Lest anyone think that the title is referring to the corrupt, but hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-Senator from New Jersey, no.

Apparently Teddy Kennedy stopped sandwiching waitresses long enough to bloviate on the Senate floor against continuing the war (I say continuing, Ted, because it never really ended, since he's gone back on every jot and tittle of the peace agreement that he signed in 1991, and we've been bombing him with some regularity ever since, including just the past couple of days).

I just heard excerpts of it, but apparently, if we go in, it really will be the Mother Of All Battles this time for sure. It will be street by street, house to house fighting, and we'll lose a battalion of troops every day. There will be oceans of Yankee blood flowing across the desert, and shrieks of agony such as have never assaulted the ears of the world, as we fight all the untold legions of brave, staunch and determined defenders of the Supreme Leader, Beloved Torturer And Gasser Of His People, Saddam Hussein.

It being his first language, he delivered the speech in English, but I'm convinced that it would have been more poetic and appropriate if he'd left it in the original Arabic.

Assuming, just for the sake of argument, that there's anything at all to any of this absurd lunacy, what in the world has happened to the Kennedys? What happened to the notion of "bear any burden, pay any price" so eloquently stated in his brother's inaugural address?

The warbloggerwatchers like to call anyone who hasn't served in the military, yet sadly recognize the need for war, "chickenhawks." Is there some converse to that bizarre notion? If someone like Ted Kennedy calls for peace, does it require that he has never squeezed his thick, pasty white thighs into a size XXX set of camos? Is it his lack of military experience that so qualifies him to screech hysterically and querulously about the brave Iraqi army (the one that was surrendering to Italian journalists just a few short years ago), before whom our men and women in the military should apparently tremble? If so, then perhaps the Kennedys are indeed the ones to whom we should look for military guidance. Has any member of the Kennedy clan served in the military, this side of WWII?

I'd like to say that it's time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of Kennedys, but judging by the disaster that is the Kathleen Kennedy Townsend campaign, I suspect that it's going to have to skip a generation or three before it finds anything worthy of its predecessors.

The good thing about this, of course, is that it continues to expose the widening fissure between the new San Francisco Democrats (as exemplified by the latest incarnation of Albert Gore, Jr.) and those members of the Democratic party who are concerned about defending their nation, and maintaining some semblance of political influence. Bloviate on, in whatever language you want, Ted.

Slightly off topic, but little Katie debated Ehrlich last night in a forum sponsered by the NAACP. Ehrich was reasonable honest - and it cost him points both there and in the media. Katie lied, but it was what the audience wanted to hear.

I fully expect that she will win in November and we will all be poorer for it, sooner.

Not that Ehrlich would really be any better.

Ted did do a couple of years in the Army after he was expelled from Harvard for cheating on a Spanish exam. His father Joe pulled some strings to keep him from seeing action in Korea, but he did serve and that service was one of the factors that Harvard used to justify readmitting Ted (that was an era of one-strike-and-you;re-out policies on cheating).

The real question is why we should take seriously the words of any man responsible for the death of an innocent woman (Kennedy). It's like the incoherent ramblings of the senile but the still vain Robert Byrd (former Klansman); who the hell are these people to presume they have the right to morally hector anyone?

Ted Kennedy is going through life like Flounder in Animal House: "fat, drunk and stupid". There may be valid reasons for opposing war with Iraq but Ted certainly didn't (and couldn't) articulate them. He is probably the most morally compromised man in Congress and is in no position to lecture anyone.

I am always surprised that anyone listens to Ted Kennedy anymore (or even that they did ten years ago). I think I came up with a good analysis, though, of why he still has some influence.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could get Teddy Kennedy the job as Saddam's chauffeur?

I propose "Foghorn" as a counter to "chickenhawk". Foghorn is of course a reference to Foghorn Leghorn. A Foghorn is a chicken navigating in the fog unable to see what is in front of him. He is wailing endlessly hoping someone will here him.

And the chickenhawk wants to eat that blowhard Foghorn.

"I am always surprised that anyone listens to Ted Kennedy anymore"

Only for the laughs, I'm sure.