Now we understand Ted Kennedy’s enthusiasm for Kerry’s candidacy.
The Story—you know what Story we are not talking about— has been denied by Senator Kerry et al., and there it will likely rest, pending further developments. Should such stories see the light of day? The responsible answer is no: Privacy must be protected, issues are more important. Yet allegations of sexual mis-behaviour have been a theme of American politics for centuries. The election of 1828 was enlivened by allegations that Andrew Jackson was a party to bigamy. A recent Jackson biographer concedes that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson knowingly married before her divorce to her first husband was final, though, given the delays of frontier justice, their behaviour was normal. So bigamy was irrelevant. Yet Old Hickory was an impulsive, as well as an effective, leader. Just ask the Cherokees, whom he uprooted, or Martin Van Buren, who had to clean up the economic mess he left. So maybe his jump-the-gun wedding was relevant after all. The president is the most powerful officeholder in the land, and now in the world. He is also Elective Surrogate King. Every clue to his nature will be considered fair game, and such clues will be revealed, and distorted, with the caprice that necessarily marks all journalism.
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