-
Not Ready for Primetime Players
May 17, 2013 | 117 comments
-
Manny Pacquiao vs. The IRS
May 10, 2013 | 25 comments
-
Salt of the Earth?
May 3, 2013 | 44 comments
-
The Death of an Artist in Everybody’s Collection
April 26, 2013 | 6 comments
-
The Meaning of Patriots’ Day
April 19, 2013 | 88 comments
Special Report
Party Cannibal
Jimmy Carter was right about Ted Kennedy.
“The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed,” former President Jimmy Carter told 60 Minutes last night. “It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill.”
Carter’s observation, fleshed out in his newly published diaries from his presidency, may seem shocking to Democrats who posthumously credit Kennedy with the health-care bill passed earlier this year. But for anyone who has followed the last brother’s forty-seven years in the Senate, Carter’s complaint rings true. Ted Kennedy was a party cannibal who built his career devouring fellow Democrats.
Prior to becoming a United States Senator in 1962, Kennedy had cast ballots in just three of sixteen elections in which he had been eligible. Tellingly, his brother John had been on the ballot in each of the contests in which he bothered to vote. The young playboy even sat on his hands when Adlai Stevenson, who had passed over John Kennedy for his running-mate, ran for president in 1956. Ted’s apathy served the Democrats’ interests better than his older brother Bobby’s vindictiveness, which led him to vote Republican for Dwight Eisenhower.
“If Mr. Kennedy wants people to vote for him for the highest legislative office in the world,” Kennedy’s 1962 Democratic primary opponent opined, “I feel he owes an explanation to the people of Massachusetts and to the city of Boston as to why he did not vote for anyone other than a Kennedy in the period between 1953 and 1960.”
After hawkishly coming out for the war his brother John started, Ted blasted President Lyndon Johnson for overseeing the Vietnam War once it became unpopular among northeastern liberals. Sensing 1972 a bad year for Democrats, Kennedy rebuffed George McGovern’s overtures to serve as his running mate and then blackballed Boston Mayor Kevin White from appearing on the national ticket. The result of such pettiness? Vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton, the most damaging candidate to a national ticket in the history of presidential politics. The quadrennial presidential dream candidate among the base of the Democratic Party, Kennedy misled the party on a leftward journey — which coincided with its exclusion from the White House in all but four years from 1968 to 1992 — that reflected the political migration of his Massachusetts constituents but ran against the grain of the rightward direction of America.
In 1980, Ted Kennedy ran a rule-or-ruin campaign for the presidency long after he had been mathematically eliminated. Rather than endorse Jimmy Carter, who had trounced him in the primaries, Kennedy held out for platform concessions, fundraising help, and a prime-time speech that benefited himself but not his party’s nominee. Most memorably, the rehearsed moment when vanquished was supposed to raise the victor’s hand in triumph before cheering delegates never happened. Kennedy suffered from a case of sore-loseritis, resulting in one of the more awkward moments in convention history.
Kennedy’s attacks on Democrats who paid insufficient homage to his family’s name continued through the 2008 presidential election. Miffed that Hillary Clinton had stood by in 2008 as another speaker credited Lyndon Johnson, and not John Kennedy, with passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Ted Kennedy later underwent what a Kennedy confidante described to the Washington Post as a “meltdown” when Clinton said on the campaign trail that “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act.” Never mind that President John F. Kennedy tried to stop the landmark March on Washington and that Attorney General Robert Kennedy bugged Martin Luther King’s hotel rooms and tapped his phones.
“Sources say Kennedy was privately furious at Clinton for her praise of President Lyndon Baines Johnson for getting the 1964 Civil Rights Act accomplished,” the Washington Post’s Mary Ann Akers reported. “Jealously guarding the legacy of the Kennedy family dynasty, Senator Kennedy felt Clinton’s LBJ comments were an implicit slight of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who first proposed the landmark civil rights initiative in a famous televised civil rights address in June 1963.”
Ted Kennedy got an apology from Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama got his endorsement.
Even from the grave, Ted Kennedy undermines his party for the benefit of his name. Massachusetts legislators have already earmarked more than $38 million in federal tax-dollars for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, with tens of millions more hoped for from Washington. The Boston shrine became an embarrassment for Bay State lawmakers when the Boston Herald exposed the pork-barrel spending, much of it siphoned from the Department of Defense’s budget, in April.
Who has money for two wars when there is a Temple of Ted to be built?
