Still arguing over "Sir" Ted
Was the honorary knighthood bestowed on the veteran Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy earlier this month a cause for "congratulation" or something which is in"poor taste"?
I only ask the question because the DUP MP Sammy Wilson has tabled a expressing concern about the honour, and mentioning both the Senator's support for Sinn Fein and his troubled history related to the incident at
I am assuming the motion is a counter blast to an earlier congratulating the Senator, signed by 30 MPs, including the SDLP.
All of which would be fairly predictable if Sammy Wilson's party colleague, the DUP Euro candidate Diane Dodds, hadn't put out a press statement a few weeks back congratulating Senator Kennedy on his elevation. True, it was a heavily qualified congratulation in which Mrs Dodds welcomed the fact that someone with a "long history of supporting Irish nationalist causes is content to be the recipient of one of the highest honours our Queen can bestow". She used this to bolster her argument that devolution was changing nationalists' "United Ireland mindset".
Of course you cannot please all the people all the time. The SDLP's Alasdair McDonnell attacked Mrs Dodds' original statement as "vindictive and typically narrow minded", arguing that she had used the knighthood to sneer at the Senator. By contrast, the TUV's Jim Allister assailed Mrs Dodds for being "easily taken in" by assuming the Senator has "morphed into some compliant Brit". The TUV leader quoted Lord Tebbit criticising the Senator's personal life.
It's one thing to sing off a different political hymn sheet from your opponents. But it's rather different if you are hitting a different note from your own party members.
Not that the 77 year old Senator, whose honorary knighthood does not entitle him to call himself "Sir Ted", is likely to be following any of this. According to his website, he was in Washington this week presiding over the confirmation hearing for the new The Senator referred to his own battle against a brain tumour, telling Congress "over the past ten months, I've seen our health care system up close. I've benefitted from the best of medicine".
I'm 
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