thanx for my laff-o-the-day
Posted on 04/24/2005 10:01:27 AM PDT by bitt
April 23, 2005
Ted Kennedy's Female Troubles
There are times when I feel sorry for Ted Kennedy. He was born to play a Falstaffian role, ill-suited and ill-trained for the role destiny thrust upon him. And yet he muddles on, flailing from one scandal and misstep to another, constantly chafing under the ill-fitting crown given him as the champion of liberalism.
Edward Moore Kennedy, Sr., was the last of nine children of an incredibly powerful and driven man, and from the outset it was clear little was expected of him. The fourth of four sons, he could tell from the outset his father -- the legendary Joseph P. Kennedy -- set far more stock in his older sons. First came Joseph P. Junior, the old man's namesake and heir presumptive. Then came John Fitzgerald, named after his maternal grandfather, legendary Boston politician John Francis "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Robert further honored Honey Fitz by bearing his middle name. Ted grew up knowing he was named after the family's long-loyal chauffeur, Eddie Moore. Joe's plan was for Joe Junior to become the first Irish Catholic president, to be succeeded by Jack. Robert would help his older brothers, and Teddy would... well, they'd find something to keep him out of trouble.
But Fate was not kind to Old Joe's plans. Jack was injured in World War II, and it took all of Old Joe's influence to convert what should have been scandal and disgrace into a tale of heroism. (Letting one's PT boat get run down by a destroyer is comparable to letting your Corvette get run over by an 18-wheeler on an 8-lane highway.) Joe Junior, envious of Jack's heroic treatment, volunteered for a very dangerous mission that cost him his life.
With the loss of Joe Junior, Old Joe sunk all his hopes on Jack. He pushed him to run for Congress, then the Senate, and finally the Presidency, with ever-loyal Bobby at his side.
Meanwhile, Ted continued to be, well, Ted. He enrolled in Harvard University in 1950, but was kicked out in 1951 after he was caught paying another student to take a Spanish test for him. He enlisted in the Army, but had a very undistinguished two-year career. He eventually returned to Harvard and got his degree.
In 1962, he finally got his first -- and last -- "real" job when he was elected to fill his brother Jack's vacant Senate seat. Fortunately, he had just turned 30, the minimum age to hold Senate office. And that's when things started going downhill.
Earlier, I called Ted a "Falstaffian" figure, and that's pretty accurate. But he also seems to be a Typhoid Mary for karma, as tragedies began to befall all around him, often leaving him either untouched or far less severely.
In 1963, his brother Jack was assassinated in Dallas.
In 1964, he was in a plane crash that killed the pilot and another passenger, leaving him with a severe back injury.
In 1968, his brother Robert was assassinated in Los Angeles.
And then, The Big One. July, 1969. After a party on Martha's Vineyard, Ted drove his car back towards the mainland. He drove off a bridge and dumped the car into a pond. He swam to shore, went to a hotel, chatted briefly with the clerk, and went to bed. In the morning, a fisherman spotted the car and reported it to the police.
And when the police recovered the car from the water, they found the body of 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, a former campaign staffer for Robert's presidential bid and guest at the party. The coroner determined that she had survived the crash and had remained conscious for several hours in an airpocket in the submerged car before dying.
Teddy eventually pleaded guilty to "leaving the scene of an accident causing injury" and was given two months in jail (suspended) and his driver's license was suspended.
Ted married Virginia Joan Bennett in 1958, and they had three children. She stood by him through all his scandals and peccadillos, even his disastrous run for president in 1980. (His challenge to incumbent Jimmy Carter is considered by many a factor in Carter's eventual loss to Ronald Reagan). She endured all the jokes, snide remarks, and rumors about him (largely dealing with his fondness for women and strong drink), but they divorced in 1982. Since then, she has struggled with alcoholism. Recently, her grown children petitioned to be named her legal guardians, saying her alcoholism had left her unable to care for herself.
The family ties of the Kennedy clan are so strong that on the night of Easter this year (traditionally a big Kennedy family gathering day), Joan was found passed out, drunk, in a gutter outside her townhouse with a concussion and a broken shoulder, and a stranger carried her to the hospital. Since then, she has tried to sell her Cape Cod home, but her children are putting up a fierce legal fight to preserve the home where they grew up.
Kennedy's womanizing ways are a Washington legend. When a supermarket tabloid published pictures of Kennedy getting "amorous" with a woman on his sailboat, one of his colleagues (Senator Howell Heflin) remarked that it appeared that Kennedy "had done changed his position on offshore drilling." In 1985, he and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd allegedly made a "waitress sandwich" at a DC restaurant while their dates were in the rest room.
