Kennedy - Moral Leader?

Should we listen to Ted Kennedy when he tries to speak with moral authority about such issues as Iraq and whether or not President Bush is lying? Is Kennedy the moral leader the Democratic Party needs at this time? After all, didn't the last election show us that the American people respect values after all and can see through a candidate that lacks them vs. one who has them?

Ted Kennedy has told us that Iraq is a quagmire like Vietnam. Yet, wasn't it Ted Kennedy's brother, John F. Kennedy, as President who first got us into Vietnam? In fact, wasn't it the Democratic Party led by Kennedy and Johnson who pursued the entire strategy of the Vietnam War through several presidential administrations only to be pulled out by a Republican president, Richard Nixon? Was Ted Kennedy calling Vietnam a quagmire back then? I don't think so.

Is this the same Ted Kennedy that went to a party, had too much to drink and then plunged his car into the Chappaquiddick river with Mary Jo Kopechne in it and refused to notify authorities for nine hours after the event because he did not want to be caught driving under the influence? Unfortunately, during that nine hours Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the back seat of the car on the bottom of the river while Kennedy slept off his drunk at a local hotel. By the time the authorities were notified, there was nothing they could do to save the young woman.

Then our new Democratic moral leader is the same Kennedy who, when faced with a moral decision of either saving a young woman's life and damaging his political career or letting her die and keeping his career, chose the latter. This is the moral leader who lied to the police about his whereabouts on that tragic night and he says he knows the truth about Iraq? This is the moral leader who knows best when to bring the troops home for their safety but couldn't get police or firefighters help for a young woman who may still have been alive in the Chappaquiddick river?

Ted Kennedy is the reason I changed my political registration away from the Democratic Party. Anyone who feels this man has the moral standing to challenge an honest and Christian man like President Bush has their values completely backward. In 1984 terms, you must believe that right is wrong and peace is war to believe that Ted Kennedy is a moral man, let alone a moral leader.