Quotes of the day
posted at 9:30 pm on August 29, 2009 by Allahpundit
“But if you are sympathetic to Kennedy and his politics, as I am, you’re mindful that the accident at Chappaquiddick happened in 1969, the year after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. (Ted, just 36 and the last of the brothers, shouldered the burden of 11 more fatherless nieces and nephews.) You’re also willing to measure the benefits that Kennedy brought to countless people through his politics, and give them proper weight on the scales of the man’s record. Finally, if you measure his capacity to reform himself, you tip the scales further…
For some women, reverence for Kennedy stopped with Chappaquiddick. The rest of us have a very different view: Kennedy had the gift of time to make amends, and we were the beneficiaries of that.”
***
“We are all flawed, and most of us are weak, and in hellish moments, at a split-second’s notice, confronting the choice that will define us ever after, many of us will fail the test. Perhaps Mary Jo could have been saved; perhaps she would have died anyway. What is true is that Edward Kennedy made her death a certainty. When a man (if you’ll forgive the expression) confronts the truth of what he has done, what does honor require?…
Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the ‘Kennedy curse,’ a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim — and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation…
The senator’s actions in the hours and days after emerging from that pond tell us something ugly about Kennedy the man. That he got away with it tells us something ugly about American public life.”
Blowback
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Steyn has the precision of a deft surgeon. He always manages to find the malignant cancer in lefty loon thinking.
atheling on August 29, 2009 at 9:34 PM
I am not. I’m hoping his death was painful.
highhopes on August 29, 2009 at 9:35 PM
Awwww…poor widdle multi-millionaire pervy sot.
ddrintn on August 29, 2009 at 9:37 PM
Nice job with that.
Buddahpundit on August 29, 2009 at 9:38 PM
That, folks, is moral bankruptcy.
ddrintn on August 29, 2009 at 9:38 PM
seriously?
cmsinaz on August 29, 2009 at 9:40 PM
Amen
cmsinaz on August 29, 2009 at 9:42 PM
Great question, Mr. Steyn.
SouthernGent on August 29, 2009 at 9:43 PM
Because Teddy stopped behaving badly around women after Chappaquiddick – NOT.
Realist on August 29, 2009 at 9:43 PM
Too bad Mary Jo didn’t have the “gift of time”. Who knows who might have benefited.
gina4 on August 29, 2009 at 9:44 PM
“We?” I’m not an abortionist or on foodstamps, nor do I own a European liquor export business or a crooked Massachusetts construction company.
TMK on August 29, 2009 at 9:46 PM
Ted Kennedy in his 40+ years in politics did more damage to this country than any other person I can think of. We will all be better off without his influence in Congress. Please, dear God, enough with the Kennedys!
silvernana on August 29, 2009 at 9:48 PM
The tragic fact is that Ted was directly responsible for the death of an innocent woman. He committed vehicular/negligent homicide or at the very least manslaughter. The only reason he was never tried or convicted was due to the mythical aura that makes the Kennedys some form of American royalty. If Joe Schmoe had been driving Mrs. Kopechne that fateful night, his ass would have been hauled to court and he would most likely have been rightfully convicted. The bigger insult is that the Kennedys, and particulary Ted, are held up by the left as champions of the lower classes when in fact they have a bad habit of abusing and even killing them.
Fletch54 on August 29, 2009 at 9:48 PM
A little more info – in case you conservative Gen X or Yers didn’t know:
The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne’s body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that “had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim’s side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car.”
The dear revered senator waited 11 hours.
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 9:49 PM
Why was Teddy driving to the beach at midnight with a woman in the back seat of his Olds?
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 9:51 PM
He didn’t just wait. He went to bed.
Fletch54 on August 29, 2009 at 9:51 PM
He never made amends. Let’s make that point clear as the mythology this week goes on.
highhopes on August 29, 2009 at 9:52 PM
It takes a certain warped way of thinking to justify this sack of excrement’s actions. Liberal have no shame.
farright on August 29, 2009 at 9:52 PM
OT:
I bet I saw a pic of a real molecule before you did. Holy cow.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 9:52 PM
Nothing like a little “enabling” by the press. That’s what they call it in AA.
