The American Spectator : Worst Book of the Year Award

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Worst Book of the Year Award

By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. on 3.25.10 @ 6:08AM

Our Coogler Laureate may be gone but he's not forgotten -- at least not by the conservatives he libeled.

WASHINGTON – 'Tis the time of award-giving in the great Republic. Soon the Pulitzer Prizes will be awarded, always at the risk of raising to eminence a plagiarist or literary fabricator. The Oscars have already been awarded, in their case at the risk of raising to eminence an arrant fool or likely felon. Now it again falls to me to announce the recommendation of the highly secretive J. Gordon Coogler Award for the Worst Book of the Year. This year the Coogler Committee has recommended True Compass, the autobiography of Edward M. Kennedy, which is for me problematic. Senator Kennedy passed away on August 25, 2009.

I always enjoy indulging in a bit of raillery at the expense of the year's Coogler Laureate (you will forgive me). In the case of the recently deceased, raillery would not be in good taste. One does not make fun of the dead. In the case of Senator Kennedy I am, at least, assured that one of the long-standing traditions of the J. Gordon Coogler Award will remain intact. As in years gone by, this year's Coogler Laureate will not make an appearance at the award ceremony. Actually, I considered asking the Coogler Committee to recommend another author so that I might have a few laughs at our Laureate's expense. However, after reading True Compass I decided that it deserved recognition, though not on the usual grounds. Neither philistine nor stupid, True Compass is actually a charmingly written book, which is in keeping with the Kennedy family's tradition of employing fine ghostwriters. JFK did it with Profiles in Courage and come to think of it won a Pulitzer for Ted Sorensen's work.

At any rate this book is, indeed, charming and conveys the sense that "Teddy," as he is called, lived a hearty and happy life. Moreover, he expresses a semblance of regret for the misery he caused some who crossed his path. What I have decided earns him his Coogler is that this book showcases at least two of the evils haunting American politics today: the poisonous partisanship that marks the Supreme Court nomination process, and the commonplace acceptance of arrant lies about conservatives, particularly about Ronald Reagan.

For instance, Kennedy passes on the lie that Reagan and presumably all conservatives are racial bigots because of what Kennedy calls "his [Reagan's] complacency and even insensitivity regarding civil rights." The evidence marshaled is Kennedy's misleading claim that Reagan "opposed the principles of the Voting Rights Act...." There were actually two civil rights acts at the time, one in 1964 and the one Kennedy refers to of 1965. There were perfectly legitimate constitutional grounds for opposing them, and another very practical and even prudent reason cited by both liberal and conservative believers in integration and civil rights, namely, the looming use of quotas and affirmative action.

Both became divisive issues, damaging race relations almost immediately after passage of the 1965 act. No less a liberal than Senator Hubert Humphrey saw it all coming during the debate on the 1964 act, when he expressed his opposition to quotas explaining, "Do you want a society that is nothing but an endless power struggle among organized groups? Do you want a society where there is no place for the individual? I don't." Predictably, the rancor has gone on for decades, delaying the arrival of Rev. Martin Luther King's colorblind society. In fact, for over four decades Liberals have treated this policy disagreement as a manifestation of racial bigotry among conservatives. In so doing they have kept racial enmity alive and, as Kennedy manifests in his book, exploited it.

Actually the liberals' contempt for conservatives is more intense today than during the debates over the civil rights acts. Kennedy goes so far as to accuse Reagan of beginning his 1980 presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, because, in Kennedy's eyes, it was "the site of one of the most heinous racial crimes of the twentieth century...." In 1964 three civil rights workers were murdered there, one of the many barbarities committed against such brave activists throughout the long struggle for civil rights. No historian has found any evidence that Reagan campaigned there out of racially invidious motives, and one, Steven Hayward, has discovered that Reagan was furious upon discovering the town's dark past. To allege that Reagan would exploit murder is shameless but an indication of liberal contempt for conservatives.

