Ted Kennedy gone
I may have a different perspective on Ted Kennedy than many of my readers. After all, I remember him as a slim young thing (both him and me), the most junior of the charismatic band of brothers Kennedy, they of the golden lives and the supercharged vigor.
Ted was the lightweight, the least serious and least likely to succeed of the group. But he ended up as Senator For Life from Massachusetts, a role he seemed to relish. And unlike his brothers, he managed to live out his days and die a natural death as an elderly man.
I don’t agree with his politics, although I once did. I thought his conduct in the Kopechne affair suspicious and disgraceful. But I remember his face at the funerals of brother John and then brother Bobby, whom he memorably eulogized, voice breaking at times with grief and pain. Then there were his own struggles when his son lost a leg to cancer, the same disease to which he has now succumbed.
That’s all I have to say except: RIP, brothers.
Lovely shot of the brothers. (Colorized?)
The end of an era.
I lost faith in Ted after Chappaquidick. I still wonder about the forks in the road had JFK or RFK not been killed.
Chappaquidick. Had he not been a Kennedy, it would have been over then. Had it been almost anyone else, he’s have seen the inside of a jail cell for quite some time. I could never set that aside.
My heart felt sympathies to the family, as they would be to any family losing a loved one.
When I see photos of the Kennedys like that, I can’t help but think of what it was like to be in Catholic school after the election of 1960 and after the assassination of 1963. In both instances the faces of the good sisters who taught us told the whole story – joy, pride, then utter grief.
I think that is why, years later, it was particularly painful to learn that these people who had been abundantly blessed were actually no different than anyone else.
But yes, I will remember Edward Kennedy’s quavering voice at the funeral of his brother, Robert and I will remember him and his family in my prayers. Just like the good sisters taught us.
The Swimmer finally sank. ‘Bout damn time!
Now comes the pathetic eulogies to a ‘great’ man. No one will talk of his traitorous contacts with the KGB in the ’80s, and Mary Jo will most likely not even get an honorable mention. In the immortal word of DKOS, ‘Screw him!”
and so the Lion goes. we may not see his like again.
My father refers to Old Joe who lost one son in war, two to assassination, had a daughter with mental challenges. Ted lost them as siblings.
Still, suffering does not provide one with moral authority.
The victimizer can victimize–see the various groups in the Balkans alternately or simultaneously killing each other and being killed by each other. It was tough to figure out who to root for. Or against.
With Teddy, his person was loathsome, his politics venal, and his aforementioned connections with the KGB ought to have had him jailed.
Not to mention Chappaquidick.
And that he was senator life tells us what a majority of Massachusetts folks thought of the tradeoff between venality and pork.
All in all, a sorry demonstration of humanity.
Yeah, I’m sorry for his family. But a lot of guys died yesterday who didn’t do near as much harm as Teddy did. Sorry for them, too.
He was a selfish, self-important monster. He should have drowned at Chappaquidick, not Mary Jo. Better yet, he should never have been born.
Did Edward Kennedy mean anything in himself, or was he mainly a vessel for projections, dreams, sorrow, and regrets?
His tireless progressivism was actually a break with his brothers’ politics. It is amazing to me, for example, that progressives can overlook Robert having been an aide to Joe McCarthy. John Kennedy did not join in McCarthy’s censure by the Senate. McCarthy was godfather to one of Robert’s children.
The family story here is murkier and darker than this sunny photograph would suggest. Perhaps that is the meaning: that slick public relations in the age of television have covered up sordid truths that everyone understands perfectly well. Humpty-Dumpty and the Memory Hole rule our collective thinking.
History will remember Teddy for manslaughter, rapes, collaboration with the enemy, vicious slanders, academic fraud, election fraud and a vulgar personal life accented by alcoholism, drug addiction and sexual infidelity on a grand scale. He was perhaps the most immoral and dysfunctional member of a family noted for extraordinarily immoral, dysfunctional members.
Oblio, I think your suggestion that much of Ted’s mystique was based on the projections of progressives rather than his own qualities is spot on. Someone needed to fill that role for them, and he ended up with the mantle.
I didn’t like him, but I hope he is at peace. In this world, death is the great unifier of us all. From a Christian standpoint, it’s the great divider.
“He was a selfish, self-important monster. ”
That about sums it up for me. And for all the bad people do, I wouldn’t use such words about many people.
