Monday, March 30, 2015

Can you believe it?

When Ted Kennedy wrote his initial account of