Equally shameless and contemptuous was Kennedy's treatment of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork in a speech that Kennedy proudly quotes, despite the obvious fact that it marks the beginning of the savagery we now see at Senate Supreme Court hearings, particularly when a conservative is being grilled. "Robert Bork's America," our Coogler Laureate intoned beginning a perfect concatenation of lies, "is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens...." Enough!

Return to his line about evolution. From the evidence of Senator Kennedy's book it appears that he experienced no evolution whatsoever throughout his entire public life. In fact, it appears that emotionally he experienced no evolution from the era of the cave man.

About the Author

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of the forthcoming The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn't Work: Social Democracy's Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives' Road to Recovery.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (56) | Leave a comment

Michele San Pietro| 3.25.10 @ 6:46AM

Quite unfortunately, too many books you can find at bookstores these days would deserve to be thrown into the trash can!

Alan Brooks| 3.26.10 @ 12:06AM

Ted is in Heaven, though: "God would not refuse someone as blind [...]"-- Thomas Moore.

Alan Brooks| 3.26.10 @ 12:08AM

wait, the full quote is: "God would not refuse someone so coke-blind as to come to him."

Sumpin' like that.

I reply to myself| 3.26.10 @ 12:31AM

Haha! Alan Brooks is always good for a laugh. Lol.

Brian Mc| 3.25.10 @ 6:55AM

Edward Kennedy
R.I.P. or B.I.H.?

Stuart (Austin, TX)| 3.25.10 @ 1:03PM

B.I.H. - 1
R.I.P. - 0

WRTolkas| 3.25.10 @ 9:59PM

Dear Brian Mc,

What does B.I.H. mean? I guess I don't get out often enough.

Regards and to all a good and safe weekend,

WRTolkas

stu| 3.25.10 @ 7:26AM

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment...

Mary Jo| 3.25.10 @ 7:32AM

help me...glug glug...HELP....

remember me

and yes, B.I.H. "Teddy"

JimH| 3.25.10 @ 7:58AM

If one takes a view of Hell along the lines of Dante, I can picture Ted being drowned for Eternity in booze.

Tom in Michigan| 3.25.10 @ 4:55PM

Sorry, Mary Jo. You've got it wrong. You didn't drown (which takes a few mere minutes). You suffocated which could have taken as long as several hours. The "compassionate Liberal" Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy did not return to the scene until the next day - despite his claims of his desparate attempts to rescue you and his claims of seeking help from others. Here's how Kennedy related the "tragedy" during perhaps one of the most self-serving speeches (pre-Obama, that is) in American history: "Today, as I mentioned, I felt morally obligated to plead guilty to the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. No words on my part can possibly express the terrible pain and suffering I feel over this tragic incident. This last week has been an agonizing one for me and for the members of my family, and the grief we feel over the loss of a wonderful friend will remain with us the rest of our lives." All about him wasn't it? How about your family. Revisiting this; I feel nothing but disgust for Ted Kennedy. Wherever his ultimate fate, is was determined by his actions on the night you died.

Accidents Will Happen | 3.26.10 @ 12:36AM

Details in a 1963 accident report say that Laura Bush, then 17, ran a stop sign in the Texas crash that killed a friend in another car.

Tom in Michigan| 3.27.10 @ 8:22AM

She then left the scene allowing the victim to bleed to death over a period of the next 24 hours - NOT.
That you see moral equivalence in these two incidents tells me you are in serious need of some sort of counselling. Start with any sort of spiritual kind then ask yourself, how you have become so brainwashed by the Left that you will do anything to defend any action by Leftists.

Howard| 3.25.10 @ 7:30AM

Ted Kennedy was a man of contradictions: He "cared" about the poor, but lived in mansions and wealthy enclaves. He was against defense spending, unless it pertained to Massachusetts contractors. He was smearing Reagan in his speeches, but, apparently on good terms personally. Unfortunately, his life goal, of federal control of health care is about to come true. When the bottom falls out, I hope some share of this is directed at him.

