The big loser of the confirmation hearings so far is Teddy Kennedy. In his hectoring and tasteless attack on Samuel Alito he has succeeded in nothing but reminding us of his (Teddy’s) past. While Alito may have been associated with a creepy Princeton alumni publication of twenty years ago, Kennedy was associated was something much worse than that – and we all know it. Those of us of a certain age remember well his dazed expression when questioned about the events on Chappaquiddick, the answers that never added up, the story that never computed (still doesn’t) and the moral, emotional and intellectual contortions we (supporters like me) went through to try to believe him.
I even knew a woman who went to the party in Chappaquiddick that night. She was so loyal she refused to talk about it her entire life as far as I know. Kennedy himself worked for years to rebuild his reputation, achieved that to a great extent by working hard on issues like health care. Of course tragedy had occurred within his own family and we all had compassion for him, forgiving him his well-known excesses – the weight, the booze, the allegations of womanizing.
But then anger started to build. It seemed to come simultaneously from within and without. In recent years, a man who was famous for being able to “work across the aisle” (with Orrin Hatch, notably) began to manifest rage against his opponents out of proportion to reality. For some reason, he had morphed into a hatchet man (was this rage against the self?). Then, most recently, at these confirmation hearings, it seemed as if he had come adrift of his moorings. There was something weirdly self-destructive in his questioning of Alito, the bizarre insinuation that the judge could be a racist (hello, Joseph Kennedy!) when everyone in the room knew Alito wasn’t, the obviously staff-driven nonsense about what newspaper articles Alito may have read twenty years ago, the intimations of sexism on the judge’s part that quite clearly didn’t exist. Where did this all come from? Was Teddy just preaching to the choir for his next campaign war chest? He needs that like a hole in the head. No, this anger was coming from a deeper, sadder place.
When Mrs. Alito walked out of the room, I thought of Mary Jo Kopechne.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
38 Comments
1. David Thomson:ìThe big loser of the confirmation hearings so far is Teddy Kennedy.î
But it wonít cost him anything. The voters of Massachusetts have essentially given Ted Kennedy a blank check. Many of them are cynically satisfied that he brings home the bacon. The man has nothing to fear. Kennedy is similar to a spoiled teenager who is never disciplined.
Jan 12, 2006 - 6:03 am 2. Gahrie:“When Mrs. Alito walked out of the room, I thought of Mary Jo Kopechne.”
Which is more than Kennedy has done in the past 30 plus years.
Jan 12, 2006 - 6:20 am 3. Vulgorilla:The reason that Mary Jo Kopechne isn’t with us today is that she was carrying Teddy’s unborn child. That was enough reason for Teddy to issue her death warrent. Since he has no morals or scruples, he has gravitated to the one place in this country that welcomes those kind of people with open arms … the Congress in Washington, D.C. Teddy is consistently staying in-character as far as I can see.
Jan 12, 2006 - 6:33 am 4. beautifulatrocities:Debra Saunders says nominate Kennedy for Supreme Court for some REAL guilt by association. Can you imagine all the I-can’t-recalls? It would probably be the first time a Supreme Court nominee took the Fifth!
Jan 12, 2006 - 6:59 am 5. jaybird:Welcome to the club. But for what it’s worth, some of us knew even before Chappaquiddick that Teddy was at best the runt of the litter and at worst a contemptible self-indulgant fraud. Think about it. He could never have once been noble and pure, but now a pathetic buffoon and loutish sot. You can’t get here from there. Life doesn’t work that way. Chappaquiddick served to hold him up on display for all to see. But even with that, there are plenty of others who see and still don’t care, and it’s the voters of Massachusetts who should be scorned for retuning this man for all these years knowing what he is, and over some worth, able, and decent people who ran against him from time-to-time.
Jan 12, 2006 - 7:11 am 6. Jamie Irons:By a peculiar chance I happened to be living on Chappaquiddick through the summer of 1969, my employer a wealthy physician from New Hampshire who owned two Land Rovers (rather rare at the time) with winches on the front. We were summoned to help pull Kennedy’s vehicle from the water, but by the time we got there a tow truck had already accomplished that.
It was my habit to go out to the beach by those ponds to surf cast when I wasn’t working, and I knew the area very well (as did Teddy, from what one can learn). There was never any doubt in my mind that his account of “accidentally” turning onto that road was a lie, plain and simple. All the locals accepted that. But even then a sort of inviolability hovered around this despicable man.
