Truthfully, by today's standards perhaps Ted Kennedy should have resigned. But even when I was in college in the '80's standards were different. Then I knew many who drove drunk. No one thought anything of it. What has changed is that we, as a soceity, have gotten a hell of a lot smarter about such things. People I know who used to drive drunk from time to time in the '80's now consider it stupid, dangerous and unacceptable. I can only assume (and hope) that Ted Kennedy is among those who has learned that driving drunk is abyssmally stupid. If he did it today, yeah, he SHOULD probably resign. But clearly Vito Fossella has not. Then again, I have to say I have never heard anyone claim that Fossella had a lot between his ears.

Would I have called for Ted Kennedy's resignation at the time? I can't say. I was not a product of that generation so I can't judge by that generation's standards. I'd say that not driving drunk should be unacceptable in any generation, but it wasn't. Is it fair to condemn Thomas Jefferson and James Madison the same way we would condemn slaveholders today? Perhaps we should. But we don't. Jefferson and Madison are thought of as heros and great Presidents. Anyone who was a slaveholder today (and yes, it does still happen, and is legal in some nations) would be uncceptable as a President, don't you think? Perhaps it is odd to compare the two, but the point is that standards do change and Vito drove drunk during a time when the standards condemn it. Kennedy drove drunk at a time when standards accepted it.