Like so many of the late Senator’s paramours, the Democratic Party loved Ted Kennedy more the worse he treated it. “What would Teddy do?” Washington Senator Patty Murray told the New York Times in the midst of the ObamaCare debate. “We’re all working to do what we think he’d want us to do.” Working as his own booster, Ted Kennedy, or his ghostwriter, boasted in Newsweek weeks before his 2009 death: “For four decades I have carried this cause — from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this country.”
But take it from Jimmy Carter. Ted Kennedy was never Mr. Universal Health Care. He was always Mr. Ted Kennedy.
About the Author
Daniel J. Flynn is the author of Blue Collar Intellectuals: When the Enlightened and the Everyman Elevated America. He blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (86) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Daniel J. Flynn
More Articles From Special Report
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/09/20/party-cannibal
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
drudge ette obama| 9.20.10 @ 6:43AM
It is hard to choose which of the two to like less: Teddy Kennedy, who sails now on the Other Side, or Jimmy Carter, the angry, self-centered accidental past president whose alignment with Obama is a curiosity to me.
I thank god that Teddy screwed Carter on health care. Carter seems to have garnered the courage post-mortem Kennedy to finally get even. Nasty Carter.
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 9:37AM
"Carter's observation, fleshed out in his newly published diaries from his presidency "
The enviros are right, we ARE wasting paper!
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 10:35AM
... Think of all the poor trees that died for Carter's books.
Carter ought to pay his readers for reading his books- then the readers can donate the proceeds to Habitat for Humanity.
RCV| 9.20.10 @ 4:59PM
Have to agree. Jimmy Carter is a kind and decent house-builder, and should devote most of his future activities to helping that worthy charity.
mzk1| 9.23.10 @ 3:07PM
Depends where the house is, and who is building it, no?
I'm going to repeat this. I have a friend who lives in Ramot, ahuge Jewish neighborhod in Northern Jerusalem. He has a friend and neighbor, an Arab who lives in a compond with his family - and who settled there in 1949 after Jordan illegally occupied the area. (Note that Israel let him stay.)
So, according to Jimmy Carter, which is the "illegal settler"?
mzk1| 9.23.10 @ 3:08PM
compound
A.M. Mallett| 9.20.10 @ 1:49PM
Kennedy .. Carter ... Carter ... Kennedy .... Kennedy ... Carter ... er ... doesn't much matter at this point as I am sure they will keep on fighting in hell when Carter joins him.
Mike| 9.21.10 @ 6:52PM
Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
Howard| 9.20.10 @ 7:46AM
Actually a version of ObamaCare was possible in the early 1970's. Nixon was amenable to an employer mandate to provide health insurance. But Ted Kennedy wanted a Socialized Single Payer plan only. So he stonewalled that one as well.
Timothy L. Pennell| 9.20.10 @ 8:02AM
You left out the part where he calls Kennedy a dirty, blood sucking, JEW.
Maxwell| 9.20.10 @ 8:32AM
Timothy, that is next week. Stay tuned.
Jim O'Brien| 9.20.10 @ 8:11AM
The half-wit and the felon, president and senator. Was Peanut Brain also knighted, or just Chappy?
Insight| 9.20.10 @ 8:47AM
I don't understand why anyone listens to Carter anyway. He was a ding-bat when he was in office and it looks like nothing has changed since.
Mike W| 9.20.10 @ 10:39AM
Carter's intellect could run circles around the little buffoon from Texas that we nominated and elected. Unfortunately, strong intellect doesn't usually make the best leaders. On the other hand, an incredibly weak intellect such as George Bush's, doesn't make for a good leader either.
Obama has both a weak intellect and weak personality.
Doctor Right| 9.20.10 @ 11:57AM
Clinging to failed policies and flawed governmental doctrines (ie, socialism) is not an indicator of intellect.
Is Carter intelligent? Undoubtedly. You don't graduate from the Naval Academy of serve in Admiral Rickover's nuclear Navy if you're not.
But intelligence is not a measure of intellect.
And frankly, George W. Bush was a far more successful President than Carter.
Please explain what, exactly, makes George W. Bush a "weak intellect"?
His lack of oratorical skills? Big deal. Obama is lost without his teleprompter. Even Einstein was a stutterer.
Imagine Carter as President on 9/12/2001. Then you'll understand why wee were blessed - yes, blessed - to have George W. Bush as President during those dark days.
Bush-bashing, especially of his intelligence, is a petty exercise.