And he did a fine job with those kids, now didn’t he. How many of them are drunks, drug abusers, cheat on their spouses or are just plain stupid?
Knucklehead on August 29, 2009 at 9:53 PM
Jesus, are Barry and Teddy having a contest to see who can set back the forward march of racial and gender equality the most, the fastest?
Sure looks like it. The only reason my respect for both those causes is not at absolute zero is that I know full well that they have both been politcal prisoners for many years.
Talk about “Follow the Money”! How about “Follow the Power?”
Think about it, women. Think about it, minorities. What happens to the power of the Democrat Party when you are totally empowered and need no help?
Hmmmm?
drunyan8315 on August 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM
I don’t think it would be “piling on” if I suggested that Kennedy got away with far more than we could even guess. Much more, certainly, than has ever been reported.
It seems to have run in the jeans….No, genes…..No, jeans was right the first time. Like his father and brothers before him, he got away with just about everything imaginable, except he went them all one better. Nothing – I repeat, Nothing – Ted Kennedy did in his lifetime can ever offset what he did to Mary Jo Kopechne.
GoldenEagle4444 on August 29, 2009 at 9:55 PM
He wanted to dictate the plan for single payer nationalized healthcare. :-0
highhopes on August 29, 2009 at 9:56 PM
Mary Jo Kopechne do what you want with Ted Kennedys soul
Denniscat on August 29, 2009 at 9:56 PM
After a plane crash in 1965, a fellow Senator risked his life by going back to rescue Teddy by pulling him through a hole in the wreckage.
In 1969, Teddy wrecked a car in 7 feet of water, left a girl gasping for air in a space in the overturned floorboard, went to his hotel, took a hot bath, crawled under some warm covers, and slept a peaceful night’s sleep.
What a man to honor in RE Lee’s yard.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 9:57 PM
Not to mention murderer.
atheling on August 29, 2009 at 9:57 PM
It’s too much to hope for, I know, but I am praying that tomorrow sees the end of the Kennedypalooza and we can all get back to the serious business at hand, which is somehow saving this nation from the totalitarian thuggery of Osama Obama.
Not that we’ll get any help from the criminal slimeballs in Congress….
MrScribbler on August 29, 2009 at 9:57 PM
And the nephew with a father was a rapist. Or is that acquitted rapist?
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 9:58 PM
I wasn’t alive during the whole Camelot puke fest thank goodness.
I can’t beleive people are totally forgetting he left a woman to die and never thought twice about it. This man was no moral center, he was no great man. He left a woman to die in his car and never even attempted to help her.
I just don’t get it.
gophergirl on August 29, 2009 at 10:00 PM
It’s not too late to ask Senator Kerry to serve Teddy’s prison sentence now that Teddy cannot provide the memory of Mary Jo with that necessary bit of Justice.
jay12 on August 29, 2009 at 10:00 PM
believe = beleive
stupid long nails
gophergirl on August 29, 2009 at 10:00 PM
I have always felt that he spent his life at every level, personal, political, emotional, etc.. trying to earn his way back by “paying” for what he did to Mary Jo.
Now we are hearing about the personal notes, the endless meetings with constituents, and endless remembrances of countless ‘regular folks’ birthdays and such. These are the actions of one who seems to have known, at least at some level, that he owed the world something that he could never pay back.
He was a pitiful man. Pathetic, really. Philandering and drinking as a result of his emotional frailties… and performing these endless acts of “good will” to some how do penance and salve his own conscience for his hand in Mary Jo’s death.
LEBA on August 29, 2009 at 10:01 PM
I think this quote from Grover Norquist that appeared in a Washington Post article today sums up Teddy The K more than anything else:
“He was given everything he had in life…..He didn’t earn anything. He is Thurston Howell III, and he has the nerve to say to people who built small businesses, restaurants and gas stations that they should have their money stolen from them” through higher taxes.”
