TEDDY'S POLITICAL CAREER STARTED
EARLY
Zero, n. What Ted Kennedy got on his
Spanish A final...
http://tafkac.org/collegiate/harvard_legends.html
The myth: Sen. Edward Kennedy '54-'56 was required to withdraw for
two years after cheating on a Spanish final. He had paid someone to take the test for him, and spent the exam period hanging
out in Elsie's -- where he ran into his TF.
The truth: It wasn't Elsie's -- Elsie's didn't exist at the
time. And Kennedy didn't pay the other party to take the test for him. And he didn't personally run into the TF.
Otherwise, the story is right on.
Kennedy did get nailed for cheating. The story is told
in Burton Hersh's _The Education of Edward Kennedy_.
In the spring of 1951, freshman Teddy Kennedy has a Spanish A final
to take. One of his football teammates had a roommate who knew the language very well -- they called him "The
Master of Spanish." Someone joked that the Master should take Teddy's exam for him.
On a whim, the Master agreed. Unfortunately, the Spanish A
exam proctor recognized him. Within minutes of the exam's conclusion, Kennedy got a call from Dean of the College Delmar
Leighton's office. He was nailed: Immediate suspension, readmission to be considered after at least one year off.
Teddy ended up enlisting in the Army during his time off.
After 16 months of service, he returned to Harvard in 1953. From that point on, he trod the straight and narrow, and
graduated in 1956 with a B average.
http://tafkac.org/collegiate/harvard_legends.html
The Chappaquiddick Incident
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy
On July 18, 1969, after a party on Chappaquiddick Island near the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Kennedy, allegedly intoxicated, drove away with Mary Jo Kopechne as a passenger in his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88. According to Kennedy, he made a wrong turn onto an unlit road that led to Dike Bridge (also spelled
Dyke Bridge), a wooden bridge that was angled obliquely to the road, and drove over its side, which had no guardrail. The
car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (at that location a channel) and landed upside down under the water. Kopechne died,
but absent an autopsy, discrepancies exist as to whether she drowned or suffocated. Kennedy claims he tried several times
to swim down to reach her, then rested on the bank for several minutes before returning on foot to the Lawrence Cottage, where
the party attended by Kopechne and other "boiler room girls" had occurred.
Joseph Gargan (Kennedy's cousin) and party co-host Paul Markham then returned to the pond with Kennedy to
try to rescue Kopechne. Though there was a telephone at the Lawrence Cottage, nobody called for help. When their efforts to
rescue Kopechne failed, Kennedy decided to return to his hotel on the mainland. As the ferry had shut down for the night,
Kennedy swam the short distance back to Edgartown.
Some people question his description of his escape from the car, because of his reported back troubles caused
by a 1964 airplane accident, and his claim to have been injured when the car went off the bridge.
Kennedy discussed the accident with several people, including his lawyer, before he was contacted by the police.
The next morning (July 19, 1969), a science teacher and a 15 year-old boy discovered Kennedy's car. Police Chief Dominick Arena called Kennedy
from the house nearest the bridge. Kennedy was given the news that his mother's car had been involved in a fatal accident.
Kopechne's body was discovered by diver John Farrar, who observed that a large amount of air was released from the car when
it was righted in the water, and that the trunk, when opened, was remarkably dry. These observations and others have led some
to believe that Kopechne had not drowned, but suffocated in an air pocket within the car.
The incident quickly blossomed into a scandal. Kennedy was criticized for driving drunk, for failing to come to Kopechne's aid, for failing to summon help,
for contacting not the police but his lawyer first, and for failing to report the accident to the authorities. Because of
a lack of evidence other than Kennedy's own word, allegations persist that he did not try to save Kopechne, and that he intentionally
turned onto the road crossing the bridge going to the beach in order to have sex with her.
Kennedy entered a plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He
received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended. An Edgartown grand jury later reopened the investigation but did not return an indictment.