Like Richard Aubrey said, lots of people died yesterday, and I don’t even have to know them to know 99.9% of them were better men and women than Ted Kennedy ever was.
Modern days aristocrats have term limits too.
Another proof that only the good die young.
They were also well blessed with great teeth and voluminous hair.
chappaquiddick, deals with the KGB, selling us down the river as a people…
I have a mixed view of the whole Kennedy aura.
As an American with political views that are Center Right, but not so rigid ideologically, I could look back at JFK as someone who inspired much good in members of a previous generation. Same with RFK. Also, as somone who has often identified with what used to be called “neoconservatives,” I could relate to the idea of having been “progressive” during the early-to-mid 20th century, but turning to the right as the Democratic party went to the left. (Of course, as I was born in 1970, the Dems had already moved left by the time I started voting, but I could easily see myself voting for Truman or JFK in an earlier era.) Ted was, indeed, “the most junior,” of this group, and the one who, sadly, also represented to me the leftward lurch that the Democratic Party had taken during the ’70s.
My parents, however, have a more sobering view of the Kennedys. One that I also share, in part. My parents were refugee’s from Castro’s Cuba, arriving in this country in 1961. My parents initially looked to JFK, as a fellow Catholic and outspoken anticommunist, as someone who could help to liberate Cuba. They were deeply disappointed when he initiated the Bay of Pigs invasion, and then left those freedom fighters to die on the beaches without the air support he had promised. My parents never forgave him for this disgrace.
Suffice it to say while my parents were aggreived by John, they outright could not abide Ted. Ted symbolized not only the leftism of post-McGovern liberalism, but also the shamelessness of the rich boy who could get away with anything. His role in the death of a young woman at Chappaquidick was indeed a disgrace, for which Ted was rewarded with repeated re-election to the Senate. My mother, who passed away from cancer herself a few years ago, used to call him “that pig.”
I’ll just leave it at that.
RIP, brothers.
Don’t forget the character assassination of Robert Bork.
“[Socialism] hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn’t have me to run it.” – Ted Kennedy
I was a youngster in Dallas. I too remember Ted’s shaky eulogies after the assassinations, and I remember the feeling of a rosy Kennedy Camelot generated mostly by Jackie, Theodore White, and Life magazine. Yeah, it was a golden image – easy to be romantic about – but it proved to be gold leaf only and that’s the rub. To bring a couple of things only, experts who know about these things estimate that Mary Jo probably survived in that car for some 20 minutes. Can you imagine those 20 minutes? And how can anyone forget the vicious partisan attacks from T. Kennedy on Bork during the latter’s supreme court confirmation hearings? No matter what one thought about Bork and his legal philosophy it became crystal clear to those paying attention that Kennedy was a monster where facts were completely irrelevant. But Stan above has it right and I appreciate his articulating it —
“History will remember Teddy for manslaughter, rapes, collaboration with the enemy, vicious slanders, academic fraud, election fraud and a vulgar personal life accented by alcoholism, drug addiction and sexual infidelity on a grand scale. He was perhaps the most immoral and dysfunctional member of a family noted for extraordinarily immoral, dysfunctional members.”
The question for me is why should I be sorry for his family during this time? I’d like to be sorry, but this family empowered that monster to a large extent. They could have helped stop him and they did nothing but work instead to keep the Camelot lie alive.
The picture you post was just that, a picture, and while the image–which puts the Kennedys in the best possible light–is flattering, the reality was far darker and more grotesque.
The clan has been very skillful in using propaganda to create that royal “Camelot” image, but every once in awhile, reality pokes through, and Mary Jo Kopechne dies, or people start to notice President Kennedy’s lack of real accomplishments (beside, that is, the Bay of Pigs, the fiasco of his meeting with Khrushchev, or his beginning of our military involvement in Vietnam), or Bork is savaged, Patrick wrecks his car on Capitol Hill, Skakel goes to jail, and just too many “you knows” dooms a clan member.
Very gracious Neo.
You are correct when you say that you have a different perspective on Kennedy than many of your readers. In fact I would say that you have a different perspective than most serious Americans who are not blinded by wealth, privilege, and leftist dogma.
The day after the 1960 election, I found a Kennedy poster across the road from my house, where I waited for the school bus. I took the poster and taped it to my bedroom door. Unfortunately, the poster got misplaced over the years.