A.M. Mallett| 9.20.10 @ 1:50PM
Carter's intellect? Didn't they used to sell that in old blue bottles over a century ago?
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 8:33PM
"Please explain what, exactly, makes George W. Bush a 'weak intellect'?"
Carter was much smarter than Bush, but he was an invertebrate; with that smarmy grin of his.
Bush wasn't too bright, but he was tough.
stmichrick| 9.22.10 @ 10:28AM
Again Alan, please explain the George W. 'weak intellect' comment.
Is it the Texas drawl, or what?
Constant re-assertion that W was intellectually challenged doesn't make it so. We do know his grades were a shade higher than Kerry's at Yale. We have NO IDEA why folks tell us that Obama is so bright. I know a number of salespeople who are slicker than he is.
Carter is just a naive (and now bitter) politician. Evidence: assuming the Soviet Union would see a moral example in our timidity.
"gunner"| 9.23.10 @ 9:41PM
"an incredibly weak intellect"? sonny you've never tried to fly an f-102 have you, or anything more complicated than a bicycle for that matter.
blackknights1802| 9.20.10 @ 8:58AM
Kennedy was a progressive socialist. When you grow up in a family where your father is one in the same, what do you expect?
Rmm| 9.20.10 @ 9:30AM
His Daddy was also a rum-running crook during Prohibition.
TR| 9.20.10 @ 12:12PM
A a nazi sympathizer. Ever read his attempts to placate Nazi Germany and keep the US from fighting in WW2?
A.M. Mallett| 9.20.10 @ 1:52PM
Nothing really wrong with that given the idiocy of prohibition.
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 8:35PM
Please, no libertarianism.
Louis Jenkins| 9.20.10 @ 8:59AM
In-fighting amongst the Democrats. How appropriate.
"Like so many of the late Senator's paramours, the Democratic Party loved Ted Kennedy more the worse he treated it."
See, see! The Democrats stick together thru the lean or the fat. Something the Republicans could copy.
Turnditch | 9.20.10 @ 9:00AM
I truly hope that Mary Jo Kapechne was selected to escort Teddy to the DOWN elevator...
Anthony| 9.20.10 @ 9:28AM
Ah, the Kennedy male reprobates. What a family, starting with "Uncle Joe" and his dysfunctional male heirs.
When history truly records the evil deeds of these four horseman of the antichrist, and their assaults on America and Americans, a disclaimer will have to be printed on the cover that this book is not for the faint of heart.
In the mean time, eternity will record that the Kennedy men do not require that the temperature be raised as they sit in Hell's hot tub.
I bet Lucifer keeps a sharp eye on these guys; Hell would make a wonderful kingdom for the Kennedy's to rule.
Silver Streake| 9.20.10 @ 11:42AM
I'm betting Lucifer wants nothing to do with the Kennedys. They're probably trying to run hell as we speak.
skedaddle| 9.20.10 @ 9:29AM
Carter's book is a two-fer. He makes himself and "Saint" Ted look even worse than they did. It's just so classy to dish about dead people.
P.Smith| 9.20.10 @ 9:31AM
Hey Ted, if you can somehow read my words, thank you for thwarting nationalized healthcare,… twice…
P.S. Except for truly entertaining stories you have provided the country through your inebriated escapades, I never dreamed I would have something to thank you for.
hardcard| 9.20.10 @ 9:51AM
jimmy carter is very bold in his final years, he is always seeking to justify his many failures. teddy boy was a turd of the first degree but jimmy waited to kick teddy boy when he couldn't fight back. jimmy always the coward !!!!
Dave Wilson| 9.20.10 @ 10:03AM
I thanked God on the day that America was finally able to wipe the dog crap that was Ted Kennedy from the bottom of its shoe, and will again when it's Jimmy's turn.
dac| 9.20.10 @ 10:32AM
DW, I have to say, not only did I thank God, I poured myself a vertical two-fingers of good single malt scotch, and toasted to the filthy bastard's death. No other single group of self-righteous, kleptocratic communist scum has done this country more harm, certainly not in my lifetime. The worms that have eaten their bloated, gasbag corpses probably retched at the taste. I feel bad for the worms; I just wish their feasts had occurred earlier for the greater good of us all.
Anthony| 9.20.10 @ 1:55PM
I joined my dogs that night in a virtual ceremonial grave site send off.
Alan Brooks| 9.20.10 @ 8:38PM
"The worms that have eaten their bloated, gasbag corpses probably retched at the taste. I feel bad for the worms; I just wish their feasts had occurred earlier for the greater good of us all."
