Monday, 06.02.08
Ted Kennedy's America
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Ted Kennedy's contemporary reputation is so bound up in his accomplishments as a legislator that it's easy to forget that there was at one time a very real chance that he'd become president of the United States. Kennedy loyalists had long hoped the youngest brother of Jack and Bobby would assume the leadership of the party, but it was only in 1979, when sitting Democratic president Jimmy Carter was at the nadir of his popularity, that Ted Kennedy launched a presidential bid.
For a staunch party loyalist, this couldn't have been an easy decision. But Carter was, in Kennedy's view, endangering the party, and it seemed possible that the resurgent Republicans could take the White House, pushing the country toward the hard-edged Goldwaterite conservatism that the Kennedy family had long vigorously opposed.
Kennedy entered the primary campaign leading Carter in the polls, but then the Iranian revolution, and in particular the hostage crisis during which radical Iranian students seized the United States embassy in Teheran, gave the sitting President a new lease on life. Because Kennedy was first and foremost a domestic candidate, deeply committed to revitalizing the New Deal tradition, the threatening international environment put him at a distinct disadvantage. Tellingly, he won his biggest primary victories -- which came too late in the game to unseat Carter -- only after the public had soured on the President's approach to the hostage crisis, a souring that would eventually deliver the White House to Ronald Reagan.
At the Democratic National Convention, held in August in New York, the party was still bitterly divided. Kennedy, in what many still remember as his finest hour, gave a startlingly good speech -- a speech that arguably surpassed any given by his older brothers -- articulating the case for a more egalitarian, more energetic liberalism, one that deepened and extended the New Deal legacy by instituting national healthcare, and by including blacks, Latinos, and other excluded communities in American prosperity. Kennedy anticipated the Democratic future by emphasizing the health of the natural environment and the rights of women. "We have always been the party of hope, he told the assembled delegates. So this year let us offer new hope, new hope to an America uncertain about the present, but unsurpassed in its potential for the future." It's not hard to see why Kennedy has developed such a strong connection to Barack Obama, and why some suggest that Obama has taken up the Kennedy legacy.
It is worth considering the America that could have been had Kennedy been elected president in 1980. In the wake of the Reagan legacy, we Americans consider our country laissez-faire in its bones, for better or for worse. But one can just as easily imagine the world Ted Kennedy might have made, in which a tradition of strong state activism stretching from Alexander Hamilton to Henry Clay to the New Deal would have offered a different definition of America -- as a country in which government takes the lead in fostering economic democracy and social justice. It is not an America that would suit those of us who prefer the Reagan vision of limited government, to put it mildly. (Though it's worth remembering that the of Kennedy of the late 1970s pioneered deregulation, seeing it -- correctly -- as a measure that benefited consumers, which suggests a capacity for ideological flexibility that his subsequent role, as a liberal lion in a conservative age, never allowed him to exercise.) But it is a decent and honorable vision all the same. And as Ted Kennedy fights cancer, it is worth remembering the contributions that he has made.
The essential Ted KennedyIn 1990 Michael Kelly wrote a famously devastating profile of Senator Kennedy for GQ. |
Last of the legendsCarl Hulse ponders the magnitude of Kennedy's presence in the Senate -- and why his might be a dying breed. |
Tabloid fodderA Time article contemplates the Senator's flaws and virtues in the wake of his Miami beach scandal. |
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I'll tell you about Ted Kennedys' Amerika. It's the Immigration Act of 1965, that shut down immigration from Europe and opened it up to the third world. Go visit the worst sections of any city in America, and you'll see Ted Kennedys' Amerika. Search out the MILLIONS of unmarked graves, where the remains of the MILLIONS of unborn CHILDREN, MURDERED in their Mothers' womb, lie buried. Check out any border town, down south, and see the fruits of Ted Kennedys' OPEN BORDERS. Pay a visit to Mary Joe Kopechnes' grave. Say a prayer for her, who's life was cut short by a dirtbag, who's family name made him ABOVE THE LAW. Look at the failing schools in this country. The single parent households. The people dependent on a welfare check for generations. THAT'S TED KENNEDYS' AMERIKA. Plain and simple. To think otherwise, you must be a fool. Yeah, I'm talking to YOU, Massachusettes. Idiots.
