Out of respect, I waited 24 hours after the passing of the "senior" Senator from Massachusetts.
The airwaves have been filled with the grand and glorious accolades of "good ole Ted."
What was conveniently left out were the following...
While I acknowledge the "Ted" spent his life on the public payroll and trying to spread his liberal ideology, the man who never held a real job. He did try to help the poor, immigrants and those whose vote he likely never got, as they didn't vote.
Ted was wrong in virtually every public policy. Some examples:
*He played advocate and appeased the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes.
*He opposed the Reagan/Thatcher/John Paul II confrontation of the Soviet Union (aka the "Evil Empire". He went so far as "to secretly reach out to the Soviet regime in 1983 with the motive of helping the Soviets defeat US policy. If Kennedy's political views had prevailed, millions of people would have remained trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=30980
*Ted supported big-government socialism of the 1960s. This have given us a bankrupt Medicare/Social Security system. President Clinton actually signed into law a welfare reform bill which undid the social and economic damage of 30 years of Ted Kennedy welfare policies.
*We can also thank Ted for today's illegal immigration disaster. His policy is traced directly to his Immigration "reform" of the 1960s. Hundreds of thousands of educated, high-value immigrants from Europe, Africa and Asia were effectively blocked from coming to the US, while low-skill, low-wage illegal immigrants have flooded across our border. Once they were here, these illegal aliens are and were sustained by tax-funded social services all advocated by, you guessed it...Ted Kennedy.
*Ted, known for his "adult beverage days", has a favorite D.C. restaurant, and the "Ted Kennedy Fun Room.." In the Summer of 1989 Kennedy and fellow Senator Chris Dodd were having lunch at famous Washington D.C. restaurant La Brasserie. Kennedy requested the attendance of waitress Carla Gaviglio. According to the Washington Times "When she put in an appearance in their private retreat - 'The Teddy Kennedy Fun Room' - the Massachusetts senator picked her up and heaved her onto a table. The crystal candlesticks and champagne glasses shattered as he grabbed her again and flung her on top of Dodd.
"Then Kennedy threw himself on top of the woman. The waitress implored Mr. Kennedy to 'Get off me!'
"Another waitress entered to find 'things all tipped over and Kennedy was on top, [the waitress] was in the middle and Dodd was on the bottom.' At that point the sandwich was disassembled." There are many more stories of this "gentleman." One of these stories came from a waitress friend of mine who somehow had his hand under her dress...
*Ted was expelled from Harvard for cheating on an exam in May 1951.
*Ted enlisted in the United States Army in June 1951. After basic training at Fort Dix, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped after a few weeks without explanation.There Teddy went to Camp Gordon for training in the Military Police Corps.In June 1952, he was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris. Good old Dad's political connections made sure that he was not deployed to Korean War. He was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class. (You can insert joke, here.)
*And, drum roll please, last but not least, Ted Kennedy was responsible for the death of a woman. Mary Jo Kopechne suffocated to death in his car, while he hid out until the next day, likely sleeping off a scotch filled nightmare. Ted lied to police. He then used his family's political power to evade all responsibility. If this had been you or I, we'd be a convicted criminal. On July 25, 1969, Teddy plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a sentence of two months in jail, suspended.(of course) Later that night, he gave a national broadcast in which he said, "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately." But, he denied driving under the influence of alcohol and denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne. He then asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay or should he go and, much to our shock, shock, I say...he got a favorable response and stayed as the liberal lion of the Senate. In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death took place in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers (and his daddy), the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were not true, and that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne." I am shocked! You don't say! A grand jury on Martha's Vineyard staged a two-day investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. (I wonder how many pay-offs were involved...) Ted made a comment that he deemed its conclusions "not justified."
There are many more tales to tell about the Camelot king. From the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 to the current fiasco of having to change Massachusetts state law, to allow U.S. Senate vacancies to be temporarily filled pending a special election. Funny how Ted had this law changed in 2004 to prevent former Republican Governor Mitt Romney from appointing a replacement for Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, in the event Kerry won the presidency. At this same time, Kennedy successfully made personal appeals to Massachusetts Democratic legislative leaders to pass the bill, which had been stalled prior to his request. The Boston Globe had reported that Ted was concerned that the people of Massachusetts would not be represented 5 months until a special election, after his passing. But he missed almost all of the Senate roll call votes this year. He did not have the stones to resign like he should of. I guess he did not really care that much, did he?
