It’s unfair when the left harps on Laura Bush’s car accident and it’s also unfair when the right harps on Teddy’s accident. Neither meant harm.

“It’s unfair when the left harps on Laura Bush’s car accident and it’s also unfair when the right harps on Teddy’s accident. Neither meant harm. “

Putting aside how the car came to be in the water, Ted Kennedy acted first to save his political skin. This is all very consistent with his subsequent career and his being a bloated, moralising hypocrite and self centered rotter.  He never means any harm of course, but when he’s involved the wrong person always survives the car wreck he precipitates.

Give it a break - both sides of the aisle can be accused of endless questionable acts. Whether it’s Cheney’s six Vietnam deferments or Bush’s alleged coke bust etc. etc. The bottom line is that Kennedy has served the country well in the Senate for 45 years, when he could have spent those years idling on a yacht or a ski slope like certain others…

Kennedy served WELL in the Senate for...45 years?!?!

Ye gods, man, if that’s considered well then the
definition of the word means nothing.

Would that he HAD spent those years idling on a yacht
or some ski slope - he’d at last have spared the country
his bloviations and legislative abominations.

Better still had he spent those years in an orange jumpsuit
for drowning that poor girl. He’s a rotter.

Is anyone else astonished and delighted that, given what a charming sweetheart Joseph P. Kennedy was, his four sons turned out half as well as they did?

“The bottom line is that Kennedy has served the country well in the Senate for 45 years, “

That’s the funniest line I’ve read in weeks.  The sodden senator has served himself and his masters for those years and is being rewarded with $8m, which he probably needs like a dog needs more fleas.

Such contracts are routinely handed to politicians about to leave office.  They usually result in either a huge advance on a book which is never written or a ghostwritten sham of a book which hits the remaindered bins in short order, but which serves to honor the contract.

At least we can look forward to the old sot’s imminent retirement.  There can be no other reason for this book deal.

Not to sound a sour note, but if only those people who
like to comment of Ted Kennedy would have spared the
time between snide comments to keep an eye on the
neocons, we would now be better off.

It seems that we are very good facing the enemy who comes
straightways in front of us, but those who come from
the side, the one who insinuate themselves feigning
frienshhip, we are suckers for.

It was not TEd Kennedy that brought the Republican Party
to its present position. It was Bush, the neocons, and
all those who were too busy going after Kennedy to notice
what false friends were doing behind their back.

I had no idea it was so easy to rattle the cage in which you all live...must do this more often.

blackdog66 and Adriana.

Instead of trying to rattle our cages with your
imbecile statements, why don’t you go to a website
that actually agrees with your pro-kennedy stance.
I have been a regular visitor to this site for a few
months now, and i’m still having trouble figuring out
What is conservative about people like you two.

Isn’t there someone that can go to Massachussetts and beat the corrupt old windbag? Surely the voters are sick of being sold out.

Black dog sed: The bottom line is that Kennedy has served the country well in the Senate for 45 years, when he could have spent those years idling on a yacht or a ski slope like certain others…

It is ridiculous…half the time, Kennedy is drunk out of his mind, the Kennedy kids are notorious drug addicts and womanizers, like JFK himself. The entire Kennedy family has been a blot on American politics for years, in the tradition of the Joe Kennedy himself, the original Wall Street crook who made millions on the depression, and had ties with the Mafia.

We can credit the money Kennedy has to pay for the staff that takes care of him, and does the leg work that makes him look halfway credible. It is the Kennedy wealth that makes Ted Kennedy a credible politician, not any of his personal attributes.

The point Taki is making is valid…Kennedy left the scene of the accident, and that poor girl lay there in the water, while the Kennedy staff planned out the PR to save his sorry ass from the trouble he got himself into. Say what you will about Bush2, he’s never cheated on his wife, or left some women in a predicament like that.

While I find the Bush family as detestable as any family in politics, that does nothing to excuse the Kennedy family. When I think of Richard Nixon, and his background, and his identification with the middle class, losing the presidency with the coup that Ted Kennedy engineered, I can find no sympathy for him or any of his stinking family.

Isn’t there someone that can go to Massachussetts and beat the corrupt old windbag? Surely the voters are sick of being sold out.

What makes you think the voters of Massachusetts are being sold out? They re-elect him with overwhelming margins. The one time he got into trouble against a certain Mormon opponent he played the Catholic card and came through. He’s considered a great hero among the Irish of that state.

Taki should have learned by now that most of his internet commandos do not concern themselves with matters involving courage and honor.  Their interest is money.  Only suckers fight and die.

Libertarianism, or some slight variation, has been the guiding philosophy of America since the North won the Civil War.  As Mencken observed, the South had the only aristocracy this nation ever had.