The Kennedy family mystique ended for me some years later after a childhood friend cooked for the Kennedy family at Hyannisport one summer. As he said, while the Kennedy family like to present themselves as rich people with a conscience, they are simply rich people. The Kennedy he had the most positive things to say about was Jackie, who impressed my friend with her maternal concern and involvement.
I am reminded of what William F Buckley wrote after the death of David Kennedy, one of Robert and Ethel’s children, who died after years of unsuccessfully battling the drug demons. Buckley wrote of having met Ethel years before she married Robert : finding something in common. Buckley went on to write that he and we could commiserate with the pain the Kennedy family had in losing David.
Last year I came across a video of an apparently drunk Ted mangling a mariachi song in Spanish. He impressed me as someone who could poke fun at himself. I imagine Ted would have made a good person to share drinks with: a good storyteller.
While Ted was a politician, I will steer clear of politics in this “eulogy.”
Teddy’s efforts to have the sleazy Massachusetts political establishment change the Senatorial succession law back to a Governors appointment after they changed it when they thought Sen Kerry would be president was not a graceful or distinguished way to end his life and career.
His increasing partisanship took a take no prisoners tone that had spring from a need to establish a legacy. After GWB went to him for No Child Left Behind, Kennedy badmouthed him and worked to steer the program to further support the teacher’s unions.
All the Kennedy’s were at the core, ruthless pragmatists taking in their Father’s worst traits. They flourished in corrupt Masschusetts politics (Yesterday was sociopathic killer Whitey Bulger’s 80th birthday, and his influential politician brother still denies any knowledge of his whereabouts)
(On a non-kennedy note, isn’t the word Whereabouts a much more pleasing term than location?)
Get ready for another Wellstone style funeral. I’m willing to bet that the Obamanistas will turn this into a mass call for health care ‘reform.’
People can eulogize all they want, but Kennedy’s true character showed through that night on Chappaquiddick. Cowardly and selfish. A child of privilege who was given the springboard to unlimited political achievement, yet could only think of himself. That’s why he was never able to shake the fallout from that event. His life is full of such character filled moments, like being expelled from Harvard for cheating, etc. The list goes on.
I see no reason to soften the focus on him in death anymore than I would some common criminal.
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy
February 22, 1932 — August 25, 2009
R. I. H.
(no, that’s not a typo….)
As the narrator is told at the end of the Great Gatsby: We must learn to love a man before he’s dead. Having never loved Ted Kennedy–I always thought the Kennedys were beloved for their youth and their looks and nothing substantive–I am underwhelmed by his passing and already bored by the coverage.
I’m surprised you felt compelled to say something.
I’m relieved to see the bulk of comments here emphasizing what a wretched, immoral, disgusting man Kennedy was, a man who did his best to damage the country that so stupidly allowed him his preposterously elevated position.
My favorite memory of Teddy is a photo in Esquire magazine some 20 years ago, showing in a small boat a thick-bodied man in the missionary position, with the wry caption, “I see you have changed your position on offshore drilling, Senator”.
The “Lion of the Senate”, indeed. “Alley Tomcat” would be more like it.
Scottie Says:
August 26th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy
February 22, 1932 — August 25, 2009
R. I. H.
(no, that’s not a typo….)
“Rot In Hell”? A bit harsh, but if one may judge (and I’ve been taught that one may not) that’s probably the way of it, based upon his sordid conduct over the years.
One thing nobody else has mentioned (thus far) from his dubious career: “Abu Ghraib: under new management”. Can you say scumbag? I can. I’m OK with speaking ill of the dead, in those instances (like this one) that I spoke ill of them while they were living…”if the shoe fits”, an’ all.
camojack,
I agree.
I was likewise taught not to be a hypocrit.
I am saying nothing now that I would not have said about him when he was alive.
It always amazes me how the simple act of achieving room temperature seems to so often rehabilitate the reputations of certain people.
In my case, I was never enamored of the so called Kennedy mystique, as JFK was assassinated before I was born and I was too young to really comprehend RFK’s assassination.
So, my entire exposure to the Kennedy brand of politics is based upon Ted Kennedy, along with what I have learned of that particular family over the intevening years.
It’s not a pretty picture….