It occured to me in watching snatches of the Alito hearings that we are watching the death throes of the politics of my (sixties) generation. And this is a very good thing.
Jamie Irons
Jan 12, 2006 - 7:26 am 7. Patrick Tyson:Alito wants a job.
Kennedy has a job.
Kennedy gets to question Alito on his past because Kennedy is on the right committee. Kennedy gets to vote on whether Alito gets the job because voters in 1 of the 50 states elected him to represent them in the legislative body that gets to cast such a vote.
It’s the process.
A Senator from West Virginia (the only one who has been in the Senate longer than Kennedy and also a Democrat) was once a member of the KKK. Everytime somebody doesn’t like something he says or does they bring it up.
It’s hardball (such as it is and it isn’t very hard) politics.
Has anything changed? One would like to think that once not that long ago someone—a politician, a nominee, a commentator said or wrote something during one of these weeks that wasn’t process and wasn’t politics, but, if they did, I haven’t heard or seen such since…?
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:00 am 8. Fausta:A Senator from West Virginia (the only one who has been in the Senate longer than Kennedy and also a Democrat) was once a member of the KKK
Not only a member of the Ku Klux Klan, not just a Klan organizer and advocate, but the “Exalted Cyclops,” the top officer in the local Klan unit, who, as a senator, opposed with other southern Democrats the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is referred to by the Washington Post as “a pillar of the Senate”.
And Ted Kennedy’s fussing about the CAP?
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:05 am 9. Buddy Larsen:Gratifying–if wryly–to read you folk’s clear-eyed rather sorrowful understanding of this person. Apart from the character matters, apart from the legislation that has created some good but so much waste and fraud, apart from the hustling of minorities to keep ‘em voting en bloc from crumbling and hopeless liberal plantations, the guy doesn’t even pay his taxes–though he insists that you and I pay more, always more, he recuses himself from responsibility to do likewise.
As has been said, the people of Massachusetts should be ashamed of themselves.
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:13 am 10. monkeydarts:Teddy did succeed in getting you, Roger, to declare the alumni publication “creepy” without, I suspect, having ever read it. Teddy declares it anti-woman and anti-minority but you might want to ask two former editors of it, Laura Ingraham (a, gasp, woman!!!) and Dinesh D’Souza (an, ahem, “person of color”)!!!. So maybe Tedward’s smear of Judge Alito won’t work but his smear of CAP sure has– at least with you Roger.
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:14 am 11. Silicon valley Jim:It would probably be the first time a Supreme Court nominee took the Fifth!
And probably any pints and quarts he could get his hands on, as well.
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:14 am 12. Buddy Larsen:Really, if he showed up at your front door, would you let him in the house?
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:24 am 13. mrp:At times when Senator Kennedy’s face appears on my TV screen, I often recall the “Ouija Board” scene in Bob Logan’s movie Repossessed.
Question to the ouija board: “Will Ted Kennedy become president?” …..
Oh, man.
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:28 am 14. Buddy Larsen:His line on CAP–that it shows attitude about women and minorities–pretends that Sam Alito’s intervening lifetime–including fifteen years on a federal bench with thousands of opinions written–does not exist.
It’s sheer demagoguery, and Teddy’s so far gone he doesn’t even care anymore.
Jan 12, 2006 - 8:30 am 15. Charlie (Colorado):The thing he, is probably would be telling the truth.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:00 am 16. Rick Ballard:“It’s hardball (such as it is and it isn’t very hard) politics.”
Absolutely true. This set of hearings is a walk in the park for Alito. Bork and Thomas must at least snicker when they read the breathless accounts of how “badly” Alito is being treated.
The Sot, Leakey and Chuckles are performing for their designated audience and the ever unctuous Graham made a bid to overtake Chuckles in the camera hog department. This is low farce – not high drama.
Jamie has a point about this being the death of ’60’s politics. It’s very fitting that it should end with a whimpering performance as contrived and void of content as “The Death of Little Nell”. You really couldn’t ask for a better cast to ring down the curtain.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:06 am 17. PeterUK:“Really, if he showed up at your front door, would you let him in the house?”
Could you get him through the door?
