RIP Ted Kennedy

[The Senator]

Mussolini made the trains run on time. George Bush threw a nice opening pitch. See...its not impossible to find something nice to say. Gotta admit that Hitler and Cheney are a bit of a stretch though.

Thanks. Where the f&kc have I been? I didn't even realize that Bush and Cheney were dead.

[The Senator]

Given your posts, I'm surprised the judge isn't grateful when you're late.

 

I'm looking forward to your cast of characters and erudite historians given the tenor of your first reference

Careful what you wish for.

 

I'm glad you did not refute the Drunken Ted/Chris Dodd waitress-abusing/restaurant-demolition story recounted in the Washington Times, and relieved that you made no attempt to impugn or refute the rape victim, Patricia Bowman.

[The Senator]

The bay of pigs was a debacle, but a cia debacle inherited from Eisenhower.

So George W. Bush inherited the Al-Qaeda problem from Bill Clinton, and Clinton's failure to deal with Osama Bin Laden is the reason we had 9/11.

 

I never thought someone of your ilk would have admitted that, but thanks for clearing that up.

 

The Missile Crisis, the Peace Corps, the Civil rights legislation pushed through after his assassination were significant.

Damned right the missile crisis was significant - JFK and his inexperienced, naive band of Harvard ninnies nearly blew up the planet.

 

I'll concede that the Peace Corps provided a haven for a generation of wayward idealists while accomplishing a modicum of good, but the Civil Rights Act was Johnson's baby. The Kennedy brothers were more interested in reelection than civil rights, never trusted MLK, and kept him 'at arm's length' - going so far as to wiretap his phones.

 

As to Ted Kennedy, lest the good be interred with his bones.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/us/polit...tml?_r=1&hp

You are obviously a huge admirer of the late senator - you should get one of these commemorative t-shirts...

 

Ted Kennedy 1932-2009

 

As to murder...sit down with the retired judge and look at the penal law definition and get back to me how you see mens rea or for that matter the actus reus that would justify such a charge...especially since no judge or grand jury made it at the time?

First, you are not that naive enough to think that the 'Kennedy Machine' did not bring to bear all of its resources to ensure that Teddy received nothing more than a suspended sentence for the misdemeanor crime of 'leaving the scene of an accident', after failing to report the incident for 10 hours, are you?

 

Perhaps statements by the foreman of that grand jury may persuade you otherwise...

 

Juror Alleges Coverup on Chappaquiddick

 

Second, you are not silly enough to suggest that everyone gets that kind of preferential treatment, are you?

 

Ex-attorney sentenced in fatal hit-and-run

 

I'm quite comfortable stating that Kennedy's actions that night - namely, getting behind the wheel of a car while under the influence, driving off a bridge, then failing to report the incident for 10 hours while his passenger (who many say could have been saved had Kennedy acted immediately) struggled until her dying breath to find pockets of air - meet the legal definition of murder -

 

The precise definition of murder varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Under the Common Law, or law made by courts, murder was the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The term malice aforethought did not necessarily mean that the killer planned or premeditated on the killing, or that he or she felt malice toward the victim. Generally, malice aforethought referred to a level of intent or recklessness that separated murder from other killings and warranted stiffer punishment.

 

The definition of murder has evolved over several centuries. Under most modern statutes in the United States, murder comes in four varieties: (1) intentional murder; (2) a killing that resulted from the intent to do serious bodily injury; (3) a killing that resulted from a depraved heart or extreme recklessness; and (4) murder committed by an Accomplice during the commission of, attempt of, or flight from certain felonies.

 

Some jurisdictions still use the term malice aforethought to define intentional murder, but many have changed or elaborated on the term in order to describe more clearly a murderous state of mind. California has retained the malice aforethought definition of murder (Cal. Penal Code § 187 [West 1996]). It also maintains a statute that defines the term malice. Under section 188 of the California Penal Code, malice is divided into two types: express and implied. Express malice exists "when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature." Malice may be implied by a judge or jury "when no considerable provocation appears, or when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart."

 

Oh...where are those 20 items you promised after the crap you were posting yesterday as holy writ from the whacko right?

I've already given you the one above (the one about the Chappaquiddick grand jury foreman alleging a cover-up) from your Bible - The New York Times - so I guess I owe you 19 more.

 

And since you didn't refute the Washington Times restaurant story about TK and Chris Dodd attacking the waitress in the room known as 'Ted Kennedy's Fun Room' and breaking up the place (behavior for which you, I, and most others would surely have been arrested), let's make it 18 more.

 

And since you didn't refute or try to discredit the rape victim, Patricia Bowman (thank you for that), we'll whittle it down to 17.

 

Here ya go, starting with an actual participant in the events of July 18, 1969...

