Posted on 08/29/2009 5:19:12 PM PDT by Chairman of the Bard
Mark Steyn: Things only a Kennedy could get away with And by not calling his bluff on Chappaquiddick, Americans became complicit in it.
We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation or, at any rate, its "mainstream" media culture declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's passing, America's TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard used to write about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble Appalachian household where there's a baby buried in the backyard but everyone agreed years ago never to mention it.
In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne, 1940-1969. If you have to bring up the, ah, circumstances of that year of decease, keep it general, keep it vague. As Kennedy flack Ted Sorensen put it in Time magazine:
read on....
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Chappaquiddick itself was not the problem. It’s mostly the stark lack of public remorse by Teddy. And to a lesser extent, the fact that his powerful connections let him skate.
None of us have any sentimentality for him either. Even Liberals at my office acknowledged his failings.
I never was “into” royalty. I can’t believe all the flatulation going on over this guy.
Anyone here notice how much fresher the air tastes now the we do not have to share it w/ Teddy.
You are not cynical. This love fest is disgusting! This senator is getting more coverage from the lame stream media than President Ford got when he died.
The media in this country is going to be the primary cause of the downfall of the USA. They refuse to tell the truth about what this facist administration is doing to the country.
Such overt sentimentality heaped upon a man born into such wealth who indulged his every whim regardless of the impact it had on others is what is perverted.
bttt
Just wait for KKK Byrd to die. I’d like to hear Obama’s eulogy for him.
LIBERAL
Not a problem. Sirius Radio tuned into the Sinatra stations with an occasional trip over to the old time radio channel is all I need to keep me entertained.
Ted Kennedy was remorseless because he knew he could invoke family prestige and power to skate by the consequences... Ted Kennedy spent years lying by omission ... disguising the truth with that fiasco in Florida in later years... Ted Kennedy had a pattern of disguising the truth aided by the liberal media ... this is not to mention his destructive liberal/leftist political agenda which has been very hurtful to America..
In a similar manner - Barrack Hussein ‘The Kenyan’ Obama was a consummate narcissistic pathological liar in all the years before his election - yet somehow the media avoided the truth and magically Obama was not a consummate narcissistic pathological liar AFTER the election too — totally amazing
I’m sure ole Ted inflatuated a whole lot. His speeches were inflatuations at his less intelligent end.
BTTT
That and that he lived seventy-seven years too long and died seventy-seven years too late.
Who knows what my trial will be when I approach the Pearly Gate. I surely hope my inquisitor is infinitly merciful. Knowing that I can still say the world would be a much better place if Edward Kennedy had been aborted as he wanted so many other babies to be aborted!
He was never, ever a good man!
LOL! You nailed it! That’s was this farce really reminds me of.
Steyn writes without his usual chuckling style. I suspect, living in New Hampshire, he’s had to endure an extra heaping helping of TeddyWorship this week. This column was particularly biting.
Clymer? THE Clymer? Teddy was apparently a Clymer, big time.
Outside of Massachusetts, DC and a few neighborhoods in Manhattan, the name “Ted Kennedy” will always be a punchline.
“We conservatives are classy and respectful; however, the adulation being heaped upon this man are undeserved. Sorry if you find me overly cynical.”
The point is well taken. The man is dead, I feel no need to be overly critical of him. I really try to avoid speaking ill of the dead. But, I can’t stand to see the hero worship of a man who led a less than exemplary life and in all probability was a murderer.
Brilliant article. There are few people in public life for whom I had, and retain, less respect than for Teddy Kennedy. I do note, however, that by declining to resign he has placed the Democrats quite unnecessarily in the uncomfortable position of having lost their supermajority in the Senate for the time it will take to elect a successor, right before a critical vote on health care “reform”. It isn’t quite up to abandoning a young woman drowning but it’s perfectly in character.
But...
You have to admire the old turd's passion and perseverance in pushing his destructive agenda.
If we, in the right, would have had an old "conservative lion" all those years who would have counteracted the old "liberal lion", we would not find ourselves in the fix that we are today.
