In his own right, Ted Kennedy was a legend, too - but for all the wrong reasons.
Posted on 08/27/2009 6:29:10 AM PDT by Zakeet
[Note: This is a lengthy, blunt, factually correct obituary of Ted written by a liberal British newspaper. It is also another perfect example of foreigners doing jobs Americans won't touch.]
Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy stood for sleaze. Bloated and drunken, he used his standing in the Kennedy clan to chase vulnerable women - which brought his dream of reaching the White House to a shameful end.
He was the youngest of the four Kennedy brothers, and by far the longest lived.
[Snip]
As he entered the Senate, Kennedy was admired for his commanding 6ft 2in stature and the good looks that seemed a family blessing. But he was already drinking and womanising with the greed that has become known as a vice of Kennedy men.
Keeping such a vice under wraps seemed to run in the blood (as did charisma). His father, Joe, the patriarch who had got away with bootlegging in the Prohibition years to establish the family fortune, had also behaved that way.
While Ted drank and took advantage of compliant women in Washington, his wife Joan stayed at home in Boston to look after his three children. Like her sister-in-law Jacqui, she seemed to have learned that Kennedy women had to put up with humiliation.
The effort ruined her health, however. Kennedy's unending philandering turned her into an alcoholic and, in 1983, she could take no more.
She could no longer stand the hypocrisy of her husband posing for the public as if he lived for family values. She divorced, publicly confessed to her alcoholism and helped shatter what was left of the Kennedy aura.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In his own right, Ted Kennedy was a legend, too - but for all the wrong reasons.
I don’t like to speak ill of the dead but in Teddy’s case I will happily make an exception. I found the following going around the email circuit and I’d like to share with everyone. Here it is:
The Last of the Kennedy Dynasty
As soon as his cancer was detected, I noticed the immediate attempt at the “canonization” of old Teddy Kennedy by the mainstream media. They are saying what a “great American” he is. I say, let’s get a couple things clear & 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” 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” 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 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 - 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.
The Kennedy family began “calling in favors”, 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” 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 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... 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”. 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”. What a pompous ass!
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”. “A blonde in every pond” is his motto.
We already know all this, why keep repeating it?
bump for truth of teddy
Again, foreign newpapers doing the reporting American papers won’t do.
Everybody does not know it yet. I’m distributing this stuff like a good patriot.
Because you know it doesn't mean everyone knows it. There are many young people who have been fed the Dem. propaganda fantasy of Camelot and who have no honest idea what kind of man gets lionized in Washington.
Because the Media keeps repeating the lies about him being such a "hero".
cause hes oh, so good, And hes oh, so fine, And hes oh, so healthy, In his body and his mind. Hes a well respected man about town, Doing the best things so conservatively. And he likes his own backyard, And he likes his fags the best, cause hes better than the rest, And his own sweat smells the best, And he hopes to grab his fathers loot, When pater passes on. cause hes oh, so good, And hes oh, so fine, And hes oh, so healthy, In his body and his mind. Hes a well respected man about town, Doing the best things so conservatively. And he plays at stocks and shares, And he goes to the regatta, And he adores the girl next door, cause hes dying to get at her, But his mother knows the best about The matrimonial stakes. cause hes oh, so good, And hes oh, so fine, And hes oh, so healthy, In his body and his mind. Hes a well respected man about town, Doing the best things so conservatively.
Pretty rough but true stuff from a liberal English rag. I’ll bet they have no love for Kennedy because of his support for the IRA over the years.
I always wondered how he was able to get out of the car when Kopeckne couldn’t
If he was drunk how did he manage that act
And how did he get over to Edgartown to his hotel room
Did he really swim over —He must have since the ferry stopped
Everything about that night is still screwry
Bravo to the Daily Mail.
bttt
The British pull no punches.
For all the tragedy of Chappaquiddick, it was the death of Mary Jo Kopechne that ultimately prevented a Ted Kennedy presidency.
The nation owes much to that young woman, whose life was sadly made forfeit for a political expendiency.
And Joe not only behaved that way, but encouraged his sons to do likewise. Like father, like sons.
I went to a craft store last night,a local chain and there by the customer service area was a table with various red,white,blue wreathes and a sign “in memorial for Senator Ted Kennedy for his many years of wonderful service to this country.” I had them call the manager, a woman, and I complained to her about it. I repeated several times that as a woman I was insulted and dismayed that the store was honoring a man who had killed a woman. I pointed out that July was the 40th anniversary of that woman’s murder and that in the coming media frenzy over Teddy’s death,which will make Michael Jackson look like a nobody,not one word would be mentioned about his murder victim. She just stared at me, then claimed she hadn’t noticed the display and didn’t know who had put it up. I walked out of the store.
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