The Kennedy clan is what my parents used to call, in less PC days, “Shanty Irish”, or more generally, “white trash”. Yes, they had money (from Joe’s bootlegging operation during Prohibition) but no class. No matter how much lipstick the Kennedys and their apologists tried to put on the “Camelot” pig, a pig it remained for those who would see it. This became all too clear with Teddy, whose extramarital affairs and drunken sprees achieved far more notoriety in his own lifetime than those of his equally-depraved but more discreet brothers.
I won’t judge Ted Kennedy for the hereafter; that is the Lord’s business, not mine. But his legacy here on earth is one of unmitigated moral turpitude. I do not mourn his passing.
Senator John Tunney (D-CA) traveled to Moscow on Kennedy’s behalf to negotiate a secret partnership with Andropov, Kengor reveals. Tunney has acknowledged that he had played intermediary for Kennedy, and that he made 15 separate trips to Moscow. Chappaquiddick Ted told Tunney to reach out to “confidential contacts” to get the word to Andropov, who had enough nuclear missiles pointed at us to blow up the planet, that he wanted to work with him against the President.
Kennedy proposed that the dictator appeal directly to the American people in a series of television interviews, evidently intended to undermine support for Reagan’s strong stand against communism. As Kengor notes of Kennedy:
He hoped to counter Reagan’s polices, and by extension hurt his re-election prospects.
I could overlook most of the damage his far left politics caused by saying he truly believed in his causes, but without him truly accepting responsibility for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne I cannot see him as anyone who really cared about anything but his own power and pleasure. I saw him say and do some reprehensible things in the questioning of judges which only bolsters that opinion.
I have some empathy for anyone that suffers but I also know that suffering can be one of our greatest teachers. I hope he learned something from it in the last year of his life so I said a prayer that he had been able to make peace with his maker and ask forgiveness before he died. But expending his energy in his final days trying to undo what he did to make sure Romney couldn’t appoint a Republican if Kerry won seems to say that was not what was on his mind.
And as JR Dogman noted – a lot of people died yesterday.
This month alone fifty-six US service personnel have died in Iraq and Afghanistan – and so have troops from other countries. I will morn more for them and their families.
Rest in peace now, Mary Jo…
I’ve some family that I’m less than proud of.
I know how much it would hurt to see their (sometimes serious) flaws paraded before the body’s even cold, and I likewise know how little I’d trust talks of how great they were when I know it wasn’t so.
So I’ll just say I wouldn’t wish such a death on anyone, that he was here for a decent span, and that I pray for his soul and his family. Losing family isn’t ever easy, and two in a short time would be a double gut-punch.
I notice that within the last few hours ex-KKK Kleagle Senator Robert Byrd and odious Speaker Nancy Pilosi want to transform Kennedy’s death into a shameless “win one for the Gipper” moment by naming the health care bill after Kennedy (Byrd), and advocating passing this legislation as a fitting climax to the career of the “Lion of the Senate,” and as a memorial to his name (Pelosi).
All this falls a little flat when you consider that Kennedy had–and all the members of Congress have–health care coverage superior to most people’s coverage, coverage that specific language in the health care bill insures that they will keep (and several Congressmen stated explicitly that they intended to keep), while forcing all of us “lesser beings” into an inferior and rationed system.
If you were for the “health care reform” bills before Kennedy died, his death will probably not change your mind, and if you were against them, I doubt that naming the bill after Kennedy or appealing to his “hallowed name” is going to make you change. In fact, I think renaming the bill for Kennedy is likely to stir up enough bad associations that it will reduce, rather than increase, public support for these “reforms.”
And here comes the Kennedy Healthcare Bill.
Who’s surprised?
I was always taught some version of “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” I’m not sure why that was considered more polite – perhaps it is just a superstitious holdover. Kennedy’s death brings that custom up for examination. While not an obvious monster like Stalin, at whose death everyone should rejoice, the negatives of his personality and career, amply listed above, call into question the usefulness (and even morality) of trying to say the best that one can. I may write something on this.
Assistant Village Idiot,
I recall hearing much the same sentiment over the years that you don’t speak ill of the dead – but I can’t say that was a saying that was handed down in my own family.
I have no idea where such a thought came from.
Our own family sayings ran to things like, “Forget nothing, forgive very d@mn little”, and “There will be more preachers in hell than fiddle players”.