Dagny Taggert| 3.25.10 @ 12:13PM

The ultimate contradiction was probably the two broad policies Fat Boy consistantly championed for throughout his political career: Minimum wage and illegal alien amnesty. It obviously never occured to him that the two were mutually exclusive; how could you have a limitless supply of unskilled labor and then insist they be paid a minimum amount? You get rid of one policy or the other and it might work. Together? You're trying to defy the laws of economics.

Tom in Michigan| 3.25.10 @ 5:08PM

Dear Howard, Your granting that Kennedy was a man of "contradictions" shows you are a generous soul indeed and, I admire your obvious kindness. However, I myself could not have written a better description of a hypocrite than what you have written above. He did not "care" about the poor any more than any other so-called "liberal." Like other "liberals," the poor are merely pawns to be played when it serves the attainment and maintenance of power. If "Liberals" care so much about the poor; why don't they give up their profligate life styles and leave the mere pittance we ordinary citizens have accumulated over a life time of hard work alone? Furthermore, as I often say, “Come to Detroit and, I’ll show you what 'liberalism' has done to ‘help’ the poor.” If Kennedy was on good terms with President Reagan, it was likely due to the latter's inherently generous nature. As far as his legacy being the great evil of Obamacare, perhaps these words from Shakespeare provide a fitting eulogy, ""The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."

John Lockwood| 3.25.10 @ 8:02AM

It is ironic that Ted Kennedy, and other liberals, railed for years about the right-wingers wanting to break into people's home at night. When it finally did happen, it was the goon-squads of the liberal Clinton administration----the Elian Gonzalez case, which the liberals cheered and applauded to the skies.

Flee| 3.25.10 @ 3:39PM

Not to mention busting down a private compound with armored vehicles or shooting it out in Oregon. Private property means little to those of his ilk...except in his back yard. So quaint his son had to leave a note on his grave instead of simply praying to himself. That wouldn't play as well on MSDNC.

Don E Cope| 3.25.10 @ 8:33AM

Teddy Kennedy 's life was actually a good argument for the Pro-Choice, abortion rights movement.

KyMouse| 3.25.10 @ 4:01PM

I disagree, Mr. Cope. Ted Kennedy had the right to be born, but someone should have taught him more about what it means to be a decent, responsible person -- especially when no one is looking, such as late at night on beach roads. Our goal should not for people such as Kennedy to be killed before birth, but to be raised better.

Alan Brooks| 3.26.10 @ 12:40AM

You have to admit, Teddy was kind of hot.

Cpm| 3.26.10 @ 6:51PM

He wasn't hot but he is now, in his new location.

fbom| 3.25.10 @ 8:33AM

Teddy was a Mount Olympus Liberal. Much like the rich man who came to Jesus wanting to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus told him to give all he had to the poor and follow him. The rich man walked away. The whole Kennedy family is always – do as I say – not as I do.

Jesus Hermione Christ| 3.26.10 @ 12:43AM

So, Jesus wants you to give away all your wealth? Sounds Socialist to me. Why don't you give away your riches and live the true Christian life?

Rocin| 3.27.10 @ 3:31PM

Read the Bible, instead of just misquoting it.
Jesus wanted the rich man to give up the false idol of wealth and follow Him. The man walked away.
There is a very important lesson here, read it and ponder it.
Mt. 19:16-22

Northern Rebel| 3.25.10 @ 9:08AM

I don't wish Kennedy's fate on our other congressmen over age seventy.

I just want them to get so ill (like they've been making us for all these years) that they have to retire.

Then, they can return to health, and live a full life in their gardens, or putting ships in a bottle, whatever senile old politicians do after attempting to destroy America.

gearjammer| 3.25.10 @ 9:38AM

This jerk did tons of damage to America, end of story.

owyheewine| 3.25.10 @ 10:17AM

I can't see how you could justify wasting your time reading such predictable drivel, unless you were filled with the spirit(s) in which it was written.