Ted's second marriage, to Victoria Reggie, a DC area lawyer, in 1992 seemed to settle him down. He lost a bit of weight, seemed to cut back on his boozing, and in general seemed a bit more respectable. But the female curse that hangs over his head seems to have been deferred, not denied.
This time it wasn't exactly a woman that is getting him in trouble, but said woman's brother. Ray Reggie, 43, was a political operative in New Orleans who got himself in a bit of trouble a few years ago. He got caught not only ripping off three banks for the sum of 3.5 million dollars, he also pulled over teenage girls with a blue light on his car in the hopes of winning their favors.
But the FBI didn't toss him away immediately. They came to an agreement with Reggie that kept him out of jail for a bit while he continued his political work -- but now wearing a wire.
Reggie continued his political shenanigans over the last three years, but now the FBI has it all on tape. They have him meeting with both Bill and Hillary Clinton, for example, and several high-ranking members of her staff. In fact, one of her top fund raisers, David Rosen, is going on trial in Los Angeles next month for violating election laws at a 2000 fund-raiser for Hillary's Senate campaign, and evidence from Reggie is expected to play a key role.
Now that the story is finally breaking (Reggie's trial started in 2001, was pleaded out 2002, but the details were only made public recently), the speculation is flying fast and furious. Did Ray Reggie set up his brother-in-law? Did Ted know just how much trouble Ray was in, and did he "freeze him out" of anything sensitive? Did he aim Ray at the Clintons, hoping to save his wife's brother's hide (along with his own) at the expense of the family that has largely supplanted the Kennedys in Democratic power circles?
(Howie Carr, a Boston columnist, talk-show host, and general gadfly, is practically having on-air orgasms over this story. He runs a daily poll on his web site. The current poll (expiring Monday) is asking "In a battle, who would win, the Kennedy Crime Family or the Clinton Crime Family?" Right now, the Kennedys are winning, 64% to 36%, but there's still time to get your vote in...)
I strongly suspect that Ted will survive this scandal, as he has so many others. And I further suspect it won't taint his legacy among America's liberals.
Poor, poor Ted. He's spent his whole life living in the shadows of his father and far more capable brothers, and has suffered greatly because of it. If only one of those prior scandals had just been bad enough to kill his political career, he might have found his own niche in the world and lived a quiet, productive life. But the constant pressure to "be a Kennedy" (and, since 1968, the patriarch of the family) has kept him and his flaws front and center on the world stage.
I'd feel even more sorry for him, but for fifty years it seems everyone but him has paid the price for his failures, his shortcomings, his lapses.
And some with their lives.
I have read it. Thanx. I'll take another look. I'm burned out yelling at the deaf.
You are describing people who have figured out how to use power to evade reality, even if only in appearance.
They have all the psychological "brainwashing" and population control techniques already figured out. The Communists used them as a matter of policy. Our present Communists-under-cover just have to be more subtle in their application. Although they are getting much more daring and transparent now, for years they have been laying the ground work.
Since all of liberalism is based on fantasy, those who believe in it must, consequently, spend a lot of time thinking about the problem of "how can I evade reality on this one."
I am more critical and direct in my description. Communism is based on lies and truth, what you call reality, is the enemy. The fantasy is what is sold to the useful idiots. The movers and shakers know exactly what they are doing.
To those of such a mind, the ability to evade reality seems to them a solution to the great problem of their creed, and, therefore, of their lives.
Again, we must separate the movers and shakers from the useful idiots. The useful idiots may need the fantasy of equality and a human-made and controlled earthly paradise, but the ones behind the scenes simply sell that idea to gain power. It is a screen behind which they advance so as not to awaken the wary. Once they have the power more brutal methods are used to control.
Perhaps this is why so many in the media, politics, and the entertainment industry (where perception is reality as someone has remarked) see people such as the Kennedys as heroes.
That is probably true, as is. Keep in mind the critical points: Liberals are liars who are selling lies. They are ruthless in pursuit of power because power is necessary once the lies become apparent, as they will. There are no rules or morals in this fight except those the liberals impose on others, in this case the Republicans. Their creed is that lies are OK because the traitors of today will be the heros once they gain control.
If the Kennedys can wave their magic wand and make shame, dishonor, and cowardice go away, maybe they can wave that same magic wand and make liberalism into a valid way of solving the problems of the world.