 

1.) Chappaquiddick Diver John Farrar

 

And continuing...

 

Two decades after the horrific event more light was shed on the cover-up when the foreman of the grand jury that investigated the accident, came forward and confessed that the panel was pressured by a judge and a prosecutor not to pursue the case. The foreman said the jury was manipulated and blocked from doing its job.

 

Regardless of this shameful event, Kennedy remains a fixture in the U.S. Senate. He usually loves the media, but made sure to avoid reporters when Gwen Kopechne died this week in a Plains Township nursing home. She was 89 and never got over the death of her only daughter.

 

2.) Link - Sen. Ted Kennedy Outlives Family He Ruined

 

And...

 

Just past midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, just off Cape Cod. The Senator escaped a watery death, but a passenger in his car, twenty-eight-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not.

 

The Democrat icon murderer, Ted 'Splash' Kennedy best represents the decadent and immoral standard of the utterly debased and corrupt Democrat party. He is their lion, their standard bearer (more like pall bearer).

 

"Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger." - George Killen ~ State Police Detective-Lieutenant who investigated the accident

 

3.) Link - Mary Jo Kopechne, it was forty years ago today

 

Continuing on...

 

Once he reached shore, Kennedy claims to have made seven or eight attempts to rescue Kopechne, but could not free her.

 

Kennedy then walked back to the cottage where he and four other men, were partying with several young women known as the “Boiler Room Girls“ who had worked on Robert Kennedy‘s campaign. Though Kennedy passed by a fire station and a private home to return to the cottage, he never stopped to ask for help for the trapped Kopechne.

 

He returned to the party and according to Kennedy himself, informed his cousin and a friend of the situation. The two men, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham claim to have returned to the scene of the accident and made several unsuccessful attempts to free Kopechne.

 

Then Kennedy’s story takes an even stranger turn.

 

After the failed rescue attempts, Kennedy claims to have jumped back into the water and made the 500-foot swim across the channel back to Edgartown. He then walked back to his hotel and spent the night. He even took the time to change clothes and pay a visit to the front-desk, to complain about a noisy party--no doubt Kennedy's sloppy attempt at securing an alibi.

 

The next morning, Gargan and Markham, who finally reported the incident around 8:00 a.m., were supposedly shocked to discover that Kennedy never reported the accident to police.

4.) Link - Kennedy's story still doubtful

 

One last reference to the events of July 18/19, 1969...

 

Manslaughter might have been forgiven if Kennedy hadn't decided to evade responsibility for the accident and cover it up by failing to report it, trying to co-opt one of his aides to cop to being the driver, and then leaving them to try and fix it for him for over seven hours.

 

Worse, Mary Jo Kopechne, whose drowned body was found in a position trying to eke out the last molecules of air within the submerged car, was left to drown by the self-involved Senator who chose not to seek immediate help.

 

5.) Link - Death at Chappaquiddick: Mary Jo WHO?

 

 

And now for some books, articles, and authors - along with their opinions of Ted, his neglect of his first wife Joan, his cheating on her, her subsequent descent into alcoholism, the Harvard cheating scandal, Papa Joe's 'fixing' of Ted's military enlistment blunder, and the Kennedy men in general, that you may feel free to discredit at your leisure.

 

Lets start with 'one of our own' - Buffalonian Ed Cuddihy's critique of Kennedy apologist and sycophant Edward Klein's latest work of fiction, Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died...

 

Klein cannot ignore the Kennedy family skeletons nor Ted’s many warts, but even so, and despite his denials, Klein is clearly a Kennedy apologist.

 

Just as in an earlier book, Klein blamed the Irish potato famine of the 1840s for the Kennedys’ legendary drinking and womanizing, in this one, he excuses Ted’s inability to control the “Irish demons” by claiming Ted’s position as the youngest of nine driven children made his weaknesses all but inevitable.

 

In fact, when he raises Kennedy to the same pedestal as Senate icons Clay and Webster, he does so by pointing out that they, too, were great statesmen whose lives “were dedicated to lechery . . . and self-gratification.” It is as if to say: Back off. It goes with the territory.

 

6.) Link - Ed Cuddihy, Buffalo News - Ted Kennedy chronicler offers apologies, insights

 

Here's one from Time magazine - another trusted publication of yours, I presume...

 

A lifetime of hard, and often selfish, living also took its toll on Kennedy. In 1951, as a freshman at Harvard who was more interested in football than his studies, Kennedy arranged for a friend to take his spring Spanish exam. He was caught cheating and was subsequently expelled from the school for two years, during which time he served as a military police officer in Paris, at the arrangement of his father. Years later, while he was a law student at the University of Virginia, Kennedy was arrested for reckless driving, after a chase with police.

 

7.) Link -Ted Kennedy's Legacy: His Darkest Moments

 

I trust that ABC News is acceptably left-leaning enough for you...

 

Ted Kennedy’s sometimes stormy personal life was always fodder for his critics and the tabloids. Yet one scandal often forgotten centers on his abrupt exit from Harvard in the spring of 1951.

 

Then a freshman, Kennedy was forced to withdraw from Harvard for two years after cheating on a Spanish final. According to “The Education of Edward Kennedy,” by Burton Hersh, the future U.S. Senator and presidential candidate had the roommate of one of his football teammates take the exam for him.

 

Within minutes of the exam's conclusion, Kennedy got a call from the Dean’s office announcing his immediate suspension. The story eventually made the front page of the Boston Globe.

 

8.) Link - ABC News - Kennedy, Harvard, and That Spanish Exam

 

Just in case you don't believe them, I'll save you the trouble of refuting...

 

9.) Link - Boston Globe front page - March 30, 1962

 

Before this gets too lengthy (that ship does seem to have already sailed, but you insisted on 20)...

 

10.) Death at Chappaquiddick, Richard and Thomas Tedrow

11.) The Education of Edward Kennedy, Burton Hersh

12.) The Last Brother : The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy, Joe McGinnis

13.) The Kennedy Men: Three Generations Of Sex, Scandal And Secrets, Nellie Bly

14.) The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty he Founded, Ronald Kesslar

15.) The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh

16.) Rethinking Kennedy: An Interpretive Biography, Michael O'Brien

17.) A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy, Thomas Reeves

 

And because I'm a nice guy, I can't resist throwing in a little bonus (although you may feel free to refute it) from the late Crown Prince of Camelot himself - JFK, Jr. (God rest his soul)...

 

Link - "My cousins are poster children for bad behavior."

[Magox]

Damn!!!

 

What is it that the kids say these days?

 

Tennessee just got Pwned

[tennesseeboy]

Pwned?

 

Actually the bottom line is that TK did not get indicted or convicted of the crime of murder or manslaughter. E nd of story. And Laura Bush didn't either...end of that story.

 

Second, I'm not seeing any legitimate material that changes TK's significant contributions to the country over the last fifty some years. End of THAT story.

 

Third, the guy wasn't perfect. Hell, nobody is.

 

Fourth, I never said that Bush and Cheney were dead, but from your lips to God's ear.

[erynthered]

So George W. Bush inherited the Al-Qaeda problem from Bill Clinton, and Clinton's failure to deal with Osama Bin Laden is the reason we had 9/11.

 

I never thought someone of your ilk would have admitted that, but thanks for clearing that up.

 

 

Damned right the missile crisis was significant - JFK and his inexperienced, naive band of Harvard ninnies nearly blew up the planet.

 

I'll concede that the Peace Corps provided a haven for a generation of wayward idealists while accomplishing a modicum of good, but the Civil Rights Act was Johnson's baby. The Kennedy brothers were more interested in reelection than civil rights, never trusted MLK, and kept him 'at arm's length' - going so far as to wiretap his phones.

 

 

You are obviously a huge admirer of the late senator - you should get one of these commemorative t-shirts...

 

Ted Kennedy 1932-2009

 

 

First, you are not that naive enough to think that the 'Kennedy Machine' did not bring to bear all of its resources to ensure that Teddy received nothing more than a suspended sentence for the misdemeanor crime of 'leaving the scene of an accident', after failing to report the incident for 10 hours, are you?

 

Perhaps statements by the foreman of that grand jury may persuade you otherwise...

 

Juror Alleges Coverup on Chappaquiddick

 

Second, you are not silly enough to suggest that everyone gets that kind of preferential treatment, are you?

 

Ex-attorney sentenced in fatal hit-and-run

 

I'm quite comfortable stating that Kennedy's actions that night - namely, getting behind the wheel of a car while under the influence, driving off a bridge, then failing to report the incident for 10 hours while his passenger (who many say could have been saved had Kennedy acted immediately) struggled until her dying breath to find pockets of air - meet the legal definition of murder -

 

The precise definition of murder varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Under the Common Law, or law made by courts, murder was the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The term malice aforethought did not necessarily mean that the killer planned or premeditated on the killing, or that he or she felt malice toward the victim. Generally, malice aforethought referred to a level of intent or recklessness that separated murder from other killings and warranted stiffer punishment.

 

The definition of murder has evolved over several centuries. Under most modern statutes in the United States, murder comes in four varieties: (1) intentional murder; (2) a killing that resulted from the intent to do serious bodily injury; (3) a killing that resulted from a depraved heart or extreme recklessness; and (4) murder committed by an Accomplice during the commission of, attempt of, or flight from certain felonies.

 

Some jurisdictions still use the term malice aforethought to define intentional murder, but many have changed or elaborated on the term in order to describe more clearly a murderous state of mind. California has retained the malice aforethought definition of murder (Cal. Penal Code § 187 [West 1996]). It also maintains a statute that defines the term malice. Under section 188 of the California Penal Code, malice is divided into two types: express and implied. Express malice exists "when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature." Malice may be implied by a judge or jury "when no considerable provocation appears, or when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart."

 

 

I've already given you the one above (the one about the Chappaquiddick grand jury foreman alleging a cover-up) from your Bible - The New York Times - so I guess I owe you 19 more.

 

And since you didn't refute the Washington Times restaurant story about TK and Chris Dodd attacking the waitress in the room known as 'Ted Kennedy's Fun Room' and breaking up the place (behavior for which you, I, and most others would surely have been arrested), let's make it 18 more.

 

And since you didn't refute or try to discredit the rape victim, Patricia Bowman (thank you for that), we'll whittle it down to 17.

 

Here ya go, starting with an actual participant in the events of July 18, 1969...

 

1.) Chappaquiddick Diver John Farrar

 

And continuing...

 

Two decades after the horrific event more light was shed on the cover-up when the foreman of the grand jury that investigated the accident, came forward and confessed that the panel was pressured by a judge and a prosecutor not to pursue the case. The foreman said the jury was manipulated and blocked from doing its job.

 

Regardless of this shameful event, Kennedy remains a fixture in the U.S. Senate. He usually loves the media, but made sure to avoid reporters when Gwen Kopechne died this week in a Plains Township nursing home. She was 89 and never got over the death of her only daughter.

 

2.) Link - Sen. Ted Kennedy Outlives Family He Ruined

 

And...

 

Just past midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, just off Cape Cod. The Senator escaped a watery death, but a passenger in his car, twenty-eight-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not.

 

The Democrat icon murderer, Ted 'Splash' Kennedy best represents the decadent and immoral standard of the utterly debased and corrupt Democrat party. He is their lion, their standard bearer (more like pall bearer).

 

"Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger." - George Killen ~ State Police Detective-Lieutenant who investigated the accident

 

3.) Link - Mary Jo Kopechne, it was forty years ago today

 

Continuing on...

 

Once he reached shore, Kennedy claims to have made seven or eight attempts to rescue Kopechne, but could not free her.

 

Kennedy then walked back to the cottage where he and four other men, were partying with several young women known as the “Boiler Room Girls“ who had worked on Robert Kennedy‘s campaign. Though Kennedy passed by a fire station and a private home to return to the cottage, he never stopped to ask for help for the trapped Kopechne.

 

He returned to the party and according to Kennedy himself, informed his cousin and a friend of the situation. The two men, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham claim to have returned to the scene of the accident and made several unsuccessful attempts to free Kopechne.

 

Then Kennedy’s story takes an even stranger turn.

 

After the failed rescue attempts, Kennedy claims to have jumped back into the water and made the 500-foot swim across the channel back to Edgartown. He then walked back to his hotel and spent the night. He even took the time to change clothes and pay a visit to the front-desk, to complain about a noisy party--no doubt Kennedy's sloppy attempt at securing an alibi.

 

The next morning, Gargan and Markham, who finally reported the incident around 8:00 a.m., were supposedly shocked to discover that Kennedy never reported the accident to police.

4.) Link - Kennedy's story still doubtful

 

One last reference to the events of July 18/19, 1969...

 

Manslaughter might have been forgiven if Kennedy hadn't decided to evade responsibility for the accident and cover it up by failing to report it, trying to co-opt one of his aides to cop to being the driver, and then leaving them to try and fix it for him for over seven hours.

 

Worse, Mary Jo Kopechne, whose drowned body was found in a position trying to eke out the last molecules of air within the submerged car, was left to drown by the self-involved Senator who chose not to seek immediate help.

 

5.) Link - Death at Chappaquiddick: Mary Jo WHO?

 

 

And now for some books, articles, and authors - along with their opinions of Ted, his neglect of his first wife Joan, his cheating on her, her subsequent descent into alcoholism, the Harvard cheating scandal, Papa Joe's 'fixing' of Ted's military enlistment blunder, and the Kennedy men in general, that you may feel free to discredit at your leisure.

 

Lets start with 'one of our own' - Buffalonian Ed Cuddihy's critique of Kennedy apologist and sycophant Edward Klein's latest work of fiction, Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died...

 

Klein cannot ignore the Kennedy family skeletons nor Ted’s many warts, but even so, and despite his denials, Klein is clearly a Kennedy apologist.

 

Just as in an earlier book, Klein blamed the Irish potato famine of the 1840s for the Kennedys’ legendary drinking and womanizing, in this one, he excuses Ted’s inability to control the “Irish demons” by claiming Ted’s position as the youngest of nine driven children made his weaknesses all but inevitable.

 

In fact, when he raises Kennedy to the same pedestal as Senate icons Clay and Webster, he does so by pointing out that they, too, were great statesmen whose lives “were dedicated to lechery . . . and self-gratification.” It is as if to say: Back off. It goes with the territory.

 

6.) Link - Ed Cuddihy, Buffalo News - Ted Kennedy chronicler offers apologies, insights

 

Here's one from Time magazine - another trusted publication of yours, I presume...

 

A lifetime of hard, and often selfish, living also took its toll on Kennedy. In 1951, as a freshman at Harvard who was more interested in football than his studies, Kennedy arranged for a friend to take his spring Spanish exam. He was caught cheating and was subsequently expelled from the school for two years, during which time he served as a military police officer in Paris, at the arrangement of his father. Years later, while he was a law student at the University of Virginia, Kennedy was arrested for reckless driving, after a chase with police.

 

7.) Link -Ted Kennedy's Legacy: His Darkest Moments

 

I trust that ABC News is acceptably left-leaning enough for you...

 

Ted Kennedy’s sometimes stormy personal life was always fodder for his critics and the tabloids. Yet one scandal often forgotten centers on his abrupt exit from Harvard in the spring of 1951.

 

Then a freshman, Kennedy was forced to withdraw from Harvard for two years after cheating on a Spanish final. According to “The Education of Edward Kennedy,” by Burton Hersh, the future U.S. Senator and presidential candidate had the roommate of one of his football teammates take the exam for him.

 

Within minutes of the exam's conclusion, Kennedy got a call from the Dean’s office announcing his immediate suspension. The story eventually made the front page of the Boston Globe.

 

8.) Link - ABC News - Kennedy, Harvard, and That Spanish Exam

 

Just in case you don't believe them, I'll save you the trouble of refuting...

 

9.) Link - Boston Globe front page - March 30, 1962

 

Before this gets too lengthy (that ship does seem to have already sailed, but you insisted on 20)...

 

10.) Death at Chappaquiddick, Richard and Thomas Tedrow

11.) The Education of Edward Kennedy, Burton Hersh

12.) The Last Brother : The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy, Joe McGinnis

13.) The Kennedy Men: Three Generations Of Sex, Scandal And Secrets, Nellie Bly

14.) The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty he Founded, Ronald Kesslar

15.) The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh

16.) Rethinking Kennedy: An Interpretive Biography, Michael O'Brien

17.) A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy, Thomas Reeves

 

And because I'm a nice guy, I can't resist throwing in a little bonus (although you may feel free to refute it) from the late Crown Prince of Camelot himself - JFK, Jr. (God rest his soul)...

 

Link - "My cousins are poster children for bad behavior."

 

 

Great Post.

[pBills]

So George W. Bush inherited the Al-Qaeda problem from Bill Clinton, and Clinton's failure to deal with Osama Bin Laden is the reason we had 9/11.

 

I never thought someone of your ilk would have admitted that, but thanks for clearing that up.

 

 

Damned right the missile crisis was significant - JFK and his inexperienced, naive band of Harvard ninnies nearly blew up the planet.

 

I'll concede that the Peace Corps provided a haven for a generation of wayward idealists while accomplishing a modicum of good, but the Civil Rights Act was Johnson's baby. The Kennedy brothers were more interested in reelection than civil rights, never trusted MLK, and kept him 'at arm's length' - going so far as to wiretap his phones.

 

 

You are obviously a huge admirer of the late senator - you should get one of these commemorative t-shirts...

 

Ted Kennedy 1932-2009

 

First, you are not that naive enough to think that the 'Kennedy Machine' did not bring to bear all of its resources to ensure that Teddy received nothing more than a suspended sentence for the misdemeanor crime of 'leaving the scene of an accident', after failing to report the incident for 10 hours, are you?

 

Perhaps statements by the foreman of that grand jury may persuade you otherwise...

 

Juror Alleges Coverup on Chappaquiddick

 

Second, you are not silly enough to suggest that everyone gets that kind of preferential treatment, are you?

 

Ex-attorney sentenced in fatal hit-and-run

 

I'm quite comfortable stating that Kennedy's actions that night - namely, getting behind the wheel of a car while under the influence, driving off a bridge, then failing to report the incident for 10 hours while his passenger (who many say could have been saved had Kennedy acted immediately) struggled until her dying breath to find pockets of air - meet the legal definition of murder -

 

The precise definition of murder varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Under the Common Law, or law made by courts, murder was the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The term malice aforethought did not necessarily mean that the killer planned or premeditated on the killing, or that he or she felt malice toward the victim. Generally, malice aforethought referred to a level of intent or recklessness that separated murder from other killings and warranted stiffer punishment.

 

The definition of murder has evolved over several centuries. Under most modern statutes in the United States, murder comes in four varieties: (1) intentional murder; (2) a killing that resulted from the intent to do serious bodily injury; (3) a killing that resulted from a depraved heart or extreme recklessness; and (4) murder committed by an Accomplice during the commission of, attempt of, or flight from certain felonies.

 

Some jurisdictions still use the term malice aforethought to define intentional murder, but many have changed or elaborated on the term in order to describe more clearly a murderous state of mind. California has retained the malice aforethought definition of murder (Cal. Penal Code § 187 [West 1996]). It also maintains a statute that defines the term malice. Under section 188 of the California Penal Code, malice is divided into two types: express and implied. Express malice exists "when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature." Malice may be implied by a judge or jury "when no considerable provocation appears, or when the circumstances attending the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart."

 

 

I've already given you the one above (the one about the Chappaquiddick grand jury foreman alleging a cover-up) from your Bible - The New York Times - so I guess I owe you 19 more.

 

And since you didn't refute the Washington Times restaurant story about TK and Chris Dodd attacking the waitress in the room known as 'Ted Kennedy's Fun Room' and breaking up the place (behavior for which you, I, and most others would surely have been arrested), let's make it 18 more.

 

And since you didn't refute or try to discredit the rape victim, Patricia Bowman (thank you for that), we'll whittle it down to 17.

 

Here ya go, starting with an actual participant in the events of July 18, 1969...

 

1.) Chappaquiddick Diver John Farrar

 

And continuing...

 

Two decades after the horrific event more light was shed on the cover-up when the foreman of the grand jury that investigated the accident, came forward and confessed that the panel was pressured by a judge and a prosecutor not to pursue the case. The foreman said the jury was manipulated and blocked from doing its job.

 

Regardless of this shameful event, Kennedy remains a fixture in the U.S. Senate. He usually loves the media, but made sure to avoid reporters when Gwen Kopechne died this week in a Plains Township nursing home. She was 89 and never got over the death of her only daughter.

 

2.) Link - Sen. Ted Kennedy Outlives Family He Ruined

 

And...

 

Just past midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, just off Cape Cod. The Senator escaped a watery death, but a passenger in his car, twenty-eight-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not.

 

The Democrat icon murderer, Ted 'Splash' Kennedy best represents the decadent and immoral standard of the utterly debased and corrupt Democrat party. He is their lion, their standard bearer (more like pall bearer).

 

"Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger." - George Killen ~ State Police Detective-Lieutenant who investigated the accident

 

3.) Link - Mary Jo Kopechne, it was forty years ago today

 

Continuing on...

 

Once he reached shore, Kennedy claims to have made seven or eight attempts to rescue Kopechne, but could not free her.

 

Kennedy then walked back to the cottage where he and four other men, were partying with several young women known as the “Boiler Room Girls“ who had worked on Robert Kennedy‘s campaign. Though Kennedy passed by a fire station and a private home to return to the cottage, he never stopped to ask for help for the trapped Kopechne.

 

He returned to the party and according to Kennedy himself, informed his cousin and a friend of the situation. The two men, Joseph Gargan and Paul Markham claim to have returned to the scene of the accident and made several unsuccessful attempts to free Kopechne.

 

Then Kennedy’s story takes an even stranger turn.

 

After the failed rescue attempts, Kennedy claims to have jumped back into the water and made the 500-foot swim across the channel back to Edgartown. He then walked back to his hotel and spent the night. He even took the time to change clothes and pay a visit to the front-desk, to complain about a noisy party--no doubt Kennedy's sloppy attempt at securing an alibi.

 

The next morning, Gargan and Markham, who finally reported the incident around 8:00 a.m., were supposedly shocked to discover that Kennedy never reported the accident to police.

4.) Link - Kennedy's story still doubtful

 

One last reference to the events of July 18/19, 1969...

 

Manslaughter might have been forgiven if Kennedy hadn't decided to evade responsibility for the accident and cover it up by failing to report it, trying to co-opt one of his aides to cop to being the driver, and then leaving them to try and fix it for him for over seven hours.

 

Worse, Mary Jo Kopechne, whose drowned body was found in a position trying to eke out the last molecules of air within the submerged car, was left to drown by the self-involved Senator who chose not to seek immediate help.

 

5.) Link - Death at Chappaquiddick: Mary Jo WHO?

 

 

And now for some books, articles, and authors - along with their opinions of Ted, his neglect of his first wife Joan, his cheating on her, her subsequent descent into alcoholism, the Harvard cheating scandal, Papa Joe's 'fixing' of Ted's military enlistment blunder, and the Kennedy men in general, that you may feel free to discredit at your leisure.

 

Lets start with 'one of our own' - Buffalonian Ed Cuddihy's critique of Kennedy apologist and sycophant Edward Klein's latest work of fiction, Ted Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died...

 

Klein cannot ignore the Kennedy family skeletons nor Ted’s many warts, but even so, and despite his denials, Klein is clearly a Kennedy apologist.

 

Just as in an earlier book, Klein blamed the Irish potato famine of the 1840s for the Kennedys’ legendary drinking and womanizing, in this one, he excuses Ted’s inability to control the “Irish demons” by claiming Ted’s position as the youngest of nine driven children made his weaknesses all but inevitable.

 

In fact, when he raises Kennedy to the same pedestal as Senate icons Clay and Webster, he does so by pointing out that they, too, were great statesmen whose lives “were dedicated to lechery . . . and self-gratification.” It is as if to say: Back off. It goes with the territory.

 

6.) Link - Ed Cuddihy, Buffalo News - Ted Kennedy chronicler offers apologies, insights

 

Here's one from Time magazine - another trusted publication of yours, I presume...

 

A lifetime of hard, and often selfish, living also took its toll on Kennedy. In 1951, as a freshman at Harvard who was more interested in football than his studies, Kennedy arranged for a friend to take his spring Spanish exam. He was caught cheating and was subsequently expelled from the school for two years, during which time he served as a military police officer in Paris, at the arrangement of his father. Years later, while he was a law student at the University of Virginia, Kennedy was arrested for reckless driving, after a chase with police.

 

7.) Link -Ted Kennedy's Legacy: His Darkest Moments

 

I trust that ABC News is acceptably left-leaning enough for you...

 

Ted Kennedy’s sometimes stormy personal life was always fodder for his critics and the tabloids. Yet one scandal often forgotten centers on his abrupt exit from Harvard in the spring of 1951.

 

Then a freshman, Kennedy was forced to withdraw from Harvard for two years after cheating on a Spanish final. According to “The Education of Edward Kennedy,” by Burton Hersh, the future U.S. Senator and presidential candidate had the roommate of one of his football teammates take the exam for him.

 

Within minutes of the exam's conclusion, Kennedy got a call from the Dean’s office announcing his immediate suspension. The story eventually made the front page of the Boston Globe.

 

8.) Link - ABC News - Kennedy, Harvard, and That Spanish Exam

 

Just in case you don't believe them, I'll save you the trouble of refuting...

 

9.) Link - Boston Globe front page - March 30, 1962

 

Before this gets too lengthy (that ship does seem to have already sailed, but you insisted on 20)...

 

10.) Death at Chappaquiddick, Richard and Thomas Tedrow

11.) The Education of Edward Kennedy, Burton Hersh

12.) The Last Brother : The Rise and Fall of Teddy Kennedy, Joe McGinnis

13.) The Kennedy Men: Three Generations Of Sex, Scandal And Secrets, Nellie Bly

14.) The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty he Founded, Ronald Kesslar

15.) The Dark Side of Camelot, Seymour Hersh

16.) Rethinking Kennedy: An Interpretive Biography, Michael O'Brien

17.) A Question of Character: A Life of John F. Kennedy, Thomas Reeves

 

And because I'm a nice guy, I can't resist throwing in a little bonus (although you may feel free to refute it) from the late Crown Prince of Camelot himself - JFK, Jr. (God rest his soul)...

 

Link - "My cousins are poster children for bad behavior."

 

 

 

Would have been easier to simply say, I hate the guy.

 

I agree with Tennesseeboy:

 

Second, I'm not seeing any legitimate material that changes TK's significant contributions to the country over the last fifty some years. End of THAT story.

 

Third, the guy wasn't perfect. Hell, nobody is.

[Chef Jim]

Pwned?

 

Actually the bottom line is that TK did not get indicted or convicted of the crime of murder or manslaughter. E nd of story. And Laura Bush didn't either...end of that story.

 

Second, I'm not seeing any legitimate material that changes TK's significant contributions to the country over the last fifty some years. End of THAT story.

 

Third, the guy wasn't perfect. Hell, nobody is.

 

Fourth, I never said that Bush and Cheney were dead, but from your lips to God's ear.

 

Thank God Mr. Kennedy was in the Senate for 50 years. Because of him we've eliminated huger, poverty and poor schools. Good work Senator.

[ExiledInIllinois]

Thank God Mr. Kennedy was in the Senate for 50 years. Because of him we've eliminated huger, poverty and poor schools. Good work Senator.

 

All those things you mentioned are 50 times better than they used to be! Not perfect and not eliminated... Yet, thank you Mr. Kennedy for making things better! I for one don't want to go back to 1959, let alone 1929 or 1909... Things were so much worse!