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:11 am 18. PeterUK:Samuel Alito was a member of the CAP from 1972 when it was founded,three years after women were asdmitted in 1969, until he graduated in 1972.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:13 am 19. Buddy Larsen:Maybe with some butter and a couple of crowbars.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:15 am 20. PeterUK:You serve crows?
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:19 am 21. Mark_Belt:Roger:
Knowing that you are a careful writer, I must point out that the phrase that fits Teddy is “to the manner born.” A BBC comedy seen here on PBS, To the Manor Born, made a pun on the phrase to indicate a woman who had to move out of the manor house.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:20 am 22. Buddy Larsen:I guess in English it would have some silly name like “prizing tool”.
\;-D
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:22 am 23. Red:forgiving him his well-known excesses – the weight, the booze, the allegations of womanizing.
When did “weight” become an excess for which one must be forgiven?
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:33 am 24. Pat Curley:Back when my family (and I) were liberal, I remember that we were all thrilled when Ted decided to challenge Jimmy Carter in 1980. Then Roger Mudd reduced him to a quivering, stammering blob of goo, probably costing himself a shot at Cronkite’s job but doing the country an enormous service.
When you think Teddy Kennedy can’t sink any lower, just remember that his dog is named Splash. I kid you not.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:38 am 25. markus:I feel like I’m back in seventies, discussing the Right-wing’s favorite story about their favorite Senator. Whose got the Qualludes?
Ted Kennedy tried to rescue Mary Jo after the accident. Unable to do so, he ran back to the party to get others to try to rescue her. Realizing she was dead, and seeing life as a disgraced ex-Senator flash before him, he decided to let his blood alchohol level come down below .30% before calling the authorities. This is probably what happened.
If it did, he was neither the first nor the last alcoholic to accidentally cause someone’s death, nor the first or last famous one to seek to avoid the consequences of his actions.
Since then, he has represented his constituents, who have overwhelmingly reelected him seven times. He is been a passionate, articulate, somewhat effective advocate of liberal causes. He has WORKED HARD to pass moderate bipartisan legislation that moves incrementally towards his long-term goals (Kennedy-Kassembaum health care bill, No Child Left Behind.) He has gotten up on countless mornings, shaken off his hangover, gone to work and tried to do good that day, just like Pat Moynihan and Christopher Hitchens. Agree with him or not, his conduct as a Senator, as opposed to private citizen, has been unimpeachable.
His actions in May 1969, and on other drunken evenings, need to be balanced against the rest of his life. Countless Republicans in Washington D.C. are SINCERELY able to do this. Why can’t Roger Simon?
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:40 am 26. Dave Schuler:I agree with David Thomson that Ted Kennedy has little to lose. I’d go farther: he’s actually improved his standing with the “progressive” wing of the Party (as if he needed to).
The biggest loser of the hearings is Joe Biden. This was an opportunity for him to scores points either with moderates or potential Democratic primary voters. He hasn’t done either but has chosen instead to, well, act like a comic book Senator. He’s squandered an opportunity and he won’t get many more.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:46 am 27. chuck:Marcus,
Since then, he has represented his constituents, who have overwhelmingly reelected him seven times.
My relations are among his constituents. They admit he’s a slimeball but counter that he brings home the pork. Everyone has their price, eh? You may now contemplate the fundamental importance of pork in politics: it drives the system and compensates for any number of personal sins.
Jan 12, 2006 - 9:51 am 28. Howard_Schwartz:ìBut then anger started to build. It seemed to come simultaneously from within and without. In recent years, a man who was famous for being able to “work across the aisle” (with Orrin Hatch, notably) began to manifest rage against his opponents out of proportion to reality. For some reason, he had morphed into a hatchet man (was this rage against the self?). Ö Where did this all come from? Was Teddy just preaching to the choir for his next campaign war chest? He needs that like a hole in the head. No, this anger was coming from a deeper, sadder place.î
Right on, Roger!
Try this on for size:
I suggest that what you see in Kennedy, and which is behind Bush Derangement Syndrome as well, is the evolution of the psychodynamics of political correctness. Our PC friends have thoughts that they cannot allow themselves to have. They hate those thoughts and need to destroy them. But many of these thoughts are just natural wanderings of the mind or simple observations about the world around them, so they do not go away just by themselves. What are they going to do with those thoughts? Well, one thing they can do is project them into others. As a result, they hate and need to destroy those others. This is called “projective identification.” In a sense, they are transforming an internal conflict into an external one. The intolerability of the other has nothing to do with the other, but reflects only the intolerability of those thoughts to oneself.
