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The Ted Kennedy I Knew
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Jim Bourg / Reuters
The MSNBC host says a new biography reveals what made Kennedy the greatest US senator of modern times—and why he never dropped the torch.
In June 1946, Jack Kennedy was approaching his first big political win. His father’s polls showed him with a commanding lead in the Democratic primary for Congress. Given the party’s big registration edge in Cambridge and other towns in the 11th District of Massachusetts, he had a November victory in the bag.
With electoral success imminent, members of the Kennedy family sat around the table in Hyannis Port. Each took a turn to toast the candidate’s 29th birthday. Finally, the daunting Joseph P. Kennedy called on his youngest son, Teddy.
The night before Joseph P. Kennedy’s funeral, Ted dragged a sleeping bag into the room where his father’s body lay and spent the night underneath the casket.
“I would like to drink a toast to the brother who isn’t here,” he said.
Mark Dalton, who was managing Jack’s winning ’46 campaign, was the only one present outside of the family. He would recall that moment for the rest of his life, this rare peek into the world of the tight-knit Kennedys.
Here was this little boy reminding his older siblings and his father of the oldest son, Joseph, who had been killed in a dangerous WW II bombing mission. “It took several minutes for the room to recover,” Dalton recalled in sharing this story with me many years ago.
Just 13, Teddy Kennedy was displaying the twin imperatives of being born into that incredible family: a loyalty that lasts beyond the grave and a born duty to grab the torch that tragedy passes from brother to brother.
The youngest brother would display it again when his beloved father died in 1970. Thanks to an intriguing new biography, we learn that the night before Joseph P. Kennedy’s funeral, Ted dragged a sleeping bag into the room where his father’s body lay and spent the night underneath the casket.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’S Hardball and The Chris Matthews Show, has written five bestsellers, including Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America.
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Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’S Hardball and The Chris Matthews Show, has written five bestsellers, including Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America.
That tingle that runs up Matthew's leg whenever a liberal opens his mouth must reach the genitals when he considers Teddy. This loud-mouth alcoholic and coward -- Ted not Chris, though the similarity is eerie -- has been one of the most reliable votes for big government, high taxation and open borders during his career. Otherwise, he would be known only for swimming away from Mary Jo and letting her drown. Speaking of reliable, the brown-nosing Matthews can always be counted on to praise anyone on the left side of the aisle. It comes from having been an errand boy for Tip O'Neill.
Mary Jo Kopechne sure felt a tingle that cool summer night in 1969. All thanks to Ted!
I totally agree. Teddy was an enemy to objectivism; like most Kennedys. A functional government and the burden on the top 1% that standards bring, encouraging huddled masses to enter a land of opportunity... BOO!
I'm white and more for THEM means less for me. It has to mean that because there is no other way to envision the world outside of a zero-sum game; it's impossible!
I didnt really read this article fully, but i did go through looking for key terms and 1 thing in particular stood out to me...
How can you write an argument for the "Greatest Modern Senator" without making 1 reference to Strom Thurmond. SURE he was also an ancient senator, but it wasnt too long ago when he was still walking through congress. He is arguably one of the most important South Carolinians in history and stands alone for the past 50 years. Not that Lindsey Graham isnt an excellent senator, but here in SC we compare him (with great respect for both men) to Strom and we all have our fingers crossed that he becomes "Strom Jr".
Now im not trying to say that Ted isnt going to go into the record of as one of the greatest ever but atleast use strom as a reference point. credit where credit's due
To the end of his days, Strom Thurmond never acknowledged his own black child, the daughter he begot on a teenage maid in his parents' home.
Even after he supposedly cleaned up his racist views, he never stepped up and said "this is my daughter."
Ted Kennedy is one of a very few senators who is actually Senatorial.
Don't judge all of the orchard by its worst apple. C'mon now. Be open-minded.
What Banjo1 means to say is:
Waaaaah I'm Republican. Waaaaaah nobody listens to my ideas about letting sick mexicans die in the street.