That pretty much sums up the “Liberal’s Lion” to a T.
pilamaye on August 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM
What I would like to know is what qualified the turd for burial in Arlington with Americas hero’s. I feel like we are now in an alternate universe.
farright on August 29, 2009 at 10:03 PM
I doubt it, since I’m the guy who shook the Polaroid.
;)
TMK on August 29, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Yeah that too – WTF?
gophergirl on August 29, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Rationalization of evil for political expediency. Wow.
jimmy2shoes on August 29, 2009 at 10:04 PM
He told police he tried 3-4 times to get to her. Then he got 2 of his friends from the cottage – they spent 15 minutes trying to get to her.
So, he may have tried to save her – sort of. He never called police that night – like most people would.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:05 PM
The GOP better not be buying any of this sentimental horse excrement that the obamedia is selling about Kennedy and some weepy need to ruin the health care system in tribute.
Yes Kennedy was destructive and largely troublesome and troubled but please let the carnage to the nation die with him!
clnurnberg on August 29, 2009 at 10:05 PM
……….um………….
Mommypundit on August 29, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Same thing that qualified him for an annulment after decades of marriage to poor Joan. He put her through a living hell.
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Well, that was quite an interesting read. I knew he was a murderer, but didn’t know he was also a major loser and a drunk.
The Kennedy clan put the “D” in dysfunctional. Is there a picture of them in the Webster’s dictionary next to that word?
Knucklehead on August 29, 2009 at 10:05 PM
Allahpundit, you have been on a Quote of the Day hot streak…
mjbrooks3 on August 29, 2009 at 10:06 PM
I’m sure he had the most painless death money could buy, a death he would deny to the rest of us.
clnurnberg on August 29, 2009 at 10:07 PM
He is not a good man. He is not even a decent man. He is absolutely undeserving of all the hoopla surrounding his passing. I think he is a black mark on American politics, as a whole. How embarrassing for this country that they have lionized a man guilty of homicide and multiple sexual assaults against vulnerable women. Liberals are the most immoral people on Earth.
TXMomof3 on August 29, 2009 at 10:07 PM
I didn’t know he supposedly tried to help but yeah you think the first thing you would do is get the authorities to the site – you know people trained to get people out.
Regardless – he should have went to jail period.
gophergirl on August 29, 2009 at 10:08 PM
Probably didn’t even have to take the blue pill.
farright on August 29, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Heck, if Saint Teddy of Seagram had had his way, his dogs would have died a more painless death than most of us…
Upstater85 on August 29, 2009 at 10:09 PM
Character is the measure of a man…
Dig that grave deep.
mjbrooks3 on August 29, 2009 at 10:10 PM
His former wife Joan had a miscarriage right after Teddy made her go with him to Mary Jo’s funeral.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Maybe trying to retrieve the body for discreet disposal. Who knows with that perv (may he rest in peace).
ddrintn on August 29, 2009 at 10:10 PM
I read somewhere that he had to walk past a fire station on the way to his hotel room.
farright on August 29, 2009 at 10:11 PM
So Kennedy made amends for his role in Kopechne’s death by making life worse for women, minorities, and everyone else? How does that work again?
JohnJ on August 29, 2009 at 10:11 PM
I likes Thurston Howell III better than Kennedy, at least Mr. Howell stuck with Lovey and was always in favor of making more money. He didn’t run for office and stick it to the middle class while exempting daddy’s bootleg cash trust fund.
clnurnberg on August 29, 2009 at 10:11 PM
15 minutes, huh? Some lion…
JohnJ on August 29, 2009 at 10:12 PM
I like Mark Steyn. He always tells it like it is. Rush is off this week. I hope he’s the fill-in. If the Dems think they’re going to get the country to back Healthcare Reform using The Swimmer’s name, they are in for a rude awakening.
kingsjester on August 29, 2009 at 10:12 PM
+100. Thread winner.
Theophile on August 29, 2009 at 10:12 PM
I can’t believe I haven’t seen more “Lyin’ of the Senate” stuff.
