Posted on 08/26/2009 7:13:53 AM PDT by 84rules
Susan Donaldson James of ABC News nails the true Ted Kennedy legacy:
The Real Ted Kennedy Legacy
84rules
August 26, 2009
http://www.nndb.com/people/623/000023554/
“Kennedy earned C grades at the private Milton Academy, but was admitted to Harvard as a “legacy” — his father and older brothers had attended there, so the younger and dimmer Kennedy’s admission was virtually assured. While attending, he was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, 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. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged.
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. He passed the bar exam in 1959, and two years later was appointed an Assistant to the District Attorney in Massachusetts’ Suffolk County.
In 1962, at age 30 (constitutionally, the minimum age to hold a Senate seat) he ran for the Senate. His timing was perfect — his brother John had given up the seat to become President, and Kennedy easily won the office. He was re-elected eight times to the office.
In 1964, he was seriously injured in a plane crash, and hospitalized for several months. His sister Kathleen and nephew “John John” were killed in separate plane crashes.
On 19 July 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 into Poucha Pond. He swam to shore and walked back to the party — passing several houses and a fire station — and two friends returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew, 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. 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. The Kennedy family began pulling strings, 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. In versions not so kind, it is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, that he was having an affair with Kopechne, and/or that he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight.
Since the accident, Kennedy’s political enemies have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick, or worse. 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 payout 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.
In 1973, at the height of Nixon’s Watergate scandal, Kennedy thundered from the Senate floor, “Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?”
Her parents are dead I believe!
Good news - the mudering SOB is dead
Bad news - non-stop stories about how great he was for the next week.
Kennedy smears President Bush and our troops on the US Senate floor:
He described the Iraq war as a fraud “made up in Texas” as part of political strategy — accused the President of the US of “telling lie, after lie, after lie”, in order to go to war in Iraq.
Kennedy smears Judge Alito...Mrs. Alito in tears:
“In suggesting that Samuel Alito had belonged to a racist conservative group, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy relied heavily on an essay published by the organization that sounded like a bigoted rant. The essay, titled ‘In Defense of Elitism.....But the magazine’s editor at the time says the article was pure satire, a send-up of what liberals think conservatives think. He added quote, ‘I think left-wing groups have been feeding Senator Kennedy snippets and he has been mindlessly reciting them,”
Sen. Edward Kennedy Smears the Nation
“On March 19, 2004, President Bush asked: ‘Who would prefer that Saddam’s torture chambers still be open?’ Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management — U.S. management.”
A speech on the Senate floor, May 10, 2004.
Kennedy’s smear of Judge Bork on the US Senator floor:
“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy....”
Kennedy betrays President Reagan:
May 14, 1983 document from the KGB archives reveals that Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) reached out to the General Secretary of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party, Yuri Andropov, to propose a kind of public relations strategy to counter President Reagan’s defense policy initiatives toward the Soviet Union, policies that Kennedy felt were too aggressive.
Another Kennedy will spring up to take his Senate seat. This family is like weeds.
Didn’t Kennedy also make the comment at Judge Clarence Thomas’ inquisition that “it is not the actual guilt, but the seriousness of the charges” that justified the Anita Hill lies?
I’ve been wondering just how uncomfortable are things for Ted right now. Was Mary Jo at the Pearly Gates along with St. Peter saying to Ted “You really do belong somewhere else, where it’s alot warmer.”
I have to hope that there is some form of judgement for him.
Yes, I imagine Caroline’s residency will suddenly change from NY to Massachusetts. Though, if the Kennedys don’t manage to get state law changed yet again to suit them, she may not be able to get elected even there.
A more accurate list of his “accomplishments’ here:
Yeah, Ted "thundered" all right - with hypocrisy.
he will be judged by a higher court now. and Mary Jo will be thre with her parents to hear it.
how about the most destructive immigration and naturalization act of 1965?
I don’t think Caroline’s going anywhere. One look at her six months ago proved she’s not in need of a lobotomy.
Where there’s a Kennedy, there’s a way.
It is a shame that Kennedy’s ideas for healthcare reform were wrong right from the beginning.
Not to mention his disastrous legacy with regard to immigration reform which was not reform at all but complete amnesty.
Kennedy’s legacy is just as bad as Carter’s.
Had Kennedy actually took responsibility right from the beginning for the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne and actually made an attempt to save her life instead of thinking about saving his own skin, both physical and political, his entire political career may have turned out a lot more positive.
The entire Kennedy family is the stuff Greek tragedies are made of.
Good Riddance!!
A legacy of Rat Bastardy
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