I ignore it. All I think about in all of this is the moment “The Senator” died and came face to face with Mary Jo again.
I hope it was painful for Teddy, but probably not. He was a murderer, a liar, and an evil man. Glad he is gone and burning in Hell!
I’m sorry but I think “The Senator” went south and Mary Jo went north. I don’t think they will ever meet.
I too have been saying for years (and heard Larry Kudlow say it this AM on the radio) that Kennedy was the true pioneer of the demagogic rhetoric that has come to define
the public face of the Far Left, ever since the extreme verbiage he used at the Bork hearings over twenty years ago. I guess his fellow Lefties heard it, saw how it went over, and built on it, OTSOG, as it were. It became the signature style for Clintonistas starting from the very beginning, as practiced and perfected by such luminaries as Paul Begala, James Carville, and countless “strategists” who’ve been fouling our airwaves for over two decades now.
They’ve become very adept as putting forth a certain
Master Thespian acting style in which (MOCK) moral outrage and gross overstatement go hand in hand, the search for truth and illumination gets thrown out the window, and Memorable Snarkiness is the high point of every appearance. Ultimately they are all ACTORS, and they’ve been building their audience very patiently. That audience is still there, but its ranks are already thinning. All that remains very soon will be the truly hard-core. Nobody has EVER called them on this entirely hollow “presentation of self”, so they’ve been enabled by their “enemies” every bit as much as their “friends”.
Steyn, you magnificent bastard! But sadly, I doubt the loss of 200 Kennedy sycophants would make much of a dent...
In Myron Magnet’s “The Dream and the Nightmare,” the classic
work on the 60s and the resulting poverty in America, he
notes that regarding, “The career of Senator Edward Kennedy,
..., Joe Kline has observed the no-fault way in which he has
conducted his personal life is mirrored by his no-fault
social policy, all rights and entitlements without
responsibilities.” That about says it all.
Fox news Cris Wallace and others kept wondering what the great ‘iconic moment’ of the ceromony would be, and I kept thinking “When it’s all over, and America wakes up fro mtheir comma, and realizes what a traitorous creep Teddy was- but alas, that moment may nev3r come
[[that by declining to resign he has placed the Democrats quite unnecessarily in the uncomfortable position of having lost their supermajority in the Senate for the time it will take to elect a successor,]]
The successor won’t be elected, but rather appointed- somethign keneddy opposed when Mitt was around
It bothered me to see Orin Hatch so in the tank for this low-life. I could not have a friend like that.
Excellent points, B.O. Plenty.
What the republicans have, by and large, is “MILQUETOAST”.
While intellectual giants like Mark Levin and Rush do not hesitate for a minute to voice their views, most elected Republicans remain tepid and pensive.
FOX has been purely reverent and respectful.
Chappaquiddick was the problem. He went nine hours putting together a coverup plan before going to the police and then was given only a 2 month suspended sentence.
You left out adulter.
[[The senator’s actions in the hours and days after emerging from that pond tell us something ugly about Kennedy the man. That he got away with it tells us something ugly about American public life.]]
Precisely!
no it goes further than respect- Cris Wallace and company were almost pining for a successor to Ted- hoping that Camelot would not end- it was sickning quite frankly
Watched a lot of the coverage waiting to see the part where the bury him in dirt...
...but they never show the good stuff at funerals.
Classic Mark Steyn!
8 hours of the plan was to snooze in bed
Well, they often bury heroes “at sea”.
I’d like to see this coward burried “at lake”.
That hurts because it's true.
Teddy even knocked Jacko’s homocide to the bottom for awhile!
I disagree. Chappaquiddick was the problem. Kennedy's behavior that day showed him to be either guilty of murder or, at the very least, negligent homicide. He never was brought to the bar in a human tribunal to answer for that event.
May God have mercy on his soul.
“In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne, 1940-1969”
More unmentionable to me is his father kissing @ss to Hitler and giving his own daughter a lobotomy. Oh yeah, and getting rich from being a bootlegger during prohibition. The Kennedy fame and fortune made off of us ‘small souls’.
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