JohnJ on August 29, 2009 at 10:13 PM
Great PDF files here from the FBI on Chappaquiddick (part 01 and part 02)
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:14 PM
+1
fesofee on August 29, 2009 at 10:14 PM
2 thoughts: 1 – Steyn is brilliant. 2 – The left will demonize the military for political gain, but they still want to be buried by heroes.
Spirit of 1776 on August 29, 2009 at 10:15 PM
the bottom line was that she was nothing but a __________ (fill in whatever misogynist word you want). That’s what the Kennedys were about. The only reason they were pro abortion was because abortion was a way out of personal male responsibility. Scrape the ho out and just move along.
bloggless on August 29, 2009 at 10:15 PM
Naww… the left just knows that once Obama establishes his domestic thought army (ACORN), they too will get to be buried next to St. Teddy.
Upstater85 on August 29, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Oh can I say if there is any justice in this world – a Republican wins that seat
gophergirl on August 29, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Believe it or not, but that BOS was actually in the army for two years once.
His name got him out.
Lanceman on August 29, 2009 at 10:17 PM
Real OT, but important……
We need to watch the results of the election in Japan tomorrow.
In an indication of the scale of the defeat facing the prime minister, Taro Aso, a poll in today’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper suggested the LDP’s strength in the lower house could be more than halved to about 100 seats, with the opposition taking as many as 320 seats in the 480-seat chamber.
If economic meltdown wasn’t enough to contend with, Aso’s hapless administration has been dragged into the mire by charges of sleaze and incompetence, their corrosive effects magnified by his knack for gaffes.
As Japan grapples with rising unemployment, population decline and a creaking state pension, the certainties of the postwar era have disappeared, and with them the LDP’s sense of entitlement as the natural party of government
We can only hope for the same results in 2010.
Knucklehead on August 29, 2009 at 10:18 PM
This gives a good summary of the chain of events. Have your Maalox nearby, it’s pretty sickening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 10:18 PM
He was willing to try to save her as long as it would not involve him in scandal. When forced to choose between doing all her could to save her and keeping the accident quiet, he chose the latter.
“Lion” of the Senate. Kiss My _ _ _.
PackerBronco on August 29, 2009 at 10:19 PM
Good line, Upstater, good line.
Spirit of 1776 on August 29, 2009 at 10:20 PM
I wish I could’ve claimed it as mine, but we all know who really coined that one… :/
Upstater85 on August 29, 2009 at 10:21 PM
It’s interesting, Now that he’s dead liberals are feeling this need to justify why they continued to support Kennedy after Chappaquiddick.
Maybe they think we’ll believe there was a secret bargain here. Kennedy got the free pass but he still had to earn it.
Nobody can know if Kennedy ever sought forgiveness privately his maker for what he did that terrible night. But while he was alive neither he nor the Democrats ever acted as if he needed absolution for anything. Why bother claiming redemption for him now?
Bennett on August 29, 2009 at 10:21 PM
I had never heard that before. Not very impressive as follows.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:21 PM
Eleanor Clift: Willfully blind to facts, amorally and immorally corrupt, partisan hack, sneering snob, ugly through and through, tediously boring. Those are the best things I can say about her.
Loxodonta on August 29, 2009 at 10:22 PM
“I can put aside what he did to that woman because I agree with his politics.” At least she’s honest.
Jim Treacher on August 29, 2009 at 10:23 PM
My 72-year-old mother today is listening to some talking head or another laud Kennedy, and she thinks about it for a few minutes and then says: “You know, it’s pretty darn easy to dedicate your life to ‘the poor’ when you’re born wealthy, never have to work a day in your life, never have to worry about paying a bill, making a mortgage, sending your kid to college. What the hell else are you going to do with your life? Where was his sacrifice? What price did he pay for all these supposed good works except a thousand pats on the back? And when he helped the poor, he did it with my money! His life was essentially a testament to himself and his own greatness, and he did it on someone else’s dime.”
