Posted on 05/17/2004 10:09:23 AM PDT by gubamyster
Saturday, May 15, 2004 Edward Kennedy ought to resign from the U.S. Senate.
Likewise, Sen. Kennedy's protegé John Kerry ought to publicly disassociate himself from, and denounce in no uncertain terms, his mentor's latest inflammatory remarks.
Sen. Kennedy has made a career of verbal attacks so vicious that few other politicians could get away with them. But the frequency and outrageousness of his cheap shots have increased in recent years -- and this past Monday he outdid himself.
His remarks on the Senate floor were so obnoxious, so inexcusable, that no apology can make amends for them. In them, Sen. Kennedy had the gall to assert a moral equivalence between the routine brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime and the humiliating, but exceptional, treatment of some Iraqi prisoners by their American guards.
Consider Mr. Kennedy's statement: "Protection of the Iraqi people from the cruelty of Saddam had become one of the administration's last remaining rationalizations for going to war. All of the other trumped-up rationalizations have collapsed. ... On Dec. 24, 2003 -- the day Saddam was captured -- President Bush said, 'For the vast majority of Iraqi citizens who wish to live as free men and women, this event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever.' 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."
This comes on top of Mr. Kennedy saying last year that the entire war effort was a "fraud" undertaken for political advantage, while accusing President Bush of using "bribery" to secure the support of foreign leaders.
It comes on top of him calling judicial nominees "Neanderthals." And on and on go the examples of his calumnies, including, most famously, when he slandered Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in 1987 thusly: "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 would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens."
This is all hate speech, pure and simple, coming from a man whose own moral compass has time and again been notoriously skewed.
But to go so far as to impugn the Bush administration, and the U.S. armed services, as having deliberately "re-opened" Saddam Hussein's "torture chambers" is to go beyond the acceptable limits of public discourse.
Sen. Kerry, meanwhile, has a duty to denounce his mentor's remarks. Mr. Kennedy, after all, has been his political sponsor ever since Mr. Kerry slandered fellow American soldiers in his infamous testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971.
Last fall, when Sen. Kerry's campaign for the Democratic nomination looked like a monumental flop, Sen. Kennedy sent his longtime aides, Mary Beth Cahill and Stephanie Cutter, to bail out his Massachusetts colleague. In the run-up to the crucial Iowa caucuses, with John Kerry nursing a sore throat, Sen. Kennedy seemed more visible on the hustings than the candidate himself.
Candidate Kerry therefore should take this moment to separate himself from the senior senator, to say once and for all that hate speech has no place in American presidential politics.
In calling for Sen. Kennedy's resignation, we hasten to note, the Register editorial board applies the same standards it applied to Mississippi Republican Trent Lott, then Senate majority leader. In the wake of Sen. Lott's racially inflammatory remarks related to the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, the Register editorialized that "the cause of an honest moral reckoning demands that he step down."
In the wake of this latest entry on Sen. Kennedy's record, the same moral reckoning, long overdue, should apply to the senior senator from Massachusetts.
Down the Memory Hole.
Since Kerry is supposedly running for the presidency, I think BOTH of the senators from Mass. should resign.
There's been lots of speculation as to who would get a "prime-time" slot at the Dem convention. Could/would Kerry deny Kennedy, and will Ted be able to keep down? I doubt it..remember his speech to the Dems in 2000? and this time he'll be back in his hometown..
What? He just sent the two of them? Why didn't he send Mary Jo Kopechne too?
OOOPS. Never mind. There was that little Chapaquiddick thingy, wasn't there?
To shut this fat f#$% up someone needs to ask," shouldn't you be in jail for killing that girl",
every time he speaks.
This writer actually sounds like he expects Sir Kennedy to ACTUALLY apologize for his remarks, and then be quiet about Iraq? Uh huh.
Modern Dunking Stool is shaped like a 1969 Oldsmobile.
Give this tanked up slob a pass. Remember, he's drunk all the time. I don't think I'm serious about giving him a pass. Maybe he will poison himself someday with all that alcohol and passout permanently.
(read the article above)..
I wish people would stop picking on Ted. We have a lot to be thankful to him for. We should all show our appreciation by sending him bottles of booze and high fat content food.
They say that alcohol destroys brain cells. I am surprised that Kennedy has enough cells left to do the involuntary job of making his heart beat.
I concur. Ted will go waaaay over the top.That's why it's gona be tough for Kerry. Remember, the conventions are 4 night, and the major nets only cover 2 hours, possibly 3, per night. One night is for Kerry, one for the VP..and you can't have anyone upstage either of them...
Point taken. He does make the Dems look bad, unmistakeably; thus he serves some purpose. However, what does it say about Republicans, that they will not fire at even such a broad target as Kennedy presents?
Our elected officials, President on down, should be denouncing Kennedy. His recent statements are so utterly indecent, ignoring or tolerating him reflects very poorly on us.
On the other hand, I've been disappointed in the lack of GOP leadership in both the House and Senate for many years. They have never learned that they are the majority, while the Democrats learned how to be the minority overnight.
The GOP Senators and Representatives should be caring their end of the load.
Ted Kennedy demonstrates nearly everyday his shallowness and contempt for America. No wonder everybody thinks the Dems are a sick bunch. Their leading elites are mean spirited, callous, anti-American freaks.
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