Trying to figure out "the line" for humor is a very interesting and telling intellectual problem that I believe tells much about individuals and the state of a given culture at a given time. Racial humor is an example of something that has become nearly 100% off limits because of the unacceptability of any sort of white to black humor being socially taboo. Being a bald guy, I know that jokes at the expense of bald men are always acceptible. Fat jokes are far less so, and it will be interesting to follow the future in that area. Bald jokes certainly bothered me when I lost my hair in my early 20's, but I adaapted, but I'm sure part of that adaptatation probably made me tougher and more combative without any thought on my part. The method of adaptation probably says something about my base personality that required little thought on my part, I believe we are very far from blank slates, on the other hand I don't believe we are already fully sculpted personalities either. My natural tendency was to think that I needed to learn to deal with it on my own; the idea of "victimhood", or "political correctness for bald guys" seems unlikely to happen and undesireable from too many levels to even begin to contemplate, so "adapt and deal with it" was my course.
On to the situation at hand. Harry Whittington walked out of the hostpital looking hale and healthy Friday and gave a gracious and understanding statement. Nice civil humor, the kind without any hatred being required could really begin now, so my guess is that humor will promptly end from the left. Cheney had a simple, though bad accident, but in the end, everyone walked away not only without much in the way of lasting physical effects, but very willing to forgive and forget. Both Cheney and Whittington acted as excellent examples of how to handle a very difficult personal situation, and the MSM and many Americans did an equally "excellent" job of showing how to let partisanship and personal animosity rise above civility and basic human kindness and understanding. I see all parties involved as very true to their basic natures. Cheney and Whittington because they are long ago classy gentlemen that really wouldn't know any other way to act, the MSM and many Americans because they believe that their standard of personal hatred, even to the point of in more cases than I would have imagined before last week, wishing a very impressive old guy dead if it would help bring down a VP they happen to politically hate.
Contrast is often a source of humor, but the comparison to Kennedy is far more than humor, it is understanding at a deep level that sometimes only a humorous contrast can fully bring to the surface. When the young secretary that it is commonly understood is in the midst of an affair with a senator is drowned in his car and he fails to report the incident to the authorities until the next AM, we have a situation that we need to be very clear on the "D" or "R" contrast to know how it would be handled. Here we have a "D", so Teddy continues on in public life and has so little concern for the past incident he currently has a dog named "splash". Being on the left means that scrutiny or even basic decency is something you can safely ignore. There is both humor and sadness in the comparison.
As a parent, it is hard to imagine how it must feel to have your child killed by a powerful national figure and to see that the concern from the local electorate doesn't even rise to the level to remove him from office, and nationally his party barely is able to refrain from putting him up as a presidential canidate. Is this a "joke" to point out the comparison with the mild Cheney accident, and thus cruel to whatever relatives of Mary Jo Kopekne that still may be watching? I think not, since to know that some still remember the travesty of justice and the callousness of the MSM and Democrats in this country willing to protect a Kennedy in the face of what looks to be at least very close to murder.
The contrast really does say it all. Mary Jo will not be walking out of the hospital and telling the nation that she is sorry for all the trouble that the incident at Chappiquidick caused poor Teddy.
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