The South had the only aristocracy...?  Let us remember that the Roosevelts were gentry when New York was still Nieuw Amsterdam.  The reason all the Republican climbers hated FDR was that he was the real thing, like it or not.

Mr. Stocking wrote:

“The South had the only aristocracy...?  Let us remember that the Roosevelts were gentry when New York was still Nieuw Amsterdam.”

Both Teddy and Franklin had fathers who could have served in the Civil War, but did not.  They bought their way out of danger and cowered at home.  Real aristocracies do not suffer the behavior of poltroons.

Whatever Teddy did pales in comparison to the lives lost because of the empirical fools on the hill. The days of empire building are over...would someone inform DC?

1) We don’t know exactly why the Roosevelts ducked the dogfight.  Maybe they had no stomach for fighting fellow Americans?  In any event Teddy made up for it to a frightful degree with his imperialist macho bluster.  Mr. Dooley noted that, when TR’s account of his participation in the Spanish-American War was published, it was far too modest.  It should have been titled: “Alone in Cubia”.

@Alexander Trivunovic

You want to know whata is conservative about my position?
consider the words of Edmund Burke

“You chase after ghosts when your home is invaded by
robbers”

People who got too busy chasing after Ted kennedy never
noticed what Norman Podhoretz and the rest were doing
to conservatism and the Repubican party.

Basically they got played for suckers.

So, I am not in the mood for another round of Ted bashing.
Doing so will not solve anything.

Thank you Adriana!

@Adriana

Nice quote, but it doesn’t change the fact that
Ted Kennedy has earned every drop of bile anyone
decides to unload on him. The neocons are the
enemy, yes, but so is Ted Kennedy.

“People who got too busy chasing after Ted kennedy never
noticed what Norman Podhoretz and the rest were doing
to conservatism and the Repubican party.”

Really? Who are those people?  They are probably among the blinkered straight ticket GOP voters who populate other sites such as FR.

Are you trying to say that criticism of Kennedy will distract the readers of this site while Poddy and his little band of Trotskyites further destroy the rotten GOP?

The neocons get much more criticism here than do any members of your hallowed left in Congress.  I see no need to ignore the criminality of one gang of thieves in order to more closely watch another.  Both gangs can be attacked without the risk of favoring either.

There’s too little actual difference between the two wings of the monopoly party for attacks on both to help either side.

I would love to see Tedsie and Poddy sharing a jail cell while they wait their turn at the bar to face charges of treason, along with both Bushes and both Clintons of Pennsylvania Avenue renown.  What’s wrong with that?

@Ed Roberts

Bravo. If i was an eloquent man, that’s what i would
Have said.

There is some evidence that <a href=http://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com/jfk/was-edward-kennedy-framed-at-chappaquiddick>Kennedy was framed at Chappaquiddick</a>. I doubt whether even Teddy Kennedy knows exactly what happened on that fateful night.

Anyone that attempts to defend Ted Kennedy on either side of the aisle
most likely shares his “Elitist” perspective of values!
My contribution to the “Lifegaurd” of the Kennedy Dynasty
came in the early seventies as a young and confused AFLCIO
steel worker waiting for him to speak about his run for the Whitehouse.
As I made eye contact with him, I sensed that he was somewhat offended
by the fact that myself and 2 other steel workers wore
“Life Preservers” in bright orange to the event! Kennedy
was and still is dung, floating on the cesspool of politics!
Our GOP(Gutted Our Principles)leaders have simply lowered themselves to his standards!........This all makes great sense to me now, as
I remember my Grandfather explaining the “Civil Rights Movement”
to me in the sixties. He said, “Son, overeducated idiots that know
nothing are pushing this circus. Simply take a rotton potato and
place it in a bin with fresh healthy potatos and ask the good ones to heal it.
Come back in a few weeks and look at what has happened to
the healthy ones?”.............Kennedy is a rotton potato.

“Both sides?” Its more like their side against us.

Mr. Stocking wrote:  1) We don’t know exactly why the Roosevelts ducked the dogfight.  Maybe they had no stomach for fighting fellow Americans?

I think it far more likely they had no stomach for their fellow Americans fighting and shooting them.

Not so fast, Mr. Earley.  We don’t have the parties here to question, do we?  Accusing others of ignoble motives is how to enjoy an easy self-righteous cheap thrill.  The Civil War is still a subject of serious disagreement; to accuse those who seriously didn’t believe in it of poltroonery is rather hard.  “Thou shalt not kill” could just possibly have something to do with it.  Then again the elder Roosevelts could have had, as did Mr. Cheney, other career path plans.  At least these Roosevelts haven’t been accused of subsequently becoming sofa samurais.  TR’s conduct in Cuba during the Spanish-American war was histronic heroism, and FDR acquitted himself admirably as Asst. Secretary of the Navy during Woodrow’s Folly.  Walking a mile in the other party’s moccasins before passing judgment is always a good idea.