Good Morning Ted Kennedy,, thank God everything was successful with surgery. Keep that positive attitude that you have and get back to work. I had brain surgery with an aneurysm and I kept my positive attitude so you keep yours, too.There is a God in heaven, believe me and you have a good job in D.C. to continue. Diane M Jenkins
Ted Kennedy has brain karma.....
Ted Kennedy's America is warped.
Its funny how liberals will ignore the fact that he caused a woman's death and left her to ensure he could cover his behind. Typical liberals - crimes only apply to people with different opinions.
That type of mentality is doomed to fail, which is on display every day.
Hey wait a minute...I'm from Massachusetts and have never voted for Ted Kennedy or Kerry for that matter. Unfortunately there are some who keep this guy in office long after he should have bowed out...or been imprisoned for killing Mary Jo Kopechne. No, many of us do not like him or his compadres like Deval Patrick who have sent many fleeing the state for greener pastures...(Where they can keep SOME of their money!) You are talking about a guy who has more sympathy for Illegals who took jobs from Anmericans in New Bedford and yet get free medical care ,food stamps and housing on the backs of hard working Americans. This fool has done more to destroy the state and the country than any other politician in the history of the country. But for all his "charity" from taxpayers you won't see him giving up his own money.....even when Rose died he did all he could to avoid paying the same taxes others have to pay upon death. No, Kennedy , whose family fortune was gained through bootlegging by his father, plans to hang onto his money while spending yours!
To suggest Ted Kennedy's speech surpassed JFK's inaugural is outrageous.
These posts indicate why there wasn't a chance for Ted Kennedy to be elected in 1980; he had and has personal baggage. Fairly or unfairly, it would have been the ONLY topic were he nominated and if, by a miracle, were he elected, it would have been the fatal theme of his presidency. We saw Clinton(s) bring their baggage into the White House and the resulting fracas--enhanced by yet more personal baggage. That baggage pulled Hillary down throughout the primaries; even though I would have voted for her in November, I believe that the next 4 years would have been a constant chant of "blue dress" "Whitewater" "Interns" "Paula Jones" and all the rest. It's toxic. So, we got Reagan...and will suffer for our shortsightedness for generations.
Who the hell is Reihan Salam and why should I pay attention to this commentary?
Which of the posters have had a career in public service for their entire life? What a sacrifice that is, and much has been sacrificed by almost every Kennedy. Maintaining a commitment to participating in public life has been Ted's legacy. I have compassion for the Kennedy losses - they are unimaginable to me; it is to Ted's credit that after each family death, each assassination, his children's cancer, and his nephews' deaths, that he did not fall back into a private recluse, but carried on in the way that he could, to serve his country. We need our politicians, as human and ridiculous as they often are - they make our country the democracy that conservatives and liberals alike benefit generously from every day. Ted Kennedy coped not just with deep loss and sadness all while in the public eye, but also he had to face himself - his weaknesses, his mistakes, and his alcohol fueled lapses in judgment before the public with a free press investigating . Doing that requires a sincere belief in redemption - there are few amongst us who could fight for public forgiveness with the kind of fortitude that Ted Kennedy displayed over the years. Senator Kennedy is a complex, intelligent person who has stood up for himself, his family and his country. I admire him for those reasons.
Ted Kennedy is a decent, humane man who had an automobile accident once, and that changed everything.
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"Ted Kennedy's America"
How about "Mary Jo Kopechne's America"... where people like Kennedy can walk away from manslaughter, and still be considered a Presidential hopeful for Democrats!
The Kennedy's make me sick! I hope you suffer Ted half as much as Mary Jo!
Posted by BobM | June 3, 2008 4:52 AM