You will notice that all liberals are portrayed as the smartest people going and their opponents as always presented as dunces who can barely tie their shoes. Liberals laugh at and demean all who question them so as to dismiss their complaints rather than address them. As part of that charade they whitewash all liberal foibles and crimes while exaggerating the slightest perceived failings of their opponents. Therefore, the the despicable Kennedys and Clintons are at worst fallen angels and martyrs of unjust attacks. Those who expose them to the light are the evil ones. This, by inference makes the liberal ideas superior to those of the opposition.
There is quite a bit of similarity between the Democrats and the Islamists. Their goals are identical. Their biggest deceit is that they think they can both win. However, were they to, one would have to destroy the other as neither can tolerate a disbeliever.
What is the purpose of that? Can't you converse with someone without insulting them? Your minor point is nit picking.
I was correcting my error in the statement. Notice the italics? I'm not morphing anything.
Did you even bother to read my entire reply?
you made me google, and surprisingly, up came today's news about exploding toads...!!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200504/s1352292.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1389859/posts
There's no toad crying on FreeRepublic!!
strong argument to prohibit toads from possessing explosives.
And you replied: Again, we must separate the movers and shakers from the useful idiots. The useful idiots may need the fantasy of equality and a human-made and controlled earthly paradise, but the ones behind the scenes simply sell that idea to gain power. It is a screen behind which they advance so as not to awaken the wary. Once they have the power more brutal methods are used to control.
I agree. Liberalism is a fantasy to the useful idiots; to the power-obsessed, it is a tool for mobilizing and harnessing ignorance, intellectual sloth, and superstition into a weapon of conquest. In this (and in other ways) it is identical to Islam.
The reason I glommed onto your comment (besides its validity) is that I have for a number of years been thinking about the weaknesses of liberalism with an eye toward figuring out a way to hasten its defeat. The idea that liberalism is a fantasy view of the world (similar to the "magic thinking" that is characteristic of shizophrenia) is one of the weaknesses I keep coming back to.
Our information culture, and the large numbers of people who earn their living by collecting, interpreting, and packaging information for the public, has given rise to a subculture that can spend most or all of its time in an intellectual universe that is almost completely untouched by everyday reality. My view is that it is within this subculture that liberalism finds its most influential followers. One hundred years ago, the number of people who could live this way was tiny: only the insane and the very wealthy could live this way. Today, there are millions who can. This is a side-effect of our unbelievably wealthy society, which has the power to alter reality in so many ways.
The answer is sitting in front of us: the internet, and other means of instant mass retail communication.
Islam is taking its war on modernity to the next level now because its leaders (the ones who benefit materially from its power to convert ignorance into a political force) realize that if they don't make their move now they'll never get the chance.
It may be that the grim men and women who are the minds behind liberalism, whose livelyhoods and futures depend upon it continuing to be taken seriously, see the same thing happening to their creed. Their enemy is not so much George Bush, or Republicans, or even conservatism. Their enemy is the exponential increase in the ease with which truth can be discovered, examined, and disseminated freely. Because of that dynamic, the space in which they operate is getting smaller every day.
This is why they are fighting tooth and nail to retain their power over the courts, which are the branch of government most insulated from reality. Judges are dictators, and liberals have always liked dictators. They just don't like defeated dictators.
(steely)
thanx for my laff-o-the-day
There's an old point in biographies about greatness. It not only takes character and courage, but opportunity.If you have time please read a poem titled
Thomas Gray : Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
Makes your point----The most perfect poem in English Lit.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,Did I get it right, teach? Close to 50 years since I learned that!
the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
and waste its sweetness on the desert air.. . .
The boast of heraldry,
The pomp of power,
and all the beauty,
all that love e'er gave,
awaits alike the inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARDI got the two verses in reverse order, tho. :(
I see you're back...
Yep. I'm back. :)Dad has been here since Thursday. But he's on his way
back to East Texas.He should be home very shortly.
There are times when I feel sorry for Ted Kennedy. He was born to play a Falstaffian role, ill-suited and ill-trained for the role destiny thrust upon him. And yet he muddles on, flailing from one scandal and misstep to another, constantly chafing under the ill-fitting crown given him as the champion of liberalism.
You have nose trouble, lady.
So despite the warning, you did take the brown acid.
sound like you had Mr Bob Blue toooo!!!
Well....I don't know for sure. Was that the night Frank Zappa chased me around the orange grove?
This is priceless. The Clintons are in trouble so everyone focuses their attention on the Kennedy family. John Gotti had nothing compared to the Clintons.
eeewwwww, just the thought of him touching me makes me nauseous. He's such a pig. I would never even have considered going out with him.
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