Not even I would write something so lurid.
Dan| 9.21.10 @ 9:51AM
Tell us how you really feel. Love it!
Silver Streake| 9.20.10 @ 11:44AM
Unfortunately, our land is still littered with dog crap land mines a/k/a Democrats. Be careful where you step.
MikeN| 9.20.10 @ 10:25AM
SO is Carter right?
John Gay| 9.20.10 @ 10:39AM
".....The priest calls the lawyer a cheat/the lawyer beknaves the divine./and the statesman because he's so great/thinks his trade as honest as mine!'[procurer].
AugusteanAge| 9.20.10 @ 4:17PM
...and don't forget "the modes of the court so common are grown, that a true friend can hardly be met. Friendship for interest is but a loan, which they let out for what they can get". No Google needed her for me, I've memorized. Amazing how it still works over two hundred fifty years later.
Ghastlyone| 9.20.10 @ 10:42AM
Carter looked suprisingly happy and in good spirits in that 60 minutes interview. This is mainly because he has been dethroned as the worst president in history, from Obama. So he is now able to show his face in public without feeling shame.
Obama now holds the welterweight title.
TR| 9.20.10 @ 11:11AM
Let's see..Carter gave us the Community Reinvestmant Act that Billary beefed up that led to the collapse of the housing market that caused the Great Depression 2.
Ted Kennedy was a murderer and a completely immoral subhuman whose only concern was his personal power. I used to call his office every year on Mary Jo's birthday and inform them how old she would have been if their boss hadn't murdered her.
Nunya| 9.20.10 @ 12:01PM
Awesome. :-)
Phill| 9.20.10 @ 12:28PM
BIG SMILE
Drew| 9.20.10 @ 3:20PM
Priceless!
jrjr| 9.20.10 @ 5:02PM
Quit bashing my Jimmah. I was getting 14% return on my meager investment while he was on the throne.
Dan| 9.21.10 @ 9:55AM
I felt the same way too. Getting 14% or better on my CD's. Then I realized the inflation rate was 18% or more. Jimmah was a train wreck, brother Billy could have done a better job.
mzk1| 9.23.10 @ 3:12PM
And the mortgage rate was what? 14%? 18%
Oldefarte| 9.20.10 @ 11:35AM
Hillary was absolutely correct in her sentiments concerning the CRA of 1964, since Kennedy may have originated the idea for same, but the whole Great Society [welfare] legislation owes its passage into law to Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy neither had the knowledge or the legislative experience to get his ideas passed [and that is why he was such an ineffective president]; and Johnson [as Seante Majority Leader and Senator for numerous years prior to becoming President] knew how to twist arms, make deals, intimidate legislators, etc [and the GS was passed accordingly]. Kennedy was nothing but a manufactured [by his father's Hollywood apparatus] figurehead [much the same as the current President, whom the Kennedy machine was the sole reason for his election also]. PT 109 was a fraudently written piece of fiction [how could a individual with extreme medical impairments successfully swim a fellow crewmate to safety?]. Kennedy never did anything on his own merets, but was simply the product of a slick, invented Hollywood oriented promotional mechanism [as is Obama]. The difference between then/Kennedy and now/Obama is that now the alternative press is available and successful at uncovering the fraud inside news that is daily manufactured by the MSM. We all know about Obama, but Kennedy's fraud was successfully covered up by the MSM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bob| 9.20.10 @ 12:04PM
I have noticed over the years, alive or dead any mention of Ted on a conservative website, the name of Mary Jo Kopechne always pops up.
TR| 9.20.10 @ 12:19PM
For good reason Bob. That was the moment that defined him as completely lacking any morals. It defined him as solely concerned with preserving his personal power over the life of a fellow human being. It showed anyone who would give even a cursory look into his behavior that he was a drunk, a womanizer, a selfish rich manchild and murderer (maybe only manslaughter, but a killer non the less). So his actions on that night are relevent and must be brought up with every attept by the left to paint him as a hero. He was a lout and deserved to go to prison for his actions that night. Do your homework and follow the police reports of the timeline and witness reports of his actions that night and the following morning. He was a horrible waste of humanity and I am certain he is shoveling coal in Hell this very day. Good riddence.
Phill| 9.20.10 @ 12:26PM
DITTO
DG in GA| 9.20.10 @ 1:30PM
"I have noticed over the years, alive or dead any mention of Ted on a conservative website, the name of Mary Jo Kopechne always pops up."
