Others here at ProgU have posted blogs on the death of Ted Kennedy. These blogs have been from the perspective of people in their early teens and 20's who know very little of the man. I, on the other hand, am 58 years old. Ted Kennedy has been in the Senate most of my life and has an enormous effect on the country. By all rights I should know a bit more of him than these bloggers. I think I probably did, but since politics has never been a particular interest of mine, what I knew of him was not a lot. This despite the fact that I went to school in Massachusetts. I found that personally embarrassing, so I decided to read a bit about him.
Edward Moore Kennedy was born February 22, 1932, the youngest child of Joe and Rosed Kennedy. His god-father was his older brother and eventual President, John F. Kennedy. John had lobbied for the child to be named George Washington Kennedy since Edward was born 200 years to the day after Washington's birth.
To understand any of the Kennedy children of his generation one must look at the father, Joe Kennedy. Joe was the grandson of Irish immigrants who had fled Ireland during the Potato Famine of the 1840's. The Kennedy's settled in Boston, a town with a large Irish population. Indeed, even today the largest monetary support to the Irish Republican Army (outside of Ireland itself) comes from Boston.
Joe's father, P. J. Kennedy became a successful businessman deeply steeped in Boston politics. He became a friend of John Fitzgerald, the Democratic mayor of Boston. Joe would marry Fitzgerald's daughter, Rose. Joe was hard-working and ambitious. This marriage ensured that Joe too would become deeply involved in politics.
Although it is widely believed that much of Joe's money came from bootlegging during prohibition, it has never been proved. What is known is that shortly before the end of prohibition, Joe brought the distribution rights for Scotch Whiskey and was well positioned to make money once prohibition officially ended.
Most of his legitimate money came investments in the stock market. Much of that money, however, was made on insider trading which at that time was legal. Ironically Joe would eventually become head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that oversees prosecutions into insider trading crimes. By 1957 his estimated net worth was between 200 and 400 million dollars, making him between the ninth and sixteenth richest person in America.
Joe had used his wealth and influence to be appointed by Franklin Rosevelt ambassador to Great Britain in 1938. This was shortly before World War II. His performance there was less than stellar. He strongly supported Neville Chamberland's policy of appeasement toward Adolph Hitler. Without State Department approval he tried to arrange a personal meeting with Hitler. And once hostilities broke out, Joe argued against giving aide to Great Britain. His ambassadorship was withdrawn in 1940, a scant two years after his appointment.
Joe's career as an electable politician was over. Yet he still held ambitions. These ambitions he instilled in his sons. The eldest, Joe Jr., was groomed to be President. He was to die before that ambition could be fulfilled. In August 1944, in a secret mission over Germany Joe Jr's plane was shot down with no survivors. It has been hypothesized that Joe Jr. had undertaken the hazardous mission in an effort to become a war hero like his younger brother John had done in the Pacific theater a year earlier.
In any case, with Joe Jr's death, the grooming of the president went to John. He succeeded becoming the 36th President in 1960. Political ambitions were also instilled in the younger two brothers as well, Robert and Edward. Joe Kennedy was to die in 1969. He lived to see John become President, and then be assassinated; Robert become Attorney General, Senator from New York, and prospective Presidential candidate who was also assassinated (during the campaign); and Edward become Senator from Massachusetts (in 1962).
Although never President, Edward has arguably had the greatest impact on the nation. He was a 9-term Senator. He authored over 2500 bills, and saw over 300 of them become law. Significant legislation sponsored by Senator Kennedy include:
(1) Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA; 1985). This act gives workers the right to temporarily continue their employer's health insurance should they become unemployed.
(2) Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP; 1997). This provides assistance for health insurance or extends Medicaid benefits to 11 million children that would otherwise be uninsured today.
(3) Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resource Emergency Act (Ryan White CARE Act; 1990). This act helps about 500,000 of the estimated 800,000 to 900,000 people with HIV/AIDS afford their medical care.
(4) Women's, Infant's, and Children's Nutrition Program (WIC; 1972). This program gives food, nutrition counseling and a to low-income women, infants and children. Today over 8 million are enrolled in the program.
(5) National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act (1993). This act provided the NIH with funds to be allocated to research on specific diseases such as several forms of cancer, HIV, osteoporosis, and infertility issues. One of the outcomes of the act was the development of the National Center for Human Genome Research.
