Your hero is gone! What will you do, other than spout profanities and vulgarities?

You and Teddy are "distinguished" from your brothers because of your double-digit IQ's.

Now go ahead...grunt something crude, cretin.

Anyone who watched C-Span and ever saw Teddy in his "prime" realized he was not ready for prime-time. He was boring and made copious mistakes when reading from notes or a teleprompter. He was the frontman for an entrenched political/lobbying machine. Teddy epitomized the elites' cynical elevation of mediocrity to power.

That machine tried to foist several other Kennedys upon the U.S., including Jackie's two introverted, largely apolitical offspring.

Deep down, Teddy's supporters don't deny this: he really wasn't that great, but his Senate seat was unassailable, and he kept plugging away for their causes.

"It's time to take back control of this healthcare plane!

Follow Teddy, everybody!

Let's roll!"

(Cut to zombies following the "Teddy ghost" toward the cockpit)

D'yah see how good Mark Benjamin is now, Salon? You're forcing him to write this endless series on the Arlington National Cemetary Pig Sty, so he links it to Sen. Kennedy's perpetual internment there! As long as a Kennedy is in Arlington's hallowed soil, people will now remember Benjamin's brilliant journalism, born of his being on Salon's infamous "S**t List."

May Allah bless you, Mark Benjamin! You have turned a lemon into lemonade, tuna into tuna-salad, chicken-s**t into chicken-salad, and every other lesser component into a greater whole!

Essentially: Van went Nagin; Beck went Beck; The One threw another one under the bus; the Republicratic Party chased its tail; and we all kept dancing to the We're All More Different Than Alike Rag while hitting our thumbs with our hammers.

BTW...I VOTED FOR NADER, AND AM FEELING RATHER SMUG!

What is needed here is a realignment of outdated values and expectations with harsh realities. American society is changing faster than any of our grandparents--or even parents--could have ever forseen. There is an evolutionary "shaking out" going on which is going to disappoint a lot of people: our population is too large for the type and rate of economy we are going to have; our workforce demographics cannot support the needed education levels, tax base, and healthcare needs of the populations being supported; we do not have the relative economic position or buying power to support the lifestyle and healthcare levels we are/were accustomed to; the balance of trade is shifting to other centers, away from us; we have moral ambiguity, and limited resources to provide leeway for decisional mistakes.

The glory days of American private healthcare are behind us...if there ever truly were any. The system has gotten unsustainably costly and class discriminatory (when wasn't it class discriminatory?). The baby-boom will be an impossible pill for the economy to swallow, and the healthcare industry will need a federal bailout akin to the auto and banking industry. This is the inevitable fruit of unfettered capitalism--a capitalist's dream gone sour.

The highest cost of healthcare is incurred at the end of each person's life. People want to live on for a few more years, months, days...just like they like to retire to Florida or Las Vegas for the "good life," a death-fearing delusion of hedonistic immortality. The healthcare/pharmaceutical industry preys upon these fears and delusional dreams. Evening television is one medical claim after another: "...see your doctor to see if (fill in the blank) is right for you." Nobody wants to "bell the cat" and tell aging people, "You shouldn't spend all your life earnings (and then some) on retirement travel and end-of-life medical support," but they are too brain-washed already by social conditioning and marketing.

What is appropriate healthcare? Who deserves it? Who doesn't? How much money should be spent on you, to extend your life by five percent, or three percent, or less than one percent? There is something worthy and noble about the desire to provide basic healthcare to anyone and everyone in America; they are part of our "family." There is a fundamental medical premise of providing extensive service to the young: they have a greater number of expected years to live. There is a trade-off in years gained versus healthcare dollars spent. Then there is the potential value of that saved/extended life to society--that is a very touchy subject, but it should be considered part of this discussion. Extending the life of a rich, well-loved, well-covered (private insurance-wise) octogenarian should be a dubious act, even if the family can well-afford it, and the insurance is willing to provide for it. Saving or extending the life of a child or young person should be a preferred act, even if they or their families cannot afford it. Society should support it, or explicitely state the reasons it does not. But costs are not ballooning over treating the young, but over postponing the expiration of the old.

The America that was taught to us in civics courses in grade school has never really existed; it was a dream, a utopia. The real America has always been one of unequal, rationed, greedy, quasi-socialized healthcare. It's been wonderful, caring, and luxuriant for just a few, just adequate for a dwindling majority, and inadequate, bankrupting, or non-existant for increasing numbers. It's just like the American Dream, and America's wealth distribution.

Republicans/capitalists: lie that they don't want to profit from the 'illegal' labor force or that they don't adore paying subsistence wages.

Democrats/liberals: lie that they don't want a growing Latino population because Latinos vote predominantly Democrat.

Illegal aliens: lie about their work/citizenship status, in order to do many low-paying, labor-intensive jobs.

Harsh reality: the President didn't say, "Illegal aliens are people like you and I, who get sick and feel pain. Out of common decency, we should provide them with basic healthcare."

We love to lie.