Bob, this is because the media and the left would have everyone FORGET all about Mary Jo Kopechne in order to keep that murderer in office. Ted Kennedy should have spent at least 25 years IN PRISON for vehicular homicide and gross negligence resulting in the death of a human being, but instead he spent that time in the Senate. What is wrong with the people of Massachusetts and the Democratic Party that they held this lying murderer in such high regard?
TR| 9.20.10 @ 2:36PM
People like Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank.
A state that produced some of the greatest patriots of all in the 18th century gives us human excrement like Kennedy for decades and sends that criminal Frank back time and time again. What a lost place it is now. Full of idiots.
GavInTucson| 9.21.10 @ 12:32AM
And, on that note, is one of my favorite bumper stickers...
"Ted Kennedy's killed more people with his car than I've killed with my gun."
Oldefarte| 9.21.10 @ 4:18PM
Okay Bob, if you prefer, how about drunkingly having sex with a female companion ON THE FLOOR OF A RESTAURANT; or drunkenly arguing with a twenty year old female inside a Florida bar/lounge and thereafter encouraging his nephew to RAPE that same woman at their near by residential compound..........HOW DOES THAT WORK/PLAY FOR YOU INSTEAD, BOB??????????????????
mzk1| 9.23.10 @ 3:17PM
As it should. It's pretty clear he never had remorse.
Her family should take some comfort in the fact that she saved the country from him. Although his turning a deaf ear to the pleas of the South Viet Namese was worse.
I do have to say one thing for him. He did save a boy's life from the Baltimore Yeshiva by getting a special plane for him when there was no other was to get him to the hospital. (I forgot some of the details.) I suppose they will turn the furnace down a few degrees for that.
Phill| 9.20.10 @ 12:24PM
Dear Teddy was an equal opportunity basher. I was aware he killed the same type of bill put forward by Nixon. I was not aware he did it to Carter. He wanted the limelight and take all the credit rather than stay on the side and HELP to do what was right.
Nunya| 9.20.10 @ 12:35PM
To begin, I think Ted Kennedy was a piece of crap as a human being, but then I also extend that thought to his entire family. Why people consider the Kennedy's to be America's "royal family" is beyond me. Joe was a rum-running scumbag who made a fortune both running liquor and then manipulating the stock market with his buddies. JFK, as is stated above, was a manufactured war hero who got into his position because "daddy" knew people in the Chicago mob who could manufacture votes from dead people. Ted was guilty of manslaughter, but because of daddy's money was never prosecuted. Had the Chappaquidick incident happened in the last 15 years, he'd have spent time in prison where he belonged--ONLY because of the independent media known as the Internet.
As to Mr. Carter, the man was an ineffective and useless President, and a buffoon. Why the Democraps continue to parade this moron around is beyond me, he is only succeeded as the w0rst President in history by the current one. Carter is an anti-semite, and to me seems to be a "hater" of America's success. There were some in his day who claimed that even though he was ineffective, he was "honest", but personally I think he is one of the most deceptive Presidents ever, and I don't believe a word the man says. He's a recorded and proven liar, along with being inept. Frankly, I hope Ted is waiting for Jimmy in hell, that's where they both belong.
TR| 9.20.10 @ 12:55PM
And don't forget that he was scared silly of rabbits. He completely freaked out in panic when one swam towards his fishing boat in '77. That kinda explains his inaction towards a real threat - militant muslims. What a waste of presidency he was.
Nunya| 9.20.10 @ 2:04PM
I guess I missed that one, that's actually hilarious. :-)
TR| 9.20.10 @ 5:21PM
Believe it or not, it was on the news back then. I remember seeing him whacking with his oar at the little swimming bunny. Screaming like a little girl in panic. It was priceless.
TR| 9.20.10 @ 5:32PM
Correction - it was '79 not '77.
Oldefarte| 9.21.10 @ 4:24PM
Excuse an old joke about the former [Arkansas]House Ways & Means Chairman drunkingly flailing with a Spanish stripper in the water fountain of a DC hotel; phoning Teddy and asking him WELL, I'VE GOT HER IN THE WATER, NOW WHAT DO I DO WITH HER??????
Oldefarte| 9.21.10 @ 4:26PM
PS: Or a play on the old Clintonian joke about WHY HE CROSSED THE ROAD.........TO LOOK FOR CHICKS!!!!!!!!!!!!
macaca| 9.20.10 @ 4:21PM
"I don't wanna a bunny wunny in my little woah boat, in my little woahboat in the pond.