I wasn't aware that Chris Matthews was so expert in the ways of fellatio, but apparently he REALLY likes Ted Kennedy.
He lost me when we referred to Mary Jo Kopechne - "may have cost a young woman her life." What's this? She ISN'T dead? What terrific news - surely Chris Matthews, being a journalist, could investigate for us? Or perhaps Mary Jo is in hiding all these years in a futile attempt to ruin Teddy's political aspirations?
Three words
Mary
Jo
Kopechne
He left his mistress to drown in the cold Atlantic Ocean because it might be mildly personally inconvenient to be caught in the same car with her.
Teddy Kennedy is scum - and the whole wretched Kennedy "Dynasty" are nothing more than bootleggers gone respectable!
To hell with Camelot!
If any of the naysayers above had ever actually met the "Senatah" they would eat their words. I have on many occasions and let me tell you - he's the real deal. Alcoholism can make people do some really stupid things - but there is no doubt that Teddy, and for that matter the Kennedys as a whole, have more than paid their debt to society. They were raised on the concept of "Noblesse Oblige." They have ALWAYS been for the underdog and the "least among us." It's not posturing like the "compassionate conservatism" that we've seen out of the likes of Bush etal. They put their money and their time where their mouth is. Look up Special Olympics, Best Buddies, the Peace Corp....the list goes on and on of good deeds that have been born of their dining room table. Judging his life deeds, his good exponentially outweighs the bad - something that could never be said for Strom Thurmond and his ilk. I love Teddy - and more importantly Teddy loves you!
Not to be hateful, but the man DID kill a young woman and never took responsibility. I cannot find where he ever even said, "I'm sorry." How do we revere a man like this when those who have done the same things (albeit without his millions) are imprisoned? He may have voted for things I believe in, he may have done some good for his country, but he has never ever paid the cost of the life he took.
Watch TV. The news channels are reviewing his life constantly, and most of them broadcast the 1969 speech in which he looked right at the camera and said how sorry he was. You don't believe it was murder -- it was clearly an accident -- and you can say "never" but most of us believe in redemption, particularly for accidents.
I wonder how many of us wish Ted had been the man he could have been. While many of us don't live up to our potential, he surely had a great many advantages in life. I have a hard time getting past the fact he killed a young woman, ok being honest, I cannot get past it. He has done good things in his job, and made mistakes like many others - but I think he has tried. But he should have been in prison all this time, not in Congress.
The average sentence served for murder is seven years. This wasn't murder, and it happened in 1969, forty years ago.
I favor getting sick Mexicans off the streets, if that's where they are, and treating them in Mexican hospitals.
But will they have UNIVERSAL health care? Maybe we can name the Mexican health care system after Teddy.
"Greatest U.S. Senator of modern times."
You've got to be kidding me. He's the one who wanted the "Big Dig", didn't he?
I said it before. The problem with Chris Matthews is that he LOVES politicians. It doesn't matter which party they are. Most of the time, he plays SOFTBALL with senators and congressman because they were elected to public office and he wasn't.
Regardless of Ted's past, he should resign now. The dems need that vote so they won't have to keep bribing 3 republican senators to get legislation through. I sympathize with his illness, but the country needs a BIG change and the republicans are unwilling to change!
He left a woman to die in the back of his car, and then lied about it. This will be his legacy, not his work in the senate. This is as it should be. Of course to Mr. Matthew's sense of what is right and wrong it will be the reverse. What's a young woman life compared to what Mr. Kennedy done with the rest of his life?
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Ted Kennedy "the greatest senator of modern times" ??? LOL
Thanks Chris for making me spit coffee all over my keyboard.
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True character will demonstrate itself in a clutch. Teddy demonstrated his woeful lack of character not only when he left Mary Jo to drown but more egregiously when he clumsily tried to establish an alibi afterward. Even if all he has done since had been penance for that one act, it could never be enough to remove that revelation of deficient character.
