The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Edward Moore Kennedy

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Decent people do not take potshots at others (unless the other is a Hitler or Stalin) in the 24 hours of the other's death. I have never, literally never, written any good words about Ted Kennedy. But there was one time when I was impressed and in a weird way inspired by him. At the Democratic convention last year, when he willed himself out of the hospital, in a terribly weakened condition, to make what truly was a superbly written and even, despite his ailments, a well delivered speech in support of the man, Obama, who WOULD NOT have been about to be the nominee without Kennedy's support, Kennedy's speech -- with its deliberate echoes of his 1980 convention speech, "the dream shall never die" -- was a triumph of courage and commitment. Sitting in the convention hall covering it for the Washington Examiner, I literally got chill-bumps. In terms of valiance, it was like seeing Willis Reed hobble onto the court in the NBA finals against the Lakers, only to an even greater Nth degree.

In a reckless life spent pursuing the wrong goals through wrong and often vicious means, it was a magnificent moment of grace.

View all comments (51) | Leave a comment

William| 8.26.09 @ 10:25AM

Let us speak of his virtues . . .

He was born sober . . .

Ron Riley| 8.26.09 @ 11:17AM

He left a young woman to die because he was a gut-less coward

Tim| 8.26.09 @ 11:19AM

Many times when really successful pols pass, the media run with themes like; "Last of his kind" and "The end of an era". In the Ted's case that might not be hyperbole.

Cris Worth| 8.26.09 @ 11:20AM

Ted's manipulation of his hallowed Senate seat in his last days defines the man. His cold, calculating, heartless mind at work just like the night of July 18, 1969 when he left Mary Jo to suffocate in his car.

Maureen| 6.13.11 @ 6:22PM

We have Americans giving their life so you can have the privilege of freedom of speech. I am ashamed to read the hate and disrespect for which they made their ultimate sacrifice.

around the track| 8.26.09 @ 11:30AM

Like many political figures from prominent families, he was a spoiled brat who seems to have been loved by the self-preening spoiled brats of the Senate.

L. Ross| 8.26.09 @ 11:40AM

William:
He was born sober.
Good one!

Dixie Pixie| 8.26.09 @ 12:23PM

Senator Kennedy bites the big one for Team Obama and the Obama-care crusade.

S.L. Toddard| 8.26.09 @ 12:46PM

"Decent people do not take potshots at others (unless the other is a Hitler or Stalin) in the 24 hours of the other's death"

Indeed, Quin. Look around this comments section as well as the comments sections in the other obituaries on AmSpec for a sense of the absolute lack of decency in what passes for the hearts of the Fox News Right. I would say "shame on them" but they don't know what "shame" is.

Ted Kennedy was human and he was a Liberal, with all the positive and negative things those terms imply. God rest his soul.

Solo| 8.26.09 @ 1:07PM

""Decent people do not take potshots at others (unless the other is a Hitler or Stalin) in the 24 hours of the other's death" "

Hitler and Stalin couldn't even come close to the murderous carnage championed by the Kennedy's of this world.

All were done for the purpose of prosecuting a particular political ideology. Just because some are done in a sterile clinic with the cover of a handy euphemism such as "choice" instead of being marched into gas chambers amid the wailing of the victims, does not change the nature of what is taking place.

It's a distinction without a difference.

The left will always find a justification to eliminate the "inconvenient life". Kennedy was a champion of this murderous carnage...as were his predecessors, Hitler and Stalin.

Redneck| 8.26.09 @ 1:14PM

He was the enemy of the United States of America. The fact that you got chill bumps is proof that you are an elitist liberal.

Nobama| 8.26.09 @ 1:38PM

Too bad you don't show this kind of respect to Sarah Palin.

Dixie Pixie| 8.26.09 @ 1:38PM

Senator Kennedy was the Cardinal Richelieu of Liberalism without the Honor, Brains, or even Nice Qualities.