Kennedy's critics and political opponents question whether justice was served in this case. Rumors periodically
surface of a conspiracy by Kennedy and his family to alter his driving record to obviate charges of negligent homicide, and to influence the Edgartown grand jury.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kennedy
Chappaquiddick: A
Profile in Cowardice
Although he has been a staunch advocate of abortion rights for the past 30 years, Kennedy only adopted this position after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Prior to that, he held a pro-life position. A letter to a constituent, dated August 3, 1971 opposes "the legalization of abortion on demand" saying that it "is not in accordance with the value which our
civilization places on human life." [citation needed] Kennedy's reversal on this issue after Roe v. Wade became a source of continuing dispute between him and
the Roman Catholic Church to which he belongs. In 1987, Kennedy delivered an impassioned speech condemning Supreme Court
nominee Robert Bork as a right-wing extremist and warning that "Robert Bork's America" would be one marked by back alley abortions
and other backward practices. Kennedy's strong opposition to Bork's nomination is commonly seen as a prominent factor
in the Senate's rejection of Bork's candidacy. Similar concerns have been raised in more recent Supreme Court nominations,
as well; it is possible that Kennedy's opposition to Bork set a precedent. In recent years, he has argued that much
of the debate over abortion is a false dichotomy. Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, he remarked, "Surely, we can all agree that abortion should be rare, and that we should do all we can
to help women avoid the need to face that decision." [4]
Ted Kennedy was a strong supporter of the 1965 Hart-Celler Act which dramatically changed US immigration policy. [5] "The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the
standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs." (U.S. Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration
and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, D.C., Feb. 10, 1965. pp. 1-3.). Kennedy is now the ranking
Democrat on the Senate Committee on Immigration, and remains a strong advocate of high levels of immigration.
War On Terrorism
Though a supporter of the American-led 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, Senator Kennedy is a vocal
critic of the American-led 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. He has also been a harsh critic of the way the
war was planned and conducted by the Bush Administration.
Of particular concern to Sen. Kennedy is the U.S.A.'s treatment of the prisoners taken in the War on Terrorism. Applying standards of human rights that are available to all Americans, he believes there should be no difference between
the treatment of accused terrorists and the treatment of accused criminals in the U.S.A., such as the right to a speedy trial
(or the suspect should be released), and the right to legal representation.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
On September 27, 2004, Sen. Kennedy made a speech on the Senate floor regarding the war in Iraq, just prior to the 2004
U.S. Presidential election. [10]
The accident at Chappaquiddick, along with continuing allegations of heavy drinking, drug use, and womanizing have haunted
Kennedy's reputation and hampered his political career through the decades since it transpired. He withdrew in 1974 from the 1976 presidential race and failed in a 1980 primary challenge to Jimmy Carter. Critics have specifically pointed to allegations that he and fellow Senator Christopher Dodd assaulted a waitress at Washington DC's La Brasserie restaurant in 1985 and a night of barhopping in 1991 with his nephew William Kennedy Smith which culminated in Smith's trial and acquittal for rape.
In 1991, during the Clarence Thomas hearings, Kennedy's career reached what has been called a low ebb. Journalist Anna Quindlen wrote that he "let us down because he had to; he was muzzled by the facts of his life." The Boston Globe, editorialized that his "reputation as a womanizer made him an inappropriate and non-credible" critic of Thomas.
Ted Kennedy's Club Discriminated
http://www.newsmax.com/adv/kennedy/?PROMO_CODE=19E6-1
When Ted Kennedy tried to chastise Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito for his one-time membership in a
group opposed to admitting more women and minorities to Princeton, the pot was calling the kettle black.
Sen. Kennedy still belongs to a social club for Harvard students and alumni that was thrown off campus
nearly 20 years ago after refusing to allow female members, an investigation by the Washington Times reveals.
|
|
The book Ted Kennedy
doesn't want you to read - Go Here Now. | |
According to the membership directory of the Owl Club, Kennedy updated his personal information as recently
as September 7.
Ironically, the Owl Club, long reviled at Harvard as "sexist," was evicted from the campus in 1984 for
violating federal anti-discrimination laws authored by Kennedy.
"It's a social club. It's like a fraternity."
But according to the Times, Harvard views organizations such as the Owl Club quite differently from fraternities
and sororities, which are considered a form of housing and therefore are not coeducational.
Kennedy's hypocritical attack on Alito over his membership in CAP would come as no surprise to readers
of the blockbuster new book "Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy" by bestselling author Peter Schweizer.
In his book Schweizer discloses that while Kennedy has fought for the estate tax and spoken out against
tax shelters, he has repeatedly benefited from an intricate web of trusts and private foundations that have shielded most
of his family's fortune from the IRS.
One Kennedy family trust wasn't even set up in the U.S., but in Fiji.
Schweizer also reveals that while Kennedy has championed the development of alternate energy sources,
he opposed a plan to build a wind-power generating facility to provide clean, cheap power to Cape Cod.
The reason: The wind turbines would be positioned off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis,
in one of the family's favorite yachting and sailing areas.
|
