Does Edward Kennedy realise how ridiculous his words sound?

The BBC report that seven US senators including Edward Kennedy, a bit of a hero to many at the BBC, have written a letter to the Scottish justice secretary to urge him to keep Lockerbie bomber Ali al-Megrahi behind bars in Scotland and not release him on compassionate grounds. My views on al-Megrahi are well known but I will come to that in a later article. In the meantime it is Edward Kennedy's name as a signatory to this letter that struck me.

Is this the same Edward "Ted" Kennedy that gave support to the terrorist IRA during the 1980s and 1990s? Is this the same Ted Kennedy who routinely greeted the supporters and masterminds of IRA terrorism on St Patrick's Day in the USA? Is this the same Edward Kennedy who in 1971 compared the British military presence in Northern Ireland to America's unpopular involvement in Vietnam, a slight difference being that Vietnam was not part of America whilst Northern Ireland is part of the UK and the majority population want to remain that way. Is this the same Edward Kennedy who called for the immediate withdrawal of the British army from Northern Ireland claiming that Protestants who could not accept a united Ireland "should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain", even though they were born and raised in Northern Ireland? I could go on and I could bring up Chappaquiddick and wonder why Ted Kennedy gets a free pass on his involvement in the death of an innocent woman whilst a conservative US politician in a similar scandal would never be allowed back into public life, but I won't. I will just point out that the day anyone should take seriously the words of Edward Kennedy on any matter of terrorism or of safe driving has not yet come.