Yep, my granny was quite the pistol!
Neo is certainly a gracious and considerate person. Obviously well brought up with good manners. The Senate is a much cleaner place today than it was yesterday.
All I can say about the former senior senator from Massachusetts is you where gifted with an opportunity to get right with G*d, and I hope you put it to full use.
Tim P,
Best article I’ve ever read online is one written by Noemie Emery for The Weekly Standard entitled “Speak of the Dead.” Definitely worth googling.
I think, surely the Democrats won’t pull another fiasco such as they wrought at the Wellstone memorial service. But then I pinch myself and realize that over-wrought emotional appeal is pretty much the sum total of their remaining arsenal in the current debate.
# Loyal Achates Says:
and so the Lion goes. we may not see his like again.
I say:
May we not see his like again.
Neo–You of course remember the joke about Stalin i.e. two Jews were talking about Stalin, who was ill (and later died), and about the Jewish prohibition against wishing that anyone would die, when one Jew said, “but for Stalin, Ill make an exception.”
Tiller the late late-term abortionist got more sympathy on this site than poor Teddy.
I worked one summer while in college for a man who had spent a lot of time at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port. He often spoke of the top-drawer treatment guests received; one could put one’s shoes outside the guest room door and have them shined overnight. However, one also ran the risk of falling prey to Teddy’s rascally nature–he liked to fill the shoes with dog s**t.
I won’t miss him.
Ted was “patient zero” for the most destructive bills passed in Congress: health, education, welfare and immigration all damaging our nation. He was a traitor to this nation in so many ways (approaching Andropov/KGB in the early 80’s to work against Ronald Reagan), tried to destroy Bork and Thomas in Senate hearings, killed a woman, drank and drugged and womanized most of his debauched life – reportedly taking drugs with his children, etc., etc. He was ever the politician to the very end. I despised him. However, May God have mercy on his soul.
Apropos of Teddy and health care, Dan Riehl has posted a photo of what a fine specimen of health he was:
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/08/barry-and-teds-excellent-adventure.html
Here’s a great article on Teddy.
H/T – Instapundit
Ha! And the left thought they hated W……..
I could overlook most of the damage his far left politics caused by saying he truly believed in his causes
so where does that put you with lenin, stalin, mao, hitler, pol pot, castro, che, and all the others that truly believed?
“true believers” are those who facilitate the lie and the change… they dont deserve teh same sympathy as the useful idiots
Sorry for the tangent, but in line with respect for the dead, yesterday Rachel Lucas posted a stunningly moving account of her trip to Auschwitz.
I love Lucas’s goofy, sardonic style, but this post is something else entirely.
I was a mere sprout of 8 during that 1960 election. Never could fathom the big hoohah about the Kennedys. Still can’t.
Dear Neoneocon,
Your sentimentality toward Ted surprised me. He had
all those years to damage the country and a son Patrick who may continue his legacy.
No one processed the knack to convince the people that 2 + 2 = 5 better than Kennedy — good riddance.
“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”
Words spoken to Daniel the Jewish Prophet in Daniel 12: 2-3 (translation -New International Version)
November 1979. “Why do you want to be president.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDh2iKzBh4E
Listening to him ramble you wonder if he really wanted the job, though he announced his candidacy just a few days later. Obviously he wasn’t up to either the campaign or the presidency.
I bare no animus toward Teddy Kennedy nor any liberal, and I’d never wish death on any person.
Not so the unofficially dubbed ‘Kennedy’ Health Care Bill. May it have the same fate as its namesake.
artfl, concerning your 9:29 AM post of this morning; did Kennedy really say that, or was that humor on your part?
b4549,
Allegedly, the incident was written by Marc Nuttle in his book “Moment of Truth”. My opinion (if it happened at all) is that it was tongue-in-cheek. The following is from an article I found online:
Ted Kennedy is and was a socialist — and he actually admitted it on the floor of the Senate Jan. 20, 1995.
I’ve never seen this revelation before, though it has been a matter of public record all these years — published, as it were, in the Congressional Record. I was amazed to find it in a new book by Republican political consultant Marc Nuttle called “Moment of Truth” — a book, I might add, that is a thoroughly engaging read.