While health care has always been Kennedy's primary legislative concern, he has also authored legislation dealing with Voting Rights and Homeland Security. Furthermore, somewhat surprisingly considering his poster-boy portrayal for the evils and excesses of liberal legislation, his legislation has often been bipartisan. He has co-authored legislation with conservative Republicans such as Orrin Hatch of Utah, Bill Frist of Tennessee, and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.
At the time of his death Kennedy, only Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) had served among active Senators. Indeed Kennedy is the third longest serving Senator in history. Despite his legislative successes his personal life has had some prominent bumps, some of which have cost him politically. By far the most harmful was the Chapaquiddick episode.
On July 18, 1969 Kennedy was at a party on Chapaquiddick Island for a group of young women who had been members of Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign the year before. Kennedy left the party in the company of one of those women, 28 year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. He accidently drove off a narrow bridge into a tidal channel. Kennedy made it out and swam to safety. Kopechne didn't. Once ashore Kennedy went home without reporting the incident to the police. A week later Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. He was sentenced to two months in prison which was suspended. That same night Kennedy went on national television. He acknowledged his failure to report the accident as "indefensible". But he also claimed that he had not been driving under the influence and he denied any immoral conduct with Ms. Kopechne.
Many people have expressed doubts about the veracity of Kennedy's version of the events. In January 1970, a little over 5 months after the event the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered an inquest. The presiding judge ruled that some aspects of Kennedy's story was unlikely to be true. He said, "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne." This led to a grand jury investigation in April 1970. However, the grand jury refused to indict. Kennedy was re-elected in September of that year with 62% of the vote (although he did receive 500,000 less votes than he had in 1964).
Kennedy had his flaws. Chapaquiddick showed that under sufficient stress he could act heinously. He was known to drink too much on occasion. His divorce from his first wife, Joan, was a messy affair. He could use his power in ways that gave him and his family special considerations that others didn't get. But he was also a man who even though among those with the most, devoted considerable effort to help out those with the least. His legislation has affected millions. As best as I can tell most of it has been for the better. How will he be remembered? It depends upon which aspects of his life one wants to emphasize. At this moment the United States seems to me to be more polarized than it ever has, with people on the far-right hating him and everything he stands for, and people on the left respecting his accomplishments. I suspect it will take time for history to reach an agreed upon conclusion.
Thanks DB That was pretty informative and readable ...as usual.
I was the most surprised by the Fact that Ted Kennedy's name is Edward M.
I think I want to share something else about what he has done but I have to go fact check.
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
I love it when you extend your research into politics. i am ashamed to admit that i did not know much about him. I grew up raised by republicans and was always told, "he is a rapist and a murderer." nothing more. i never bothered to research it because i frankly did not want to know. if i found good reason to think those things i would spin myself into an outrage that would waste a lot of precious energy. i knew i could never do anything about it.
however, the way you tell the story a few things jump out at me. joe kennedy looks evil to me in your picture. he represents all of the kind of corruption in government that makes me sick and makes me want to start a revolution. obviously his sons "benefited" from his power and influence, but then again two were murdered. common sense and a very basic understanding of probability tells me this is not accidental or coincidence. so the question is: were they murdered for their own sins or for their father's sins?
i think jfk is a fascinating historical figure. other famous political assassinations had clear cut motives: Lincoln was messing the biggest corporations of his time, the plantation owners. Ghandi was preaching tolerance and peace, and unification of religious orders. We still dont really know WHY jfk was killed. we know there were covert international conspiracies going on, but that is always the case. I still really do wonder if marilyn monroe wasnt murdered as well. there isnt quite as much evidence on that case though.
my point is that what people love about Ted is similar to what they loved about kennedy. catholics mourned him as if he was a saint. no one understood. it was definitely an inside job, which i think is supported by the fact that his older brother was assassinated also. i never knew that! i cant believe i didnt know that! anyway, kennedy also had a heart for the disadvantaged, at least his policies reflected that. he is the one responsible for the deinstutionalization of the mentally ill, who first made Patient's Rights and Advocacy an issue. He is the one who presiding when people started looking at the barbaric practices of lobotomies and straight jackets, as well as over medication. The state hospital my husband used to work for still employs people who personally delivered electric shocks to patients via cattle prods. He learned of these things because a relative of his (i dont remember if it was a cousin or sister) was developmentally delayed and spent a long time in a state hospital.