Paula| 8.26.09 @ 1:51PM

I cannot believe the total lack of compassion and respect I'm seeing with these comments! Liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, you cannot deny that Edward Kennedy was a great american, statesman and senator. I agree with S.L. Toddards comment that you don't know what "shame" is. Try devoting your lives to public service, and working for those less fortunate than yourselves - maybe, just maybe, that'll remove some of the hate. Thank you for a job well done, Senator Kennedy!

William| 8.26.09 @ 2:00PM

"Decent people do not take potshots at others (unless the other is a Hitler or Stalin) in the 24 hours of the other's death"

Pol Pot was human and he was a Liberal, with all the positive and negative things those terms imply. God rest his soul.

William| 8.26.09 @ 2:05PM

I cannot believe the total lack of compassion and respect I'm seeing with these comments! Liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, you cannot deny that Joseph Raymond McCarthy was a great american, statesman and senator. I agree with my own comment that you don't know what "shame" is. Try devoting your lives to public service, and working for those less fortunate than yourselves - maybe, just maybe, that'll remove some of the hate. Thank you for a job well done, Senator McCarthy!

Raoul Ortega| 8.26.09 @ 2:07PM

I cannot believe the total lack of compassion and respect I'm seeing with these comments!

You on the Left taught us well, and showed us that there's no penalty to be paid for uncivil behavior. Welcome to the world your Senator from Chappaquiddick helped create.

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 2:20PM

His brother John had something great-- whatever great was five decades ago. But if you rut like a dog with anyone wearing a skirt, can you be called personally responsible?

Even in the 21st century?

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 2:23PM

BTW,
Nothing wrong with Toddard,

wrong blog.

Video Savant| 8.26.09 @ 3:07PM

That's right -- we're onto you liberals...

Alinsky's Rule #5 is one of the most powerful -- ridicule. Yes, you have taught us well, so you better get used to it. Or don't the names Bork or Thomas ring any bells for you?

The great thing about ridiculing EMK is that we have facts on our side. He was a cowardly liar who left a woman to die to cover his own pathetic ass. Therefore, he is a appropriate object of our ridicule

The fact that he hasn't reached room temperature quite yet is no reason to hold back. It never has stopped you guys.

Jolie| 8.26.09 @ 3:28PM

Paula, do you think fifty million aborted babies thank Teddy for a "Job well done," too?

I wonder what Teddy thinks about his pro-death policies now.

Smitty| 8.26.09 @ 3:29PM

Liberals abhor hate? Liberals INVENTED hate!

John| 8.26.09 @ 4:03PM

On his way to Hell, he can apologize to the 50 Million aborted human beings in whom he saw nothing of value or worth protecting. His far overdue passing accelerates the crumbling of the liberal shackles that strangle free American lives. Liberal Reader should channel Mary Jo Kopeche for comment...

Fionnagh| 8.26.09 @ 5:37PM

Which of you defending the senator, here and elsewhere, would WALK AWAY FROM A CAR ACCIDENT that you caused, and leave someone else in that car to suffocate? And then lie about it, and get others to lie, on your behalf?

If there is any "shame" in the comments being posted, the shame is all yours for defending the man.

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 6:53PM

it's not so much Ted; what bothers me is first Jacko is lionized, and now Ted... so who next? Susan Atkins is dying in prison, will feminists lionize (lioness) her?
Nothing would be all that much of a surprise in '09.
mostly, I'm nervous about 2010-- how topsy turvy will it get next year?

the pro-Ted people have so undermined their credibility by having attacked Reagan when he died five years ago to the point it is surprising most of all they cannot understand that just because we don't hate Ted doesn't mean we have to love him. Where was the love for WFB a year and a half ago?

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 6:59PM

okay, Susan Atkins was too much of an extreme example for me to use. But Polanski, Jacko, now Ted. Wasn't such called the cult of the anti-hero back in the old days?

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 7:00PM

Polanski is a hero without even being dead yet.

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 7:08PM

but I do not agree with the author that you shouldn't take potshots at the recently deceased. Notice the author wrote 'decent' and not virtuous. Why? there is no virtue left, only a fuzzy 'decency'. Hitler and Stalin can be attacked at the moment of death, even Pol Pot. Yet no one else. Oh, yes, and Mao, too. Idi Amin, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ed Gein...

