About Ted Kennedy

(Note: I drafted this post on August 30th, but didn't get around to publishing it till now. Maybe it's just as well, since President Obama once again reverenced the late Senator Kennedy in his speech last night. We cannot forget what this says about us.)

Mark Steyn said it all so well.

Like Steyn, I also have been thinking: what kind of nation reveres a man who did what Ted Kennedy did in 1969? What kind of state would elect and re-elect, over and over again, a man who was capable of doing what Ted Kennedy did to Mary Jo Kopechne?

Not to mention what he did to his first wife, Joan. Her life was ruined by Ted Kennedy just as surely as was Mary Jo Kopechne's, though obviously in a very different way. According to reports, Joan began drinking heavily after Teddy started womanizing, which he did, brazenly, publicly, and incessantly, for all their married life. She quickly descended into full-blown alcoholism, and is now brain-addled, permanently disabled, from the years of drinking. It's a heart-breaking story.

I spent a lot of time on my knees yesterday; my original intent was just to wash the kitchen floor, but I did end up using that time to pray a lot as well. I prayed for Joan Kennedy. I prayed for all the victims of abortion who lost their lives in part because Kennedy, vocally and fervently, pushed for the "right" for women to kill their unborn children. I prayed for Mary Jo. Those last minutes - hours? -- are too horrible to think about.

But more horrible, perhaps, is that this country allowed Ted Kennedy to get away with it, that he was considered a "great" man, that he was given a huge, public, Catholic funeral.

This says terrible things about us. Yes, I hope God was merciful to Kennedy; we all are obligated to pray that everyone is forgiven. And yes, I will pray for him. But I also will pray for his many victims -- and for all of us.