Economist Milton Friedman was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a national constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Kennedy argued that a requirement for a balanced budget would restrict the federal government’s power and its ability to spend — thus, he said, Washington’s role in more fairly and equitably distributing wealth, goods and services.
“Senator, socialism hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history,” explained Friedman. “Why won’t you give up on it?”
Kennedy rose to his feet, according to Nuttle, who attended the hearing, and replied: “It hasn’t worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn’t have me to run it.”
Thank you.
Surely, had he truly said it, someone else had to have heard the statement. The great man Friedman, is no longer with us. I wonder if he wrote about it somewhere.
The thing that truly kills me about those who would bring complete socialism down on the populace seem to feel in some manner that it would not affect them in the least – that they would be above it, away from it – as if Manhattan, the Vineyard, and Hollywood were on a different planet, all the while directing it from some position of power as long as they are alive. And the “useful idiots” keep them into office, thinking these power loons really care about them. It’s power, that’s obvious. If they were just true socialists wanting to live that way, it would be a simple matter to pack up and move to Venezuela or elsewhere. That’s not what they want. They want to make it happen here, and they want to call the shots.
Sorry for spouting the obvious.
Some people just have to die to go away.
Term limits and tort reform? Not on their watch.
Sweetpea, I have to disagree about Patrick Kennedy. Like many in his clan, he struggles with the demons of alcoholism and substance abuse, but he is trying to do something about it. Jim Ramstad – Republican of Minnesota – is his sponsor.
I know (from personal experience) the amount of damage he’s done to other people’s boats in Edgartown Harbor – but unlike his dad, he always fessed up and made it right, paying to repair damages promptly.
Maybe he’s learned from his father’s bad example. And that’s something we can applaud.
I live in a completely different world: I ws born in ’68.
He was always just some drunken old mutton-head with a questionable past who was trying to raise my taxes, take my guns and send me to the DMV for surgery.
I’ve been involved in many of the same political threads as Kennedy all of my life.
Three separate times, over the span of three decades, the man tried to add me to his booty list. The first time I was a naive teen and could easily have been abused except for a watchful friend of my father. The last time I was a cagey lobbyist and stood on his toes and called him out publicly for his skanky behavior.
In DC I often had bills land in his committees. He was a brilliant, brutal and manipulative master of the arts of politics. Since the radical feminists hated everything I worked for, Kennedy treated and referred to me as a common criminal.
Over the years at various political events and at many of the bars, clubs and restaurants in DC I witnessed Kennedy alone or with his male relatives, or with his accomplice Chris Dodd, harass, torment, abuse and harangue dozens of young women.
It was no secret that the DC police had a Kennedy squad – the bartenders where Kennedy hung out all knew the phone number. Their job was to clean up the girls and get them home or to a hospital as the case required. They’d drive the insensible Senator and his car/friends/ massive doggy bags home; and make sure no inconvenient traffic tickets or stray garments or wildly talking citizens remained on the loose.
There seems little doubt that through alcoholic impairment and/or simple personal cowardice Kennedy abandoned Mary Jo Kopechne to a terrible death; then exploited every particle of wealth and connections his family could scrape up to avoid responsibility and restitution.
I can’t celebrate that he suffered. But I won’t pretend I am sorry that Kennedy, AT LAST, is facing the judge who cannot be fooled or forced or bought off. And I pray, fervently, that the Kennedy “dynasty” is politically dead.
…send me to the DMV for surgery.
Oooh! Like that one.
Askmom – thank you for that. Please consider that there is a book waiting to be written from your experiences with Kennedy and his enablers.
Askmom: Powerful stuff.
See the very under-rated Spartan, David Mamet’s film after his conversion away from the left which presents a very cynical view of Ted Kennedy-esque politician.
Askmom,
Please, tell us more – seriously.
I have a feeling there may be some trepidation right now on the part of anyone wanting to really cast Ted Kennedy as a *great* senator.
Those feelings of trepidation I think would be based upon all of the skeletons that are bound to come pouring out now that he’s no longer around as a power broker.
I expect a LOT of dirt to come to light!
Of course, I think as much as possible of it SHOULD come out, simply as a way of ensuring his legacy, such as it is, is based upon reality and not some fuzzy headed, slightly out of focus view of an imagined Camelot that never really existed except in the minds of the Kennedy supporters.
