I wanted to point out this excellent remembrance of Ted Kennedy, which is particularly relevant to some of the discussion that’s been going on here at “Alas” recently. Melissa writes:
Senator Edward Kennedy was a tough guy. He was smart, tenacious, opinionated, strong in body, mind, and spirit. And I think because he was such a tough guy, he won’t mind if I don’t share my real and uncensored thoughts on the occasion of his passing.
Teddy, as he was known, was privileged, in every sense of the word. And he made liberal use of his privilege, in ways I admired and ways I did not. The terrible bargain we all seem to have made with Teddy is that we overlooked the occasions when he invoked his privilege as a powerful and well-connected man from a prominent family, because of the career he made using that same privilege to try to make the world a better place for the people dealt a different lot.
Twice, Teddy did despicable things with his privilege, very publicly.
Excellent. Thanks for sharing it. (I think she spells her name the traditional way, though: Melissa.)
[Whoops! Thanks, fixed. –Amp]
Not bad. Obviously I have different conclusions about some of the policies that Ted Kennedy pursued in the Senate. But I’ll go along with the concept that Ted Kennedy genuinely had concern for those less fortunate than him – which is just about everyone, when you think about it. I think he was quite in error about what the best way to act based on that concern was, but I won’t impugn his motives. You can believe that a man is wrong without believing that he’s evil. Unfortunately, many people at both extreme ends of American politics don’t see that. Do not count me among them.
A very good exposition on his personal life. I actually have some sympathy for Ted Kennedy’s personal turmoil. I’m the youngest of 3 brothers, as he was the youngest of 4. I looked up to them, despite their flaws. I can’t imagine what effect it would have had on my personality if I had seen them both gunned down in the midst of historic achievement – and then had to take some responsibility for raising their children as well as my own in the bargain. I don’t know about this “Lion of the Senate” thing, but “rock of our family” I can easily believe, and admire. That burden would have crushed many.
That does not excuse what he did in his personal life, but it puts a human face on any attempt to reach an accounting of why he did it.
Chappaquiddick led to the death of an innocent woman. It is perhaps ironic that it also likely made him into the Senator that he became. Without Chappaquiddick he likely would have run for President, and possibly would have won. In either case it’s entirely possible that he would have put so much energy into either the chase or the achievement that he would have been out of the Senate, one way or another, after 2 or 3 terms. But Chappaquiddick put the Presidency out of his reach in terms that even he had to acknowledge, so he put his energy and effort into being what his brothers did not during their lives and could not because of their deaths.
The heroic tributes threaten to make a myth of Ted Kennedy. Let’s not. The human was so much more interesting, and has a lot more lessons to teach.
Yeah, good Realpolitik. Otto von Bismarck as Feminist is Melissa.
Crossed-threads: Daisy cites Melissa’s point to straighten out some commenters who don’t know much about the Smith trial.
I agree that Melissa’s post is awesome and that Jeff made a serious mistake in offering a “He wasn’t perfect” paragraph that ignored the gravity of those “imperfections.” If you’re gonna acknowledge a guy’s sins, don’t go halfway like that.
Josh,
I’m going to write a longer comment about this when I have time and have finished doing my research instead of just relying on the memory of something that happened 18 years ago, but Melissa makes at least one dubious implication in her account of the William Kennedy Smith trial (though as I said @1, I think it’s an excellent post overall): “His accuser’s identity was made public. Teddy’s privilege allowed him to pull strings on his own behalf and on his nephew’s behalf in criminal situations where one woman ended up dead and another raped. That is one of the many things the sort of limitless privilege like Teddy’s allows—and he made use of it.”
The Kennedys did not make Smith’s accuser’s identity public. On the contrary, her identity was well-known in Palm Beach; her attorney quickly went on Larry King to discuss the case; and much of the media debated whether or not to state her name when covering the case. NBC News was the first to do so, about two weeks after the accusation became publicized along with rumors that Ted and Patrick Kennedy were involved in the rape. There’s no indication that the Kennedys’ influence had anything to do with NBC’s decision; Michael Gartner, then the president of NBC News, had a longstanding policy of preferring to state the accuser’s name in any criminal matter where the accuser was an adult. NBC’s lead was then followed by many news organizations, including the NYTimes, which published a profile of the accused that indicated that she was not without resources and influence herself, as the step-daughter of a wealthy industrialist who supported her financially.
So I don’t think Melissa’s implication that the Kennedys “outed” Smith’s accuser to the media or in some other way directly caused her name to be publicized is accurate. The fact that a Kennedy relative was the accused rapist made the case of national interest in the first place, but it’s unfair to Ted Kennedy to say that is his fault rather than the fault of our media, and in turn the fault of a gossipy American public.
I must say that I think Melissa had a much more accurate, and much more representative summing up of Kennedy’s life.
Props, Ups, Kudos as appropriate.