Cris Worth| 3.25.10 @ 10:18AM

Ted-July 18, 1969: only if I had turned left on that dark Chappaquiddick road and headed for the ferry. I was drunk and couldn't control my libido and turned right headed for a secluded beach with Mary Jo...the bridge - the water. I would have beaten Nixon in '72, restarted Jack's New Frontier-Camelot reborn and fulfilled Bobby's hope. "To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in the sleep of death what dreams may come."

Coyote1971| 3.25.10 @ 10:25AM

Don't you just love it when liberal democrats claim to be champions of civil rights?
Miss, had solid democrat governors from 1882 to 2000, Alabama solid dem from 1874- 1993, Louisiana solid dem from 1877 to 1980, SC from 1879 to 1971. So tell me, which party was turning police dogs loose on civil rights marchers?

Coyote1972| 3.26.10 @ 12:49AM

You win the moron of the day award, congrats!

Bram| 3.25.10 @ 10:32AM

I wonder how much Teddy's family paid in estate taxes? I'm guessing next to nothing since most of their wealth was moved off-shore long ago.

Cris Worth| 3.25.10 @ 10:54AM

A few footnotes from the '64 civil rights act.
1. Congress exempted themselves...proof of liberal hypocrisy.
2. Humphrey's pledge that if the 1964 Civil Rights Act required racial quotas, he would "eat the paper it's written on"...someone should have made him eat it.
3. Lyndon Johnson: "We must not approach the observance and enforcement of this law in a vengeful spirit. Its purpose is not to punish."...vengeance came - quotas/racially motivated set asides/affirmative action and innocent people were punished because of the color of the skin.
More liberal "good intentions" gone awry and the road to hell are paved with "good intentions".

Anthony| 3.25.10 @ 11:28AM

Ted Kennedy, like his deceased brothers and father, had very little use for the truth. Their santimonious liberalism always stood in stark contract to their vulgar, amoral ruthlessness and hypocritical and ill gotten grandious life styles.
As JimH suggests, if Dante's Hell does indeed exist, the Kennedy men willl suffer unspeakable horrors for eternity, that no Earthly Orwellian spin can overcome.

Dawkins Alighieri | 3.26.10 @ 12:57AM

Why would you think that Dante's Inferno would actually exist? It was a work of fiction written 700 years ago.

Do you actually think that some random guy 700 years ago writing a thinly disguised revenge fantasy is somehow correct about your make believe afterlife?

No wonder you people are so gullible.

Petronius| 3.25.10 @ 11:29AM

Bob
You left out Teddy's recipe for barmaid sandwich. And the worst thing: setting up blind foundations to shield all Kennedy family income from any taxation.
Meanwhile, he's having an awful time here in Hell. We threw him in the hole with some Al Quaeda vets. And he's mad because they don't drink.

Cris Worth| 3.25.10 @ 11:58AM

Liberals promote renewable energy sources yet no windmills at the Cape because it spoils his view. Ted supported public school busing but of course his kids went to private school.

Albert Frevele| 3.25.10 @ 1:20PM

“But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, ‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.’ He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.” (John 12:4-6) Here is your perfect description of the late Mr. Kennedy and his fellow Democrats. They tax others, feign concern for the poor, and live the high life by taking their cut of the purse. Kennedy and the Democrats are greedy low-lifes who crave power, prestige, money, and sex, and use taxpayers to pay for it.

Plubius| 3.25.10 @ 2:00PM

Did the great man mention in his book anything about being a traitor? Did he mention his trip to Moscow and his letters offering classified defense information to the Soviets?

This goes to prove some basic points about Kennedys...

You take your life in your own hands if your ride in a car with a Kennedy.

Kennedys don't believe in segregation - except for the kitchen help.