Rational Thought on August 29, 2009 at 10:24 PM
With all her intellectual hubris, it is a pity that Eleanor Clift wasn’t in that back seat instead of Mary Jo… It would have saved us from today’s Quote of the Day, and that would been worth it to me…
Khun Joe on August 29, 2009 at 10:24 PM
All the hours last night and all day today with Fox covering it all – that’s the treatment for a president’s funeral, not a senator’s. Has that ever been done for a Senator before? I thought poor old Shepard Smith was going to cry last night after the memorial. It was sickening. I will be anxious to see their ratings for this coverage on any channel. I don’t think they realize that we out in middle America are not enamored with the Kennedys.
silvernana on August 29, 2009 at 10:25 PM
Hey, my buddy Upstater, What happened to the Lady?
She on vacation or something?
Lanceman on August 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM
How dare you besmirch honesty with that comparison!
Loxodonta on August 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Perhaps a minor point (not to me), but many vets had their funerals cancelled today to accomodate this turd.
Real vets, real heroes.
reaganaut on August 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Obama Stimulates Prisoners
Ugly on August 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM
Lee Harvey Oswald killed someone and has meet what many consider justice.
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan killed someone and has meet what many consider justice.
Ted Kennedy killed someone and…
If you are willing to rationalize murder to advance your principles, what does that say about your principles…
elgeneralisimo on August 29, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Actually, I finally figured this out about liberals.
They want to be “concerned” about the poor and the environment. But they don’t want to really “do” anything – or spend their money on it.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Think so. She was around earlier…
Upstater85 on August 29, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Almost as big as MJ’s funeral.
faraway on August 29, 2009 at 10:28 PM
I would have thought at least Fox would bring up Mary Jo’s name. I could only stomach watching a few minutes at a time, but didn’t hear her name at all. And don’t even get me started on Shep.
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 10:28 PM
What do you expect from people who believe in Moral Equivalency ?
Murder, Arson, Rape, stealing are all ok if the end justifies the agenda. We can kill thousands of unborns and that is OK and push to get rid of the elderly but its wrong of a country to hold it political leaders to an acceptible standard ?
William Amos on August 29, 2009 at 10:30 PM
When I was a lad
And ol’ Shep was a pup…
Well, you know how the song ends.
Lanceman on August 29, 2009 at 10:30 PM
yeah, we benefited alright, why we might have ended up with another constitutionalists on the court, had it not been for ol Teddy Borking the guy.
And who knows how things would have worked out the the Soviets and arms control negotiations if ol Teddy had not been sending secret messages to the Kremlin on our behalf to thwart that 8astard Reagan.
I can’t begin to list all the reasons we should be thankful that Mary Jo died that night and not the heir to Camelot.
conservnut on August 29, 2009 at 10:30 PM
“Murder, Arson, Rape, stealing are all ok if” you vote for ObamaCare.
Loxodonta on August 29, 2009 at 10:31 PM
On a side not I would like to thank Hot Air for turning me on to Mega Shark Verse Giant Octopus. Its worse then I thought and currently on scifi. Although it is better then the Kennedy coverage.
rob verdi on August 29, 2009 at 10:32 PM
side note
rob verdi on August 29, 2009 at 10:32 PM
rob verdi on August 29, 2009 at 10:32 PM
It’s okay, Rob. You’re not missing anything. Geraldo is on.
kingsjester on August 29, 2009 at 10:33 PM
Bite me.
Kralizec on August 29, 2009 at 10:33 PM
And Chris Wallace also had his lips firmly attached to the Kennedy crap today.
Knucklehead on August 29, 2009 at 10:33 PM
And thanks to his Immigration Act of ’65 which “wasn’t going to change the make up of this country”, I can now look proudly at the Home Depot day labor center down the street which has destroyed property values and turned the area into a barrio. Boy we’ve got so much to thank him for.
TxAnn56 on August 29, 2009 at 10:34 PM
I can pretty much guarantee you, folks.
Tedward Kennedy will not be coming back to this earth as a part of the rich, privileged ruling-class.
In fact, it’ll be many eons before he earns enough credits to come back at all.
Lanceman on August 29, 2009 at 10:35 PM
I thought he was “coming back” in the form of fertilizer.
Upstater85 on August 29, 2009 at 10:36 PM
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