Enough Already!

Right, Joan Kennedy's minidress scandalized the White House in the 1960s.

Howard Kurtz Wash Post:  "I'm not ashamed to admit it, I liked the guy," Mike Barnicle, the former Boston Globe columnist, said on NBC. "I admired the guy."

• News of his passing came too late for most Eastern newspapers, so they posted their pieces and pictures online, sharing cyberspace with Facebook postings and tweets. Ted Kennedy and RIP Teddy were the top trending topics on Twitter, but Mary Jo Kopechne, who died at Chappaquiddick, wasn't far behind. Kopechne was also No. 2 on Google Trends, which measures a surge in searches.
• ABC was first on the air, at 1:18 a.m., with "Nightline" co-anchor Terry Moran getting a reporting assist from George Stephanopoulos. Soon the cable networks were going wall-to-wall, the story dominated the morning shows, and the evening newscasts relegated other headlines to the final minutes. By last night, the broadcast networks were airing prime-time specials and CNN was carrying the HBO documentary "Teddy: In His Own Words." Time and Newsweek are publishing commemorative editions on Friday. Hachette Books announced it would rush out 1.5 million copies of Kennedy's recently completed memoir in mid-September, and by Wednesday "True Compass" ranked No. 15 on Amazon.
• Washington can be the smallest of towns, and many in the media recounted touching encounters with the late senator. Chris Matthews, a Type 2 diabetic, spoke of Kennedy calling him with advice after the "Hardball" host had an attack of hypoglycemia. Paul Begala, a Democratic strategist, recalled on CNN that when his father had received a cancer diagnosis, Kennedy called and "gave me the name of one of the world's foremost experts in cancer treatment. He said, 'He's expecting your call. I just talked to him.' And he helped pave the way to get my father the treatment that, frankly, saved his life."
• The Boston Globe, once seen as a Kennedy house organ, took note of his "personal and political failings" in its lead story Wednesday. Globe reporters are suddenly in demand; Peter Canellos signed a contributor agreement with CBS, and Susan Milligan with ABC.
• Kennedy's relations with the media were not always so smooth. He was savaged after struggling to explain why he wanted to be president in a 1979 CBS interview with Roger Mudd. Anthony Lewis called him "stumbling, inarticulate, unconvincing" in the New York Times. "And not just on Chappaquiddick: his responses in general seemed to be those of a man unsure of the whys and wheres in his life -- unsure of who he was."
• After that losing campaign, coverage of Kennedy's legislative accomplishments was punctuated by reports of his drinking and womanizing. But at some point, perhaps after his second marriage, to Victoria Reggie, Kennedy attained senior statesman status. When Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama last year, news organizations trumpeted his echo of his brother's inaugural proclamation that "the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans."
• An MSNBC promo touted its programming as "an American icon remembered," and given the ratings-driven repetitiveness of television, the dream shall never die, at least not for many days to come.