Kennedys support offshore drilling as long as they are doing the drilling.

Kennedys believe in equal justice for all - except them; they have their own.

In the end, the "Kennedy Dynasty" will end up being just as tarnished as the "Clinton Machine" - a corruption-driven bunch of bigots who lived the ultimate life of liberal hypocrisy and refused to be accountable for the consequences of their decisions and actions until they faced ultimate justice. Kharma, like consequences, is not something you can avoid. It destroyed the Kennedys, the Clintons and I have a feeling it is yawning open and ready for some more who are tempting their luck.

Recovering Mass. Voter| 3.25.10 @ 4:40PM

We are admonished to only speak good of the dead.

Ted's dead. Good!

Petronius| 3.26.10 @ 1:44AM

RMV
If the Kennedy foundations weren't getting a cut of the action, I'd buy you a fine single malt Scotch.

MOS was 71331| 3.25.10 @ 7:12PM

In addition to his many other sins, Teddy also enjoyed, collected, and repeated Chappaquiddick jokes! Any decent man would have retired from public life after Miss Kopechne's death and would have found no amusement in such jokes. It's clear Teddy bore not the slightest resemblance to a decent man.

kingsmill| 3.25.10 @ 7:42PM

Teddy's son Patches left a "moving" note at Teddy's grave that his work on health care was now done.

Perhaps Patches could make a second trip to Teddy's resting place and deliver the Coogler.

doug walk| 3.25.10 @ 8:23PM

ted kennedy was nothing more than a drunken murderer and he learned it from his lowlife scumbag family including his father, jfk, and all the rest!
look up the word "soupers" in irish history, thats what this dirtbag family was and they continoued to the end!
he deserves no more than a continuosly urine soaked grave!

Reagan| 3.26.10 @ 1:08AM

You don't seem to understand capitalism. The world is there for the taking, and they did. What exactly is your problem? Are you a socialist?

Extremely Extreme Extremist| 3.30.10 @ 12:18AM

What Glug Glug didn't receive on a silver spoon from his bootlegger daddy he got by plundering the American people from office. That's not capitalism, moron. That's socialism.

My God you people are stupid.

Don E Cope| 3.27.10 @ 1:07PM

Other than that he was pretty nice guy.

Don E Cope| 3.27.10 @ 1:11PM

Where is he buried?

Cris| 3.25.10 @ 9:45PM

On the bright side, Senator Kennedy hasn't had a drink in seven months.

Petronius| 3.26.10 @ 1:48AM

To reprise a past post. We keep a close eye on him down here in Hell. And he has not been able to get to the bar because Bella Abzug is sitting on his face.

Cris Worth| 3.26.10 @ 1:06PM

The summertime Mass. economy will miss Ted. He kept the Dairy Queens, Liquor Stores and Auto Salvage Yards thriving.

Cpm| 3.26.10 @ 4:28PM

I'm happy Ted is in a better place - for us - shoveling coal in Hell.

Person of Choler| 3.26.10 @ 5:32PM

JimH| 3.25.10 @ 7:58AM, says, "If one takes a view of Hell along the lines of Dante, I can picture Ted being drowned for Eternity in booze."

I don't think so. Reminds me of a line in a W.C. Fields movie:

Woman: " Some day you'll drown in a vat of whiskey!"

Fields (with his best Fieldsian snarl): " Drown in a vat of whiskey. Death, where is thy sting?"

I wouldn't consign anybody to Hell, but I think Kennedy will spend quite some time in a dry, babe-less Purgatory.

TURK| 3.28.10 @ 1:20PM

As usual RET entertains and enlightens with his writing. This time, the comments exceed! That such a group still exists in this once great nation, gives hope.

Johnny Lucid| 3.29.10 @ 10:54AM

Where can I get a listing of all the Coogler laureates since inception?

kenedypaull| 4.19.10 @ 11:17PM

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