He played the Catholic card and came through. He’s considered a great hero among the Irish of that state.

The Kennedys reflect what urban Catholics actually believe —and people are the church. The hierarchy supports and allows the popular beliefs. Since the shepherds are responsible for the sheep, this is evidence that Rome is not a true church.

Theodore Roosevelt’s mother came from a prominent Confederate family,the Bullochs.She would not let her husband fight her brothers.FDR’s father was just your normal draft dodger like his son who resisted uncle Teds fervent pleas to join a combat division in WW1.Thodore served in combat, lost 1 son in WW1 and all his other sons fought in 2 wars.All of Franklin’s sons were in uniform in WW2 but I believe all avoided combat.

Richard Barley sed: Libertarianism, or some slight variation, has been the guiding philosophy of America since the North won the Civil War.  As Mencken observed, the South had the only aristocracy this nation ever had.

Thanks for admitting that “libertarianism” is all about maintaining a plutocracy…in either it’s Ayn Rand / Alan Greenspan / Neuter Gingrich version or the Old South economy b ased on slave labor, it’s all about STATE power preserving and increasing the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.

We ought to add Joe Kennedy who made the Kennedy fortune manipulating the stock market---who along with a few others who also benefited from the stock market crash---to the ranks of legendary “libertarians” that made the 20th Century.

Wilson’s Secretary of the Navy was Josephus Daniels, a very fine gentleman who barely knew which end of a battleship the propellors are under.  FDR was the sort of ship enthusiast who cut classes at Harvard to watch liners arrive and depart East Boston.  His administration of the Navy was far better than hackwork, even if it doesn’t have the romance and glamor or being an infantry lieutanant and leading the doughboys over the top and into German machine gun fire.  Which do you think was of greater benefit to the war effort?

TR seems to have over-reacted to his father’s noncombattant status.  Having a good dose of patriotism and guts is one thing.  Being a bellicose bully is quite another.

Mr. Stocking wrote:  “His administration of the Navy was far better than hackwork, even if it doesn’t have the romance and glamor or being an infantry lieutanant and leading the doughboys over the top and into German machine gun fire.  Which do you think was of greater benefit to the war effort?”

Unless one were Ernst Junger the romance and glamor of leading infantry into a firestorm of bullets soons fades.  Stocking gives answers that Ivy League swells think are neat.  Franklin could have learned at first hand the consequences of war.

Teddy could not resist embellishing his role in Cuba.  From what I have written: 

“Senator Alger, who was Secretary of War when the Spanish-American War was fought, used Roosevelt’s own quotes and Roosevelt’s own historical account to locate Teddy and the Rough Riders on Kettle Hill when American infantry charged San Juan Hill.  Mr. Dooley, the celebrated comic commentator, thought Teddy’s account should be called Alone in Cuba.  Even in 1917, not twenty years after that war in Cuba, the legend, not to say lies, of Teddy Roosevelt could not be refuted effectively.  The awkward fact that Roosevelt commanded at most 500 men out of 16,000 had not diminished the legend of Teddy winning the war.

A great contributing factor to distorting remembrance of the war has been the painting of the San Juan Hill charge by the Russian, Vereschagin.  In 1902 after Mr. Roosevelt became President, this Russian painter of war scenes came to Washington and took up residence at Fort Myer.  Vereschagin had Teddy come a few times to judge and attest to the accuracy of the painting, and one had to wonder if Vereschagin had Teddy pose on horseback so that he could capture the moment more authentically.  After completion of this masterpiece, Vereschagin left this country and imprudently boarded a Russian battleship at the siege of Port Arthur where he drowned.”

True enough, Franklin was an Ivy League swell.  At least a quick tour of the trenches of the Western Front would have been enlightening, and maybe he read “All Quiet on the Western Front” when it came out.  Still, he did a far better job of administering the Navy than Josephus Daniels was capable of.  Whetheroor not posterity would have been better served had. Lt. Franklin D. Roosevelt received a posthumous Medal of Honor remains an interesting question.  I say he served his country with distinction and calling him a slacker is pathetically wrong.

“The Kennedys reflect what urban Catholics actually believe —and people are the church. The hierarchy supports and allows the popular beliefs. Since the shepherds are responsible for the sheep, this is evidence that Rome is not a true church.”

Nonsense, Mr. Ramus.  It’s past time you admitted that you haven’t the faintest notion what urban catholics think, or what anyone other than yourself thinks.  You simply hate people you don’t know and the moderators here allow you to make your bigoted remarks.

Ted is not a saint - But he’s certainly a better Catholic than Cardinal Law.