The Death of Ted Kennedy: The Brother Who Mattered Most
<DIV =byline><CITE =vcard>By RICHARD LACAYO Richard Lacayo </CITE>â€" <ABBR =recenttimedate title=2009-08-26T07:25:00-0700>2hrs55minsago</ABBR>
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There was a time 40 years ago, right after the assassination of his brother Robert, when it looked like Edward Kennedy would become President someday by right of succession. The Kennedy curse, the one that had seen all three of his brothers cut down in their prime, had created for him a sort of Kennedy prerogative, or at least the illusion of one, an inevitable claim on the White House. For years he seemed like a man simply waiting for the right moment to take what everybody knew was coming his way.
Everybody was wrong. Ted Kennedy would never reach the White House. His weaknesses - and the long shadow of Chappaquiddick - were an obstacle that even his strengths couldn't overcome. But his failure to get to the presidency opened the way to the true fulfillment of his gifts, which was to become one of the greatest legislators in American history. When their White House years are over, most Presidents set off on the long aftermath of themselves. They give lectures, write books, play golf and make money. Jimmy Carter even won a Nobel Prize. But every one of them would tell you that elder-statesmanship is no substitute for real power.(See pictures of Edward's Kennedy's Life and Times.)
Because Kennedy never made it to the finish line, he never had to endure a post-presidential twilight. Instead, by the time of his death on Aug. 25 in Hyannis Port at the age of 77, he had 46 working years in Congress, time enough to leave his imprint on everything from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009, a law that expands support for national community-service programs. Over the years, Kennedy was a force behind the Freedom of Information Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. He helped Soviet dissidents and fought apartheid. Above all, he conducted a four-decade crusade for universal health coverage, a poignant one toward the end as the country watched a struggle with a brain tumor. But along the way, he vastly expanded the network of neighborhood clinics, virtually invented the COBRA system for portable insurance and helped create the laws that provide Medicare prescriptions and family leave.
And for most of that time, he went forward against great odds, the voice of progressivism in a conservative age. When people were getting tired of hearing about racism or the poor or the decay of American cities, he kept talking. When liberalism was flickering, there was Kennedy, holding the torch, insisting that "we can light those beacon fires again." In the last year of his life, with the inauguration of Barack Obama, he had the satisfaction of seeing a big part of that dream fulfilled. In early 2008, when Obama had just begun to capture the public imagination, Kennedy bucked the party establishment. Just before Super Tuesday, the venerable Senator from Massachusetts enthusiastically endorsed the young Senator from Illinois, helping propel Obama to the Democratic nomination and ultimately the White House. (See pictures of Barack Obama behind the scenes on Inauguration Day.)
So does it matter that Kennedy never made it to the presidency? Any number of mere Presidents have been pretty much forgotten. But as the Romans understood, there can be Emperors of no consequence - and Senators whose legacies are carved in stone.
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An Honest Summary of Ted Kennedy's Disgraceful Life
The following is an e-mail from an anonymous patriot that is meant to counter all the liberal attempts to white-wash Ted Kennedy's disgraceful betrayal of America and his equally shameful personal life. Feel free to send this article to all your friends. â€"Editor's Note.
As soon as his cancer was detected, I noticed the immediate attempt at the "canonization"Â of old Teddy Kennedy by the mainstream media. They are saying what a "great American"Â he is. I say, let's get a couple things clear and not twist the facts to change the real history:
1. He was caught cheating at Harvard when he attended it. He was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him.
2. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. Oops! The man can't count to four! His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England (a step up from bootlegging liquor into the US from Canada during prohibition), pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea , where a war was raging. No preferential treatment for him! (like he charged that President Bush received).
3. Kennedy was assigned to Paris , never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged. Imagine a person of his "education"Â NEVER advancing past the rank of Private!
4. While attending law school at the University of Virginia , he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver's license was never revoked.. Coincidentally, he passed the bar exam in 1959. Amazing!
5. In 1964, he was seriously injured in a plane crash, and hospitalized for several months. Test results done by the hospital at the time he was admitted had shown he was legally intoxicated. The results of those tests remained a "state secret"Â until in the 1980's when the report was unsealed.. Didn't hear about that from the unbiased media, did we?
6. On July 19, 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts . At about 11:00 PM, he borrowed his chauffeur's keys to his Oldsmobile limousine, and offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. Leaving the island via an unlit bridge with no guard rail, Kennedy steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and sank into Poucha Pond.
7. He swam to shore and walked back to the party, passing several houses and a fire station. Two friends then returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew â€" that he was required by law to immediately report the accident to the authorities. Instead, Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep. Kennedy called the police the next morning and by then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. Kopechne was able to stay alive for a while breathing a bubble of air inside the car.
One source notes "A diver was sent down and discovered Kopechne's body at around 8:45 am. The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that: ‘Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.' "Â
The Kennedy family began "calling in favors"Â, ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. Further details are uncertain, but after the accident Kennedy says he repeatedly dove under the water trying to rescue Kopechne and he didn't call police because he was in a state of shock.
It is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, and he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight. Since the accident, Kennedy's "political enemies"Â have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a SUSPENDED SENTENCE OF TWO MONTHS.
Kopechne's family received a small pay out from the Kennedy's insurance policy, and never sued. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy's family paid their attorney's bills"¦ a "token of friendship"�
8. Kennedy has held his Senate seat for more than forty years, but considering his longevity, his accomplishments seem scant. He authored or argued for legislation that ensured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors and is widely held as the "standard-bearer for liberalism"Â. In his very first Senate roll, he was the floor manager for the bill that turned U.S. immigration policy upside down and opened the floodgate for immigrants from third world countries.
9. Since that time, he has been the prime instigator and author of every expansion of an increase in immigration, up to and including the latest attempt to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. Not to mention the pious grilling he gave the last two Supreme Court nominees, as if he was the standard bearer for the nation in matters of "what's right"Â.
10. He is known around Washington as a public drunk, loud, boisterous and very disrespectful to ladies. JERK is a better description than "great American"Â. "A blond in every pond"Â should be his motto.
Let's not allow the spin doctors to make this disgraceful drunk and whore of anti-American special interests a hero. It's shameful that more people don't know what his real legacy is.
interesting, is it not? the way the spin men do their thing whilst the facts go un-reported on the idiot box ... thank God for the internet, else most of this would be washed from memory.Ted Kennedy Finally Dies; Worst Traitor Since FDR
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by James Buchanan
Apparently the rumors about Ted Kennedy's imminent demise have proven true. One of the worst traitors against the American people has finally died. His last notable acts of treason include supporting an Amnesty Bill for 20 million illegal aliens in 2007 and his endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008.
His worst act of treason during his long disgraceful stay in the Senate was opening the immigration floodgates to the Third World in the 1960s, transforming America from a 90 percent White nation to a 67 percent White nation, and dooming the White race in North America to extinction unless a pro-White political upheaval can stop the two-party system.
Kennedy's personal life was just as disgraceful as his political life. Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in the back seat of his car abandoned by this drunk womanizer, who cared more about his reputation than saving her life. Kennedy eventually bloated himself out to 300lbs, showing as little self-control in his eating as he did in his spending. Mary Jo isn't the only person Ted Kennedy has killed. Think of all the White people killed by Mexican drunk drivers and other Third World criminals, who have invaded America, thanks to Ted Kennedy undermining our immigration policies. Thousands of White people have been killed and millions have been victims of crimes because of the Third World invasion that Ted Kennedy caused.
Kennedy lived long enough to see the multi-racial society he worked so hard to create, begin to collapse. The state of California with its non-White majority is still teetering on financial oblivion with no end in sight. White people are fleeing the state as crazy socialist politicians try to raise taxes on the Whites even more despite the beginnings of a Depression. Illegal aliens cost the golden state $13 billion dollars per year, but you'd have a hard time finding a politician honest enough to admit this. California has a $26 billion dollar deficit, which it has no clear way of ever paying off and the state's debt will likely continue to grow without bound.
Liberal politicians like Ted Kennedy are responsible for the flood of Latinos which has bankrupted California. Kennedy is also responsible for all the "legal"Â Third World invaders including the "ersatz engineers"Â from countries like India and Bangladesh, who have seriously damaged competency at every major US corporation and NASA, resulting in a string of embarrassing engineering failures.
81 banks have failed so far this year as part of the ongoing minority subprime mortgage disaster. Liberals like Ted Kennedy forced banks to make "Affirmative Action"Â subprime loans to Blacks and Latinos without down payments and without any of the usual credit checks. This house of cards began to collapse last year, and it has the fingerprints of the liberals all over it. A recent news article reports the Obama regime just announced that we will go at least another nine trillion dollars in debt over the next ten years, and many conservatives suspect it will be more like twenty or thirty trillion dollars.
The only reason America has pulled out of earlier recessions and the Great Depression is the fact that we have a White super-majority, that was so productive and inventive, that it was able to overcome any obstacle. Today we have 100 million needy Third World people in the US, and this burden is growing larger by the day. Combine this with the minority subprime mortgage crisis and the bungling socialism of Barack Obama, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. The thoroughly corrupt two-party system is leading America into complete and utter financial destruction.
If ever a human being deserves a place on the inner circle of hell, Ted Kennedy is surely a prime candidate. Ignore all the flowery praise the fat, drunk "hero of Chappaquiddick"Â will be getting for the next few days because he deserves only scorn and mockery for his life of treason and excess. The only unfortunate thing about Kennedy's death is that it did not follow a trial for treason, which he so richly deserved.
jaxvid said:here's some classic poetry to "honor" the fallen statesman
Here richly, with ridiculous display,
The Politician's corpse was laid away.
While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged
I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.
ANOTHER ON THE SAME
This, the last ornament among the peers,
Bribed, bullied, swindled and blackmailed for years:
But Death's what even Politicians fail
To bribe or swindle, bully or blackmail.
Westside said:That excellent and truthful obit by James Buchanan, the same Buchanan who ran for president? If it is, WOW! My respect for James has increased ten fold. I suspect his part time gig at MSNBC will end.
Colonel_Reb said:Kennedy speaking on the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act which he thoroughly supported: "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants
annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration
remains substantially the same"¦. Secondly, the ethnic mix
of this country will not be upset"¦. Contrary to the charges in some
quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any
one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of
Africa and Asia"¦. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of
immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as
sharply as the critics seem to think"¦. The bill will not flood our
cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our
society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not
cause American workers to lose their jobs."Â
White Shogun said:I'm waiting for one of our more moderate posters to complain we shouldn't be rejoicing at the death of dear old Ted.
White Shogun said:I'm waiting for one of our more moderate posters to complain we shouldn't be rejoicing at the death of dear old Ted.