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Ted Kennedy has died

nytimes.com

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#21
post #6

This man's presence was earth-shattering. His legend will be even more so. The world has a lot to learn from him. RIP

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

Exactly. I'm so sick of politician worshipping by the left and the right. Did Ted Kennedy ever have a real (i.e. private sector) job in his entire life? No. He was a drunken womanizer who spent other people's money. Good riddance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#22
post #6

This man's presence was earth-shattering. His legend will be even more so. The world has a lot to learn from him. RIP

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

For 50 years Ted Kennedy has been the US government's leading defender of the poor. If he hasn't impacted your life, you probably aren't poor.

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#23
post #6

This man's presence was earth-shattering. His legend will be even more so. The world has a lot to learn from him. RIP

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

Especially this one. I'm hesitant to comment on this because this article really doesn't belong here. But the fact remains Ted Kennedy left a woman for dead after driving his car into a body of water. He didn't contact the authorities when it happened, he instead went back to his hotel. When at his hotel (and I take this quote from the Wikipedia entry) he...

"According to his own testimony, Kennedy swam across the 500-foot channel, back to Edgartown and returned to his hotel room, where he removed his clothes and collapsed on his bed. Hearing noises, he later put on dry clothes and asked someone what the time was: it was something like 2:30 a.m., the senator recalled. He testified that, as the night went on, "I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room ... I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car." Back at his hotel, Kennedy complained at 2:55 am to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party"

So he's complaining about the noise keeping him up while this woman's still at the bottom of the sea. The next morning (again from Wikipedia)...

"By 7:30 am the next morning he was talking "casually" to the winner of the previous day's sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss.[2] At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a "heated conversation." According to Kennedy's testimony, the two men asked why he hadn't reported the accident. Kennedy responded by telling them "about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel ... that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive"

And the final kicker, he didn't contact the authorities until the body was found and the woman probably survived the crash. One last quote...

"Earlier that morning, two amateur fishermen had seen the overturned car in the water and notified the inhabitants of the nearest cottage to the pond, who called the authorities at around 8:20 am.[14] A diver was sent down and discovered Kopechne's body at around 8:45 am.[15] The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that

"Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car."

So had he contacted the authorities she could have lived. And for all that he got a suspended sentence because he's rich and has a powerful family. I won't demonize the dead but I'm not going to sit by and let people lionize him either.

How is it that people can bash Michael Jackson after unproven accusations but let Kennedy off even though he admits to everything laid out above?

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#24
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

Exactly. I'm so sick of politician worshipping by the left and the right. Did Ted Kennedy ever have a real (i.e. private sector) job in his entire life? No. He was a drunken womanizer who spent other people's money. Good riddance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy

I'm as sick of politician hatred by the peanut gallery. Think back 250 years in this country's history, when blacks were slaves, non-landowners couldn't vote, and women weren't sent to school. The difference between that world and today's world is due to the efforts of politicians and activists. Do you think that Johnson's Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were not "real" accomplishments?

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

Exactly. I'm so sick of politician worshipping by the left and the right. Did Ted Kennedy ever have a real (i.e. private sector) job in his entire life? No. He was a drunken womanizer who spent other people's money. Good riddance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy

Hey, what have you got against drunken womanisers ...

edit: so it's immoral to drink and womanise or something? He was using those words in a perjorative manner. I complain and get downvoted, is this Church Day or something?

Hm, all this talk is making me thirsty .. (grabs beer)

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I volunteer as a lifeguard.

At 10,000 swimming pools at once?

The comment was probably in reference to the incident at Chappaquiddick rather than a suggestion that one would be more effective at saving lives as a lifeguard than as a Senator wielding enormous influence.

In the version of events most favorable to Kennedy, he suffered a tragic lapse in judgment (failing to summon aid) which compounded the results of an unfortunate auto accident, and a young woman drowned as a result.

The version which is more charitable to the truth and less charitable to Kennedy: He was drunk driving late at night on an isolated road with a young woman who was not his wife. He got into a car accident, which involved his car falling into the water with the two of them in it. After extracting himself from the car, he went home, went to sleep, woke up, talked to his political advisers, then called the police and informed them that there had been an accident.

For normal Americans, that would have resulted in an investigation followed by manslaughter charges. Kennedy was never a normal American. He got off with a wrist slap after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident.

The whitewashing of this incident has always been a stitch in the craw of his political opponents. His political supporters say some variant of the following every time it gets brought up: mistakes were made, it is long in the past, nothing was ever proven, and now is not the right time to mention it.

I'm sort of unsure about the etiquette myself. What's the polite way to say "Ted Kennedy was a man who did many things unrelated to causing the death of his paramour in the cause of protecting his political career"?

Re: Ted Kennedy has died

#29
post #6

This man's presence was earth-shattering. His legend will be even more so. The world has a lot to learn from him. RIP

What is Ted Kennedy's lesson for the world? From my perspective, the guy was a career politician and part of an unpleasant dynastic trend in American government. How would the world be different had Kennedy not lived?

Surprisingly from Digg:

o The Civil Rights Act of 1964

o The Voting Rights Act of 1965

o The COBRA Act of 1985 (ever lost a job and still managed to keep your health insurance for 18 months?)

o The Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990

o The Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993

o Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996

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