Senate did not do much or even meet much by today’s standards of activity. How great is a great man in a tiny institution??
Perhaps maybe The Great do have a responsibility to stay on and service us on and on and on.
Daniel Webster.
Henry Clay.
John Calhoun. '
Robert LaFollette, senior and junior.
Hiram Johnson.
Edward Kennedy.
Goodbye sweet prince. Thank you for your service.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment