The Kennedys

According the President Carter, Ted Kennedy personally killed health care legislation for political reasons and that is why we are still struggling with it today.

I'm not saying that I doubt what Carter is saying - I have no way of knowing for sure either way - but why didn't he state this openly at the time?

I have no problem with the word heroic. I was opposed to everything Ted Kennedy stood for, except for the failed McCain/Kennedy bill, but I never doubted the man's sincerity.

I was no fan of JFK. I did not like early RFK, but came to support him for president. Ted Kennedy is a mixed bag. Not worth a crap early on, then blocking health legislation. In his later years I liked him very much.

I have a complex reaction to Ted Kennedy. I can't say i have a good reason to doubt his sincerity, but i do. I think he was a consummate machine politician, and i'd say that was always his motive. I think Bobby Kennedy was the one really heroic member of that family who was in the political line. He openly spoke out against that Vietnam War at a time when that was not the reaction of the political mainstream. I think Jack Kennedy was sincere about his legilative program--Social Security Survivors' Benefits, Social Security Disability, and his civil rights program. I also think that he had an aristocratic view of himself, that he saw himself as free of normal social constraints because of who he was.

All of these are feelings, and i can't really say i have any evidence to condemn either Jack or Ted. I do think the public record of Bobby entitles him to the mantle of heroism.

Why did you change your mind about him later on?

Why did you change your mind about him? Who in history is your hero?

What is your health care legislation in America? I live in Australia and our is quite different. We have something called medicare which entitles every one to medical help.

Which one? Robert? When he was attorny general, I thought of him as ruthless and heavy-handed. He underwent a transformation and became a spokesman for ending the war. I can't say for sure what he would have done, re social programs, but I felt he would push the kind of liberalism I support.

Why did you support Bobby Kenendy later

One can suggest the likes of Theodore Roosevelt as an almost epic hero.

I have many heroes. ML King, Tom Paine, the Veterans against the Vietnam War, F Roosevelt, to name a few.

Edgar, you're a tad too informal with Mr. THOMAS Paine....

Me n Tom go back a ways. Unless he's in his cups, he's often informal with me.

I have always held the Kennedys in contempt.





David

I bet Mary Jo Kopechne 's family woud deem that strange enuf.

He got away with homicide,
of his own friend and supporter.





David

Who was Mary Jo Kopechne?

Now I remember the women who got killed.

She was a friend and a political campaign worker for your favorite Kennedy.
He was driving her home one night, when he drove
off the side of a bridge into a lake. His car sunk, fully submerged.
He swam to safety and left Mary Jo in his car.
She was in an air pocket in his car.
He then booked himself into a hotel room, silently,
telling no one of Mary Jo 's desperate plight.
He left her there until the following afternoon.
In the meantime, he was on the fone to his attorneys and to his political advisors, thru the night.
(Driving While Intoxicated is a felony, especially if he kills someone.)

Eventually, after he had plenty of time to metabolize any alcohol that he had in his system,
he informed the police and his car was pulled out, with Mary Jo still in it, in her air pocket,
whose oxygen had been exhausted long before, while she waited for help in the cold water
all those hours while your favorite Kennedy was calling for political advice
from his experts across America.

That is what he did to his friend.
It was pretty close to murder; (his silence).
If he had given the alarm when he swam
to the hotel, and called for help,
then thay coud have rescued her much sooner,
but then the police woud have subjected him
to a test for alcohol (Driving While Intoxicated).
He woud have been subject to a prison sentence
and it woud not have looked good for his Presidential campaign.