Liberal Reader| 8.26.09 @ 7:18PM

You people are without shame. It's disgusting.

I don't blame idiots like Solo either.

I blame people like Mr Hillyer, Vadum, Beck, Levin. These people look to you for intellectual guidance.

You've taught them how to be intolerant, boastful ignoramuses.

It's a real intellectual failure on your part.

People are writing in that Ted Kennedy was like Hitler.

That is because leaders of the conservative movement have failed to teach those they would lead what kind system of government Nazism was.

You use this inflammatory rhetoric, and it just makes you sound like a bunch of imbeciles.

It's disgraceful. You people are a disgrace. You're un-American, you're hateful, you're mean, you're base, you're rude, you're incurious, you're inarticulate, you're impotent, you're foolish, and you're nasty.

Video Savant| 8.26.09 @ 8:14PM

It has been announced that Obama will be delivering the eulogy at Ted Kennedy's funeral. Apparently he could not resist once it was explained to him that it was shovel-ready project.

Thanks for the kind words, Liberal Reader.

Richard Baker| 8.26.09 @ 9:33PM

Born sober? Are you sure? I wonder if the Distiller's Association will vote him Man of the Year.

Sigmund| 8.26.09 @ 10:03PM

Liberal Reader...project much?

tollen| 8.26.09 @ 10:20PM

Good Grief, --no pun!

After 8 years of ridicule by the left, these comments are nice!

How easy to forget them all, for example:

"But it's nice to know that there is one person untroubled by the Bush presidency [on screen: Bush saying he gave the presidency his 'all' for eight years and he didn't 'sell his soul for the sake of popularity']. You didn't need to! You sold ours." --Jon Stewart

Alan Brooks| 8.26.09 @ 10:38PM

why does Libral reeder comment here? it is like putting a drop of water in the ocean when you don't even like to go near the ocean.

Nobama| 8.26.09 @ 10:43PM

tollen, I'd agree with Stewart but the little liberal b@stard doesn't have a soul to sell.

Nobama| 8.26.09 @ 10:45PM

LibReader/J, we didn't say Teddy was like Hitler, we said YOU are like Hitler. Get it right, ya little fascist.

Clintidote| 8.26.09 @ 11:36PM

"He was born sober" ???

Well, perhaps. Remember, this is the Kennedy clump of decrepit, sleazy boozehounds; one mustn't assume.

Liberal Reader| 8.27.09 @ 12:03AM

Fuck you, Nobama, you imbecile.

Video Savant: I didn't think it was possible, but you're even more pathetic then Nobama.

This website is a sewer of fascist propaganda and racism.

Nobama| 8.27.09 @ 2:24AM

LibReader is crying buckets of tears in his beer over good old Teddy.

Good night, Old Teddy.

Screw you, LibReader/Jeremiah.

Fascist| 3.2.10 @ 2:41PM

Some words from Hitler:

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the *Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

* You may replace it with: leftist thoughts.

Jeremiah| 3.21.10 @ 3:07AM

Just remember, LR--Nazi means National SOCIALIST Party.

Little commie bastard, you; Hitler was your mentor.

Video Savant| 8.27.09 @ 7:01AM

I wouldn't normally stoop to this level, but when the White House, the Democratic leadership and the media have zero compunction about hurling the nastiest of nasty epithets at private citizens exercising their freedom of speech, it's time to recognize that the rules of the game have changed, possibly forever.

Liberals/progressives clearly have no problem in employing a scorched earth policy until they find the heat blistering their own feet. The message here should be one that even a fifth-grader could grasp -- if you want civility and respect, start earning it. Otherwise, gird your loins.

But that's just my take. Not sure how Mary Jo Kopechne would feel about this turn of events. She remains unavailable for comment.

Solo| 8.27.09 @ 7:57AM

That's right Lib Reader....I have no shame in criticizing evil. I will celebrate its removal from our presence.

I understand your visceral reaction to what I said (and I meant every word of it) because your world view is similar to the Ted Kennedy's of this world.

