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The Ted Kennedy I Knew
With the publication of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy (Simon & Schuster), we get a fresh look at how this man’s gothic imperatives—blood loyalty and inherited duty—would make him the greatest U.S. senator of modern times.
The vital statistics of his life are grim in the extreme. He lost his oldest brother to World War II, his second and third oldest to assassins. He lost one sister to a plane accident, another to mental illness and misguided brain surgery. He’s had a son and daughter struck by cancer, a nephew, John Jr., killed in yet another plane accident. His own moral failings would bring more tragedy. His reckless driving and failure to readily go for help on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 may have cost a young woman her life.
Yet, even as he revealed grave fears for his own life, he never dropped the torch.
Months after Bobby was killed, Ted’s classmate Burton Hersh describes what happened when some firecrackers popped at the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Lawrence.
“Kennedy’s smile froze immediately. I saw his legs buckle and his entire body flinch as he fought the impulse to flatten himself against the asphalt. I remember how ashen he went, how clouded his eyes looked until he recovered himself.”
There were constant death threats arriving at his office.
I, myself, recall the sight of Ted Kennedy sitting up there behind the big table at a Senate hearing back in the early 1970s. His eyes studied every person who came in the door. Wouldn’t you? He’d lost two brothers in eight years both to strangers bent on horror.
I remember how he campaigned so hard for his former aide Wayne Owens of Utah, barnstorming into Salt Lake City back in 1972, even getting the Catholic schools closed for the day so kids could help him celebrate his Mormon friend.
I remember Kennedy and wife Vicki some three decades later singing a buoyant “Shrum-a-lot” in honor of his longtime speechwriter Bob Shrum. He was holding a party at his house, which was packed to the walls, just so Bob would feel good about going to teach at NYU.
Watergate burglar, now talk-show host, G. Gordon Liddy once told me how touched he’d been years ago when he got word in federal prison how genuinely thoughtful Ted Kennedy had been toward his daughter at her high-school graduation. Kennedy, who was there for his own daughter, took time to make Liddy’s daughter feel proud on a day her father could not be with her.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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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.
Chris Matthews on the Buckley Mystique
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.
Banjo1
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.
jackee
Mary Jo Kopechne sure felt a tingle that cool summer night in 1969. All thanks to Ted!
dphendri
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!
Charlemagne712
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
Ankhorite
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."
jblum8156
Ted Kennedy is one of a very few senators who is actually Senatorial.
jackee
Don't judge all of the orchard by its worst apple. C'mon now. Be open-minded.
xbainx
What Banjo1 means to say is:
Waaaaah I'm Republican. Waaaaaah nobody listens to my ideas about letting sick mexicans die in the street.
tankertodd
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?
GREGORYABUTLER
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!
whatchutalkinbout
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!
Nancyismyname
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.
Ankhorite
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.
Nancyismyname
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.
Ankhorite
The average sentence served for murder is seven years. This wasn't murder, and it happened in 1969, forty years ago.
Banjo1
I favor getting sick Mexicans off the streets, if that's where they are, and treating them in Mexican hospitals.
jackee
But will they have UNIVERSAL health care? Maybe we can name the Mexican health care system after Teddy.
TotalRecall9
"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!
Tango121
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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n--Y--Cooper727sonofloud
Ted Kennedy "the greatest senator of modern times" ??? LOL
Thanks Chris for making me spit coffee all over my keyboard.
Spasticula
I love how Republicans are always telling Dems to let go of things like Bush"s election theft from Gore, because "it's ancient news"... but they can't let go of much older things like Jane Fonda in a tank, Ted Kennedy and Chapaquiddick, Bill Clintons BJ. Liberals should work very hard to insure that crap that should be in the forefront of peoples minds in 50 years is still there; namely the evil and incompetence of two oil industry cronies who brought the nation they profess to love, (and the world at large) to the toppling point, so they could forget their tiny penises and admire their bank balances.
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