'Cause wabbit might go crazy and bite me in the foot, in my liddle woahboat in the pond"
Dan| 9.21.10 @ 10:00AM
Where was PETA when you need them ?
GavInTucson| 9.21.10 @ 12:41AM
Hey, I watched "The Holy Grail" and I KNOW what crazy, psychotic bunnies are capable of doing.
I'll give him credit for trying to use what was at hand, since he obviously didn't have a holy hand grenade in the boat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw
Thomas Poole| 9.21.10 @ 9:12AM
Nunya: You and many folks on here have commented rather strongly about the Kennedy's, and rightly so, except: Joe Kennedy had four sons, Joseph Jr., John, Robar end Edward, 3 of the 4 were pimples on the butt of progress, but Joseph Jr. was a recognized good citizen who lost his life in WWII serving in the Army Air Force. It is reported he was in/working with the OSS on how to destroy the German submarine pens in France when his explosives laden plane disappeared. I believe he was a Lt. Col. at the time.
Seadog| 9.21.10 @ 2:28PM
Joseph P Kennedy jr served a naval avaitor in WWII. After completing a combat tour he volunteered for a hazardous mission in which he was killed.
Nunya| 9.24.10 @ 10:35PM
OK, then I retract my statement as it applied to Joe Jr., I was not aware of his military service.
Thank you for the education.
Mojo Risin| 9.20.10 @ 1:11PM
Yeah, Kennedy was shrill, irrational, and okay nuts, but that doesn't give Carter license to be shrill, irrational, and nuts, no pun intended.
Sam Vaughn| 9.20.10 @ 1:20PM
I lived in Georgia during the governorship of Jimmy Carter. Locally, it was known as the most inept governorship in anyone's memory. Jimmy was a pious, pompous holer than though wanna be preacher, never forget that. Some where along the way, though, he became vindictive, senile and a marxist.
Bill| 9.20.10 @ 5:54PM
Just because Jimmy Carter is right about Ted Kennedy doesn't relieve Carter of the burden of being a major-league toad for 4 decades.
Acynic| 9.20.10 @ 7:22PM
Ted Kennedy was a lying, boozing, disgusting, repulsive, sleaze bag snake of a human being. Too bad it was not him that received fatal headshots in Dallas. He was just like his dad, the nazi sympathizer, bootlegger and crook, Joseph P. Kennedy.
JohnnyBee| 9.21.10 @ 3:21AM
Say what you will about Ted Kennedy, but you could never call that chap a quitter.
Dan| 9.21.10 @ 10:41AM
No you sure can't , he was a drunk and skirt chaser right up to the end.
Doug| 9.21.10 @ 3:31PM
Here's something to think about: Who has done more damage to America -- Ted Kennedy, or Jimmy Carter?
sharms| 9.21.10 @ 4:50PM
Ted Kennedy. He endorsed Obama.
Obbop | 9.21.10 @ 10:48PM
Ted Kennedy.
An elite class enemy of We, the People who did more to harm the USA with his politically correct yet treasonous 1965 let the world's ignorant and 3rd-world barbarians flock into the USA by the mega-millions with no consideration given what We, the People wanted and to ensure that assimilation did not nor would not occur.
I fear the USA is doomed as the "house" is becoming increasingly divided.
Career Trooper| 9.22.10 @ 8:11AM
No doubt that Ted Kennedy was an egocentric power monger. However to further your argument you cite Jimmy Carter?
Mr. Carter has no credibility in anything he says. He is obviously suffering from senior dementia. Didn't you hear his response to Leslie's question about "the worst president ever"? He said he was "proud of his successfull presidency". Does that sound like a man in full possession of his faculties? Take it from a professional soldier who managed to survive that presidency; that is the lunatic raving of a senile old man. I'm sure the Iranians had a good belly laugh over that statement too!!
alex| 9.24.10 @ 4:25PM
Jimmy Carter (or JC) as he prefers, was the greatest albatross ever hung around the neck of the state of
Georgia. A departed friend of mine that grew up neighbors with Jimmy, and knew the whole family well, told me, when Jimmy was running for state Governor, that the only one in the family with any common sense, was BILLY! Billy was the one that made the family money.
His crackpot episodes later could possibly be attributed to the fact that, when I met him, he was drinking beer at 10 am. Maybe driven to drink by his brother and mother?