Your view is undoubtedly that these murder victims are actually nothing more that a simple 'blob' of inanimate tissue to be discarded with no more consideration than one lends a clipped fingernail.

Alternatively....if we were discussing the murder of the sick and infirmed....the crippled and the old....the mentally ill and the disabled....and other various worthless "bread-gobblers", you'd be just as outraged as am I.
You'd be agreeing with me that the Ted Kennedy's of this world are nothing short of monsters.

Well...I don't see a difference. All are innocent human life to me because I refuse to make convenient distinctions based on subjective and arbitrary criteria.

The left has always allowed themselves the luxury of viewing these distinctions and definitions of what constitutes "Human life" as being fungible. The killing of millions in horrific ways makes them famous...but it is this mindset that makes them monsters. The mindset of the leftist!

You leftists are dangerous. You're never content to live your own lives but you must force your twisted values on others-even if it means mass murder.

But...it isn't really "murder" to lefties, is it? No....the left has an unbridled capacity to displace humanity with convenient euphemisms; such as "blob of tissue" or "bread-gobblers".

The only thing that reins in that horror is a lack of sufficient power. Our Constitution was specifically designed to prevent that accumulation of power in a central location so as to protect us ALL from such tyranny. Ted Kennedy (like all leftists) spent his whole life trying to tear down those barriers and accumulate that power for himself and his fellow travelers.

The world is not safe so long as such men lurk in the shadows of "good intentions" with their hands clutched on the levers of power.

Jeremiah| 3.21.10 @ 3:10AM

Bravo! Brilliant post--we are in so much trouble with Marxist Obama. God help us.

Teflon93| 8.27.09 @ 9:03AM

Ted Kennedy was a colossal waste of a man.

Had assassin's bullets not claimed two brothers and the war not claimed another, Ted would have been able to fulfill his calling as worthless drunkard without taking the nation with him.

God's reckoning not being that of The New York Times, one presumes Kennedy will at last have answered for the young woman he so callously doomed and the millions of unborn children he sent to the fluorescent-lighted abattoir for the same reason: his political advancement.

It has been 24 hours, right, Quin?

Angel| 8.27.09 @ 3:15PM

Teflon: "Fluorescent lighted abattoir," a heart piercing encapsulation of the savagery of abortion. Brilliant.

Endless quantities of love and grief for Teddy Kennedy so very little for the unborn.

God help us.

María Evangelina Cobo Zaballa| 9.3.09 @ 3:01AM

BLESSED GUARDIAN OF HUMAN RIGHTS!

Edward Moore Kennedy was very young, too much young, to bear all that misfortune, so much sorrow and responsibility. He could have left everything. Who wants jewels with teeth! I mean the political intricacies of holy aqua or atomic cigars. Nobody would have complained. But he took his family’s path and did it well, as well as or better than his three dead brothers, or even better, because he lived enough to demonstrate everywhere, his philosophy of life: the power for the common good. He fought until the last breath to create the health reform, “the cause of his life.”
It was, as predicted by his name, the “blessed guardian” of human rights. There was no point, comma or parenthesis that did not deal fairly. Citizens of all types and skin benefited from his quotidian tenacity; poor, employees, women, children, sick and immigrants. He opposed the war. He faced racism and participated in educational reform.
His speech, Tolerance and Truth, about church and state, should be manual to be read by certain nuclei of coconuts that, having no more clothes to tear, they anoint with ashes the different beliefs, as if they were the only owner of the kingdom. Men of little faith!
The list of well-being bequeathed to all his people is incalculable. The way to be followed indicated by his brilliant and unforgettable star is infinite. It pains me…I am very sorry! With the departure of Edward Moore Kennedy, is leaving us the last hero of a great dynasty. The daily work was his best allied and empathy, without a doubt, his best weapon.
Farewell, blessed guardian of human rights! And do not forget to send my best regards to your family.

SO MANY STUPID LIBERALS| 3.21.10 @ 3:13AM

Yeah, to his family in HELL! Idiot.

asa| 9.10.09 @ 6:32PM

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