kennedy's vision for treating the mentally ill was much more progressive than what we see happening even now. that is because kennedy's plan included having the community pick up the burden of caring for the mentally ill. his plan provided for community based clinics where mentally ill could see a doctor and have their medications monitored on an outpatient basis. He imagined clinics that would dispense medications as needed that were accessible to patients. Since many mentally ill are homeless, many of the services that he provided for targeted the homeless.
while we do have some such clinics, they are few and far between, and they are overwhelmed beyond their capacity. patients who are chronically sick enough who are very lucky can get the kind of support that kennedy imagined, however these Full Service Partnership Programs are relatively small, are basically non-profit, and have only recently sprouted because of things like the Tobacco Tax in CA. The problem is there are not enough of these programs to serve the majority of the population in need.
the reason is that Regan's massive sweeping tax cuts cut all such programs in their infancy. he did not even acknowledge the mentally ill, but that age old "Good American work ethic," "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch" mentality swept the nation and i think that the country collectively chose to ignore the problems of homelessness and mental illness, not realizing that they are so closely related, and not really caring.
forgive my digression. the main point that your blog made to me was that the kennedy's have some things in common with common America. Ted represents both sides of the coin that is human nature. One of the biggest lies that humans have been perpetuating for far too long is that people are "good" or "evil." In reality we all have the capacity to be both, sometimes at the very same time.
hypothesis: Joe Kennedy was a corrupt man who worked hard to get ahead and thought of his own benefit at the cost of others. He tried to make it up to the world by molding his children to be leaders. Whatever sins he committed in his past came back to haunt him when his sons were murdered. His children learned a great deal from him, mainly how to act like a leader and how to present with enough intelligence, charm and humility to pass off as genuine.
JFK is one side of the coin and Ted is the other, however they are both joined and made of the same material. Ted is not better or worse than jfk. He got to live long enough to make significant changes to benefit the disadvantaged. He had ethical agendas, even if he made very unethical decisions in his life. What is most frustrating to me personally is how he was so easily forgiven. I am actually outraged because what this communicates to me is that "justice" can be bought and/ or negotiated, and is therefore unreliable. In terms of human and Constitutional rights this outrages me for every person who enters the legal system under prosecution.
However, is it really his fault? Who wouldnt take advantage of such a break? At least he made use of his life and created lasting change. From a utilitarian perspective one could say that it was good that he was let off the hook for the sake of the people who benefit from his policies today. Also for the sake of those who have benefited in the past and have been able to raise healthier, happier and better educated children as a result of his legislation.
It is true that the fruit does not fall far from the tree, but each season brings a fresh harvest, and no two fruits are exactly alike. the same tree can shed rotten ones, bitter or sour ones, unripe, overripe, and perfect ones all at the same time.Often times humans dont comprehend the effects of their behavior or decisions until they witness their own children grown and identify with their suffering. human beings have the advantage of being able to change their flavor/ perception/ experience/ nature. We have the ability to progress. In reality that progression can be most accurately measured by comparing it to the previous generation. In this sense, we can call it a form of evolution.
In the case of the kennedys the spirit of charisma and leadership were strong virtues throughout. john perceived a purpose for himself and his offspring and was willing to make sacrifices for it. He did not know how costly his choice to live deceitfully would be. His sons were sacrifice.. Ted managed to escape the retaliation against his father. I suspect it is because he was not a prize specimen and far from a promising heir/ golden boy. Nonetheless, he did inherit some of the obvious qualities that he shared with his brothers.
Of course, he could also have been a token for those who killed his brothers. it is also possible that he worked hard to institute policies that benefited his posse, all so that they could profit at the expense of the rest of the nation. For some reason this picture never really was very clear.
again, sorry for the tangenting, I am blogging under the influence of sleep deprivation. i am going review my post in the morning and will probably change it, but i wanted to at least gather my thoughts.
good day to you DB! and thanks so much for all you do. i love your blogs.
"O, I'm sorry you took that, -I meant that for the Devil, and you have stepped in and taken the blow. Don't get between me and the Devil, brother, and the you won't get hurt." --Billy Hibbard
Featured Blogger. I am sad it seems that that feature is inactive right now, but I just wanted to say that DBs blogs offer a ton of substance. I learn a great deal from every single one of his entry's, and he puts a lot of effort into what he writes. Its obvious he invests quite a bit of time into researching things that he posts about. I think his integrity also serves to set him apart from many others.
"O, I'm sorry you took that, -I meant that for the Devil, and you have stepped in and taken the blow. Don't get between me and the Devil, brother, and the you won't get hurt." --Billy Hibbard