Mr. Matthews treated President Clinton and Hillary Clinton as the scum of the earth because of private pecadillos. Mr Matthews smeared Al Gore as a pathological liar. He and his ilk of personality-driven gossip columnists gave us George Bush as president. Nothing this supposed journalist could have to say about any public figure is worth hearing.
I try to adhere to the courtesy to writers of articles not to refer to specific commentators about their opinions but this one, Charlemagne 712, prods me to make an exception.
Strom Thurmond? Lindsay Graham?...putting these two ideologues, a segregationist and a sycophant to the Republix of the moment--most recently, John McCain--is so outrageously misplaced in the same category of John, Robert and Ted Kennedy to be preposterous and worth no further comment. Thank you.
Look, Americans for some reason, have elevated a family of ordinary people with some major faults who but for the luck of birth would have been just as comfortable living in the world of the Trailer Park Boys TV show.
I guess in every country there are a lot of people who get some sort of satisfaction from the fantasy of a Royal Family complex... in the US it appears to be satisfied by the celebrities - whether in Hollywood or Washington.
GREGORYABUTLER Said it all . Why America idolizes this man is beyond me .By the way can he swim?
Chris Mathews is an idiot. Kennedy, however, is not. He is a coward, a cheat, a huge hypocrite and, of course, I could go on.
He does represent one thing that does mystify me. In Texas we generally throw the crooks out within a reasonable length of time. I for one have never been able to figure out what they must drink in the water in the state of Mass. that results in the the repeated returning to office of the likes of "Teddy" and Kerry!?!?! It is a painful curiosity and one that is revolting to many.
Rafter--"In Texas we generally throw the crooks out within a reasonable length of time." Really? Is that what happened with your former governor, Dubya? Thanks loads.
Doubtless, Ted Kennedy will have a lot to answer for as he awaits before the Pearly Gates--not the least of which is the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. But this much is clear--while he made massive personal mistakes, he honestly strived in his public career to serve Americans--particularly the poor and voiceless.
Unlike many of his colleagues on the national stage, he didn't run for office to gain money or influence. He was born with money and influence. He could have coasted comfortably on the family fortune for his entire life. By all accounts, he worked hard in the Senate for the things in which he believed.
I'm sure all of you who have gone out of your way to write nasty and tasteless comments here are way too vituous to associate with a mere mortal like Ted Kennedy. I'm sure you've all done great good for the country and your fellow man/woman. Thank God for the first amendment; it gives you the right to spew mindless hatred anonymously.
Chris Matthews is big enough to look after himself in this debate, but give me a break about Strom.In the context of Oscar M v ersus Charlemagne, I gave it to Oscar. It was admirable in a way that Strom lived to be 100 but not that he continued to the end of his life to favor discrimination against blacks. Seems to me a greater lifetime offence than one example of appalling conduct by Kennedy - who is almost, though not quite, in the category of Senators as great as LBJ. And I wonder how some of Beast's correspondents have the nerve to still to wave the bloody shirt of the Civil War .
Too bad we can't ask Mary Jo Kopechne. I'd bet she'd rather be discriminated against than left to die.
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If this is definition of great representative leadership, bring on dictatorship.
It is ridiculous to have Chris Matthews opine on anyone's legacy. Mr. Matthews has provided ample evidence through his insufferable broadcasts that he possesses neither a moral compass or the capacity for intelligent discernment.
His ceaseless bloviations are a foul gas emanating from the bloated corpse of respectable journalism. Its bad enough that his gigantic, yellow head appears daily on cable television. Please, Tina, don't let him stink up this joint as well.
As for Senator Kennedy, he has done many good things for which he has been richly rewarded. But no number of good acts can bring a woman back to life, or erase his utterly venal behavior.
A mature person, not given to the hero-worship Mr. Matthews finds so lasciviously exciting, is capable of recognizing the good in legislation the Senator played a role in advancing, without lionizing the man himself (see: LBJ).
Democrat, Republican,young and old,from Tip O'neil to Harry Reid, everyone respects the years that Ted Kennedy has fought for people of all walks of life. If this indeed the last days of the lion of congress, I wish him Godspeed.
Thank you.
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