This sort of thing just gets worse, by the way. The righteous battle these folks see themselves fighting only magnifies their sense of their own goodness, and their contempt for their enemies, which is to say their own thoughts. That makes their hateful thoughts even more hateful. God forbid that these guys should ever regain power.
Howard
Jan 13, 2006 - 11:17 am 29. ForNow:Bottom line, Teddy vs. Toonces. Who wins?
http://www.mavericktimes.com/toonces.html
http://www.catass.com/toonces/
Jan 13, 2006 - 12:51 pm 30. MarkD:Markus,
You mean Teddy should invoke the Tookie Williams defense? Didn’t help Tookie, shouldn’t help Teddy.
Jan 13, 2006 - 12:55 pm 31. Buddy Larsen:“God forbid that these guys should ever regain power.” Amen, Howard.
Tookie’s defense DID help Tookie get rid of Tookie.
Dave Schuler, I’d agree with you, except that Senatur Joe appears to’ve been unscathed by an even greater show of grinnin’ idiocy, on the 911 commission.
Markus, you have a point on the general need for forgiveness, but the issue is Kennedy himself–if didn’t continually preach from a moral high-horse while living a life void of those rigors.
For example, please give me the rationale–ANY rationale whatsoever–for a guy who uses an Island of Fiji trust fund to avoid his own inheritance taxes, to be such an extremely vehement advocate of keeping the tax as high as possible on us ordinary folks.
As if he has a higher calling for his family, so they ought to keep it, but the rest of us are too stupid and venal and meritless to have any purpose for, or deserve to keep (as he does), those already-fully-double-taxed assets.
Jan 13, 2006 - 3:30 pm 32. Buddy Larsen:My real heart-of-hearts objection to the entity AKA Ted Kennedy is not so much the shamelessness, but the shamelessness about the shamelessness (does that make any sense?).
That IS the horrific example his leadership has set for his party, which, thus enabled, is now rapidly reaching his own ‘acceptable’ depths.
Anyhoo, at least have some rich Daniel Henninger chuckle (don’t miss ‘comments’):
Jan 13, 2006 - 3:50 pm 33. Captain Hate:“Whose got the Qualludes?”
Based on spelling and grammar, I’d guess you.
Jan 13, 2006 - 3:55 pm 34. Randal Robinson:Teddy Kennedy’s staunchest supporters are usually the very same people who will, without the slightest hint of irony, accuse George W. Bush of being a child of privilege who succeeded in politics only because of his name and family ties. Then they’ll bash Bush relentlessly for such unforgivable ancient sins as allegedly missing an Air National Guard physical 30 years ago.
Jan 13, 2006 - 7:55 pm 35. Buddy Larsen:“Double standard”
Jan 13, 2006 - 9:37 pm 36. pst314:“Ted Kennedy tried to rescue Mary Jo after the accident.”
Well, that’s what he claimed, but it’s not true. His lying was obvious both in how he contradicted himself and in how his claims contracted objective evidence. He only escaped punishment because of the political power of the Kennedy family.
Jan 15, 2006 - 1:06 pm 37. James Wolf:Since then, he has represented his constituents, who have overwhelmingly reelected him seven times.
Sadly the Bay State GOP all too often is only able to mount token chalenges. Last time he essentially ran unopposed.
Jan 15, 2006 - 4:19 pm 38. thibaud:…this anger was coming from a deeper, sadder place.
When Mrs. Alito walked out of the room, I thought of Mary Jo Kopechne.
Brilliant. Roger at his best: vivid, fresh, penetrating and tempered by insights from his own journey.
Roger,
I do hope you’ll expand upon these insights in your next book (memoir). Seems like you’ve enough grist here for an entire chapter on the Kennedys and what they’ve meant to you, your generation, your nation. Seems as if more and more the memory of JFK is being shunted aside by the revival of the old man’s nasty, racist, America-firster politics (compare “That crippled bastard killed my son Joe” with Howard Dean and Cindy Sheehan’s antics). And that Teddy in his dotage is reverting to the unhinged young spif of Harvard/UVA days.
best,
t
Jan 15, 2006 - 8:01 pm