[Chef Jim]

All those things you mentioned are 50 times better than they used to be! Not perfect and not eliminated... Yet, thank you Mr. Kennedy for making things better! I for one don't want to go back to 1959, let alone 1929 or 1909... Things were so much worse!

 

The school system is better than is used to be? Riiiiiight. Oh and by the way up until that nasty thing in October the 20's were a roaring good time.

[tennesseeboy]

Thank God Mr. Kennedy was in the Senate for 50 years. Because of him we've eliminated huger, poverty and poor schools. Good work Senator.

Your praise seems rather excessive. He did a lot, but there is still a lot left to do. Hope President Obama picks up the torch.

[Chef Jim]

Your praise seems rather excessive. He did a lot, but there is still a lot left to do. Hope President Obama picks up the torch.

 

[ExiledInIllinois]

The school system is better than is used to be? Riiiiiight. Oh and by the way up until that nasty thing in October the 20's were a roaring good time.

 

 

Yep! How some people love to glorify the past is beyond me!

 

 

We have more protections and chance to get ahead than any other time in history. Of course some still get the short end of the stick. The protections are there though. IMO, You just don't like it because there are just too much protection for the common man. Protections that Mr. Kennedy helped put in place. That I thank the Kennedy's for. They could have just rested on the protection that their wealth brrought, but they didn't. They helped put systems in place that didn't just take wealth. Why some people don't exploit those systems to their advantage is beyond me... Yet, some will alwys fal;l through the cracks of any system... Even the best and most meaningful thought out ones.

[erynthered]

Your praise seems rather excessive. He did a lot, but there is still a lot left to do. Hope President Obama picks up the torch and burns the rest of the constitution.

 

 

[tennesseeboy]

Always good to hear from the mouthbreathers on PPP. Actually you could be helpful as we were kind of stretching to find good things to say about Hitler. Any ideas?

[Chef Jim]

Yep! How some people love to glorify the past is beyond me!

 

 

We have more protections and chance to get ahead than any other time in history. Of course some still get the short end of the stick. The protections are there though. IMO, You just don't like it because there are just too much protection for the common man. Protections that Mr. Kennedy helped put in place. That I thank the Kennedy's for. They could have just rested on the protection that their wealth brrought, but they didn't. They helped put systems in place that didn't just take wealth. Why some people don't exploit those systems to their advantage is beyond me... Yet, some will alwys fal;l through the cracks of any system... Even the best and most meaningful thought out ones.

 

They do, by the millions.

[ExiledInIllinois]

They do, by the millions.

 

 

And that is awesome... Don't you think? Oh wait, you must want wealth to be the sole discriminator. Nevermind, carry on.

 

The amazing part is that the Kennedy's could always rely on that wealth to isolate themselves from the masses... And they didn't... Yet, they had a enough compassion and sense to try and bring that ability (what wealth brings) to everyone, even with out said wealth (at first of course). Isn't that what freedom is all about?

 

I am telling you folks, not many out there that think like that. Many like Cheffy here want to distance themselves form people , not bring them closer, not to their level or worst my God, ABOVE their level.

 

That's what's great about modern liberalism. Elevating people above and beyond where you may be even if they use advantages that yourself can't use. Even advantages that may not need material wealth.

 

Maybe the only thing the Kennedy's could have used was a little more self-effacement.

[DC Tom]

Let me sum up this discussion:

 

The Senator: "I hate Ted Kennedy!"

Tenny: (puts fingers in ears) "I can't hear you. La la la la la la..."

The Senator: "I SAID, I HATE TED KENNEDY!"

Tenny: "I still can't hear you. Neener neener neener neener..."

[DC Tom]

The amazing part is that the Kennedy's could always rely on that wealth to isolate themselves from the masses... And they didn't...

 

 

That's what I find SO sad about the Kennedy family's legacy - that people actually believe they stood for, by, and with the masses.

[Chef Jim]

And that is awesome... Don't you think? Oh wait, you must want wealth to be the sole discriminator. Nevermind, carry on.

 

The amazing part is that the Kennedy's could always rely on that wealth to isolate themselves from the masses... And they didn't... Yet, they had a enough compassion and sense to try and bring that ability (what wealth brings) to everyone, even with out said wealth (at first of course). Isn't that what freedom is all about?

 

I am telling you folks, not many out there that think like that. Many like Cheffy here want to distance themselves form people , not bring them closer, not to their level or worst my God, ABOVE their level.

 

That's what's great about modern liberalism. Elevating people above and beyond where you may be even if they use advantages that yourself can't use. Even advantages that may not need material wealth.

 

Maybe the only thing the Kennedy's could have used was a little more self-effacement.

 

Yeah exploiting the system is a good thing.