To Whom It May Concern

Kennedy's: America's Camelot???

I'm amazed at the media's constant affection for the Kennedy family, continually portraying them as though they are royalty, referring to them as America's version of the royal family on many occasions. I get pretty irate when I hear that, but then I sit back and look at things, and you know what? That isn't too far from the truth. The royal family in Britain certainly doesn't have anything resembling real jobs, and wow, neither do any of the Kennedy family. Even worse, as a nation it's as though we are expected to join in as a whole in grief and sorrow at the tragic circumstances that continually assail the Kennedy's, when the way of their tragedy always seems to involve alcoholism, addiction, risk-taking, self-destruction and other preventable actions resulting in early death.

Certainly the assassinations of JFK and Bobby Kennedy were tragic, but since then the Kennedy tragedies became tawdrier: drunken driving, heroin, a skiing death caused by high-speed games of downhill football, sex with babysitters, allegations of rape. Even John F. Jr's plane crash came in careless circumstances when he was told not to fly his plane at night because of inadequate experience at nighttime aviation. Yet despite nearly every aspect of what goes on within the Kennedy family happening as a result of, at best, poor judgement, we are supposed to sit back in grief or worse admire this family of drunken fools?

Let's look at the life of one of the more... admired... members of the Kennedy family, Senator Edward Kennedy (I say this with tongue in cheek, but he must be admired by a bunch of Bostonian morons because they keep electing this alcoholic sleazebag into congress). Ted Kennedy, despite terrible grades in prep school, was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy". As a sophomore he is expelled from Harvard for cheating, paying a friend to take a spanish test for him. Upon expusion from Harvard, he joins the army, signing up for a four year stint. Ted's father finds out his son joined for 4 years, and is able to get ahold of his enlistment papers, and somehow, able to shorten his enlistment to 2 years, something no average recruit can ever do. Furthermore, although joining during the Korean War, somehow Ted is sent along on easy street to serve his country for two years in Europe, not Korea. He never manages to get above the rank of private, and is discharged from military service in 1952.

Ted was allowed back into Harvard in 1953, and played on the college rugby team. During one match he was involved in three fistfights, and finally thrown out of the game. The referee stated that it was the only time in 30 years of officiating that he had ever tossed someone out of a game. He somehow graduated from Harvard, and in 1957 entered law school. While there, his tendency for reckless driving earned him the nickname "Cadillac Eddie". He was cited four times for wreckless driving, including running red lights and driving more than 100 mph in a suburban neighborhood. For whatever reason, his license was never suspended. At the age of 30 he took over the senate seat of president elect JFK, a position he still holds to this day.

Then, Chappaquiddick, where Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and after he escaped the submurged car, leaving his female companion to drown while he ran away from the scene of the accident. Kennedy was driving on an expired license and was alleged to have been drunk at the time. He plead guilty to the crime of leaving the scene of an accident where personal injury had occured. Despite the fact that this crime has a mandatory 20 day jail sentence, and that the injury was actually manslaughter, he was given a suspended sentence. This tied in with the mysterious fact that his previous driving record was somehow covered up, the judge being told that he had no prior convictions involved with operating a motor vehicle. The court proceedings at his sentencing took a mere 7 minutes, a suspended sentence being quite the small price to pay for taking a human life.

Despite all of this, the people of Massachussets continually vote this man into office. In fact, a rundown of the entire Kennedy family will find few, if any, of them that hold jobs that they have actually earned by any degree other than having the Kennedy name. And this is supposed to be the idea of American royalty. Must be, because even those who are third cousins to Kennedy's twice removed or whatever always make sure to tell everyone things like "Yah, I'm a Kennedy, my mother's ex-husband is the third cousin of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s wife". I for one will never have any respect for this family and it amazes me that anyone with any knowledge of them could respect them.