When Ted Kennedy finally died, from brain cancer, all the media practically knocked their chairs over in the scramble to be first to say the most nice things about this supposed “great man”.

The truth is that Ted Kennedy was a coward and a liar, corrupt and physically obese, who made a career of pandering to special interests.

Now another one has croaked, John Murtha. He did in fact do a lot for our armed forces, unlike Ted Kennedy, and for that deserves credit for doing the job he was richly paid for, especially when you include all the kickbacks and money funneled to his brother. He even deserves the same amount of credit a truck driver does, for making safe deliveries, minus a TV set or whatever, or a postal worker for correctly sorting the mail while slipping an envelope with visible money into his pocket. He does not deserve special recognition for doing his job, though he does for his thefts.

But he’s sure getting it, simply because we have this screwed up notion that getting elected makes you a rock star. Well, this particular rock star was in the thick of the ABSCAM scandal and was videotaped turning down a $50,000 bribe while holding out the possibility that he might take money in the future: “We do business for a while, maybe I’ll be interested and maybe I won’t.” Cagey fellow.

The FBI raided PMA, a lobbying firm, and found that Murtha directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business. Between 1989 and 2009, Murtha collected back more than $2.3 million in campaign contributions from PMA’s lobbyists and corporate clients.

Murtha was considered to be one of the most corrupt politicians in office but had gained so much power during his 35 years that he was almost untouchable. Maybe that’s really why we praise people like this, because they can be so rotten and yet make a lifetime career of robbing America.

After all, look how we make heroes of our other villians, like John Dillinger and Al Capone. As awful as they were, the plain truth is that America is proud of having a gangster past.