Wow! Thank you SO MUCH! That picture brought with it the insect-in-amber realization of just how much I have changed. There was a time that such a photo would have elicited a vigorous, optimistic, off-to-fight-the-good-fight thrill.
Now it looks more to me like an unfunny Adams Family portrait.
I looked at that picture some more.
Note the emaciated look of Jack’s fingers. His eyes. This is not a picture of a “vigorous” guy.
He wasn’t going to serve two terms no matter what.
I was always fascinated by the Kennedy accent. I assumed it was a Boston accent but when I moved to Boston for a few years, I realized that it was like a Boston accent but it wasn’t one.
Essentially the Kennedy clan evolved the Kennedy accent themselves. No one else speaks that way.
Vaughn Meader, the Sixties comedian, did great impressions of JFK in his album The First Family. I was pleased to find it on YouTube.
Just noticed a headline indicating that Ol Teddy is gonna “Lie in Repose” for 2 days in Boston.
Considering how pickled he’s been for the past couple of decades, this shouldn’t be a problem…..
(Ok, that was cruel and insensitive, but I couldn’t resist the joke! 😀 )
The Russians have Lenin’s Tomb, the socialist in the U.S. will now canonize Kennedy by pushing the take over of health-care. The passage of Obamacare carrying Kennedy’s name will be their version of Lenin’s corpse and tomb.
The Kennedy’s accent could be described as a New England/Harvard/Mid-Atlantic accent. It used to be commoner than it is now – think Bette Davis (who was from Lowell) – and you can still hear it in the voices of people in their 70s and older, but it’s given way to a more generic pronunciation in the younger crowd.
Since the Kennedys are such a big tribe they’re almost their own demographic group, and I’m sure it’s served them well to perpetuate their distinctive, rather old-fashioned speaking style. But if you listen to young Joe Kennedy, for instance, he sounds more generic Boston than his elders in the clan.
A comment left in Bookworm’s Room:
I was taught to not speak ill of the dead especially at the time of their passing. If that were not the case, I would say the passing of such a cowardly, corrupt, treasonable hypocrite who epitomized the worst in Congress should go unnoticed and the grave unmarked. But I was taught not to speak ill of the dead especially at the time of their passing…
It’s immoral to tell people to love their enemies.
Next headline on Ted should be titled, “New Senate Race! Massachusetts Gets Opportunity to Disinfect”
Hoist meet petard.
There is the black humor that the ad hoc law that Kennedy and the Democrats got passed several years ago to prevent Mass. Governor Romney from appointing a replacement for John Kerry, now prevents Governor Patrick from appointing a replacement for Ted Kennedy.
I was a left-liberal for a long time, but it’s hard for me now to think of a single liberal leader with principles. The best I can come up with is George McGovern and Joe Lieberman.
huxley,
I noticed the same reports…lol…some would call it karmic!
and so the Lion goes. we may not see his like again.
The viper and serpent, rather.
Many of you have probably already seen this, but in case you haven’t.
Quick, who said this:
“The problems of our economy have occurred not as an outgrowth of laissez-faire, unbridled competition. They have occurred under the guidance of federal agencies, and under the umbrella of federal regulations.”
Answer: Sen. Ted Kennedy, in defending trucking deregulation in 1978. (The staffer who did his legislative work on the idea was a young attorney named Stephen Breyer.)
http://blog.american.com/?p=4328
Ted Kennedy was right! 🙂
…we may not see his like again.
We can but hope.
Thank you Vieux Charles, you had more information than I did.
Economist Milton Friedman was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a national constitutional amendment for a balanced budget.
I would be for that as well. Republicans are locked out of committees, much to do with Kennedy’s power with people in the Senate, and they are too gutless besides to forward a Constitutional amendment of this caliber.
The Dems? Well, you know how they are.
huxley says:
“Essentially the Kennedy clan evolved the Kennedy accent themselves.”
I beg to differ. I have relatives in Maine and some of them (the older ones anyway) actually still speak similarly. It is basically a variation of the Boston Brahmin accent, but with a British International tempo and reflective of social class. Kate Hepburn had it, so did Franklin D. Roosevelt and William F. Buckely.
Comes the revolution, we should make evincing the Boston accent, in any of its varieties whatsoever, a capital offense. No uglier, more braying, or more infuriating accents pollute the earth.
Not that I have strong feelings about it, of course.