Speaking Ill of the Ted

Steyn Online ^ | 22 July 2019 | Mrk Steyn

[Rummyfan]

This weekend we were busy marking the demi-centennial of Apollo 11's moon landing with some thoughts on The Lost Frontier and some appropriately lunar music. But 1969's giant leap for mankind coincided with one almighty flying leap for a very different kind of man: with his usual exquisite timing, Senator Edward Kennedy chose the day before Messrs Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin reached the Sea of Tranquility to drive Mary Jo Kopechne into a pond of tranquility, at least until he came flying off that bridge. And, by the time America was paying attention, Teddy had been fitted with his neck brace and the minders had everything under control.

Last year there was, very belatedly, a fine feature film about Chappaquiddick, which I reviewed here, and which contains a dialogue exchange taken almost verbatim from a ten-year-old column of mine:

As Joan Vennochi wrote in The Boston Globe:

'Like all figures in history – and like those in the Bible, for that matter – Kennedy came with flaws. Moses had a temper. Peter betrayed Jesus. Kennedy had Chappaquiddick, a moment of tremendous moral collapse.'

Actually, Peter denied Jesus, rather than 'betrayed' him, but close enough for Catholic-lite Massachusetts. And if Moses having a temper never led him to leave some gal at the bottom of the Red Sea, well, let's face it, he doesn't have Ted's tremendous legislative legacy, does he?

[Rummyfan]

Ted Kennedy, playing the brace card

[Rummyfan]

I have rarely been more disgusted by the public discourse of a free society than by the obsequies that attended Kennedy's passing a decade ago. Yet, even so, I would not have bothered re-posting the column below were it not for the fact that they're still doing it. On this fiftieth anniversary, the Associated Press, purveyors of unreadable J-school sludge to America's dying monodailies, are still reflexively playing oleaginous courtiers to a dynasty that no longer exists. In a country that now vaporizes careers for an infelicitous tweet, Ted Kennedy killed a woman and dared us to call him on it. Thanks to the likes of the Associated Press, America failed that test....

[BenLurkin]

“Like those in the Bible”

What?

The Kennedys are akin to the Bible?

[ryderann]

Try as I may, I can’t think of a single spawn of Joe and Rose who had/has ANY genuine class. It’s simply impossible with that bloodline.

[BipolarBob]

More like the rebellious Dathan.

[BenLurkin]

“Teddy’s biographer Adam Clymer”

Would that be THE Clymer, as in Clymer = a@@hole?

[VRW Conspirator]

Try as I may, I can’t think of a single spawn of Joe and Rose who had/has ANY genuine class.

IIRC, old Joe made his fortune running booze. It is hard for one to claim a pedigree when the origin of one's wealth was a organized flaunting of the law.

[NonValueAdded]

Big time!

[gibsonguy]

Ted is the scumbag who gave us chain migration.

[litehaus]

“Try as I may, I can’t think of a single spawn of Joe and Rose who had/has ANY genuine class.”

Money (particularly- rum running money)doesn’t buy / mean class.. altho many with the big bucks assure us they have ‘class’.....

[ChildOfThe60s]

Situation ethics.

The immoral foundation of modern liberalism.

[Inspectorette]

Old Joe was also a notorious philanderer, like his sons. Flaunted his affair with Gloria Swanson right under the nose of the long-suffering Rose.

[Yaelle]

Pond of tranquility - I die.

[davius]

Well, there’s Rosemary.

[xrmusn]

I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with people who can’t stand this POS or the family attached to him/it.

I put the anti-Kennedys on the same shelf as those with contempt of/for Congress.

Can’t be all bad if one fits in either category.

I am still one of the few lads that was ‘Irish’ & raised Roman Catholic and didn’t buy into the JFK/RFK/etal mystique.

I still remember my GF (RIP) who ‘questioned’ my going in the Navy in 1956 because there was an R President..and I am and had been convinced that Ike would have run as a D if he thought that would help.

I guess I am still an ‘outcast’ as my family came from the Southern Tier of New York and those that are left are still Ds, not quite as radical as todays Ds but Ds nonetheless.

I do believe that 2 of my aunts were anti HRC (not Pro R but somewhat anti LIB) so maybe they are coming around.

[unread]

"Kennedy had Chappaquiddick, a moment of tremendous moral collapse."

A MOMENT..!!I'm of the opinion the guy was a POS from the day he was born..!

[SES1066]

Well, there’s Rosemary.

Before? As for after, that ability was removed by her 'parents'! UGLY, that!

[Jeff Chandler]

An NPR listener said the senator's passing marked "the end of civility in the U.S. Congress." Yes, indeed. Who among us does not mourn the lost "civility" of the 1987 Supreme Court hearings? Considering the nomination of Judge Bork, Ted Kennedy rose on the Senate floor and announced that "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit down at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution."

I think Joseph McCarthy would have had something to say about the end of civility.

[ryderann]

IIRC Rosemary had round heels and Joe had her lobotomized so she wouldn’t embarrass the family.

[hal ogen]

Even though he is dead, his companions in Hell all think he still is a POS