Ted Kennedy Tilting at the Wrong Windmill

The liberal lion of the Senate, Ted Kennedy, long a joke to us on the right, has become a villain among the greenies on the left as well:

Once upon a time, Ted Kennedy could count on his daily dose of veneration. The right wing hated the Massachusetts Democrat, but progressives honored him as a defender of old-school liberalism.

In a remarkable turnaround, liberals are now heaping scorn on the 73-year-old senator. Young audiences boo at his name, and the leftish "Daily Show" on Comedy Central makes fun of him.

The source of unhappiness is Kennedy's efforts to kill an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind was to be the first such project in the United States and a source of pride to environmentally minded New Englanders. Polls show 84 percent of Massachusetts residents in favor. But now it appears that America's first offshore wind farm will be near Galveston, Texas.

Proposed the month before Sept. 11, 2001, Cape Wind remains in limbo. It's been frustrated at every turn by a handful of yachtsmen, Kennedy included, who don't want to see windmills from their verandas. Many millions have been spent spreading disinformation and smearing the wind farm's supporters.

The towers would be at least five miles out and barely visible from shore on the clearest day, but the summer plutocrats resent any intrusion on their waterfront vistas -- and, equally, any challenge to the notion that they control everything.

"But don't you realize -- that's where I sail!" may stand as Kennedy's most self-incriminating quote.

How could we put in a windfarm and deprive the world of this?

I doubt if any of this will ever drive Teddy from office since his neighbors at Martha's Vineyard probably don't want the wind farm any more than he does, but it is remarkable that a prominent member of a party that won't allow us to drill for our own oil and insists on alternative energy sources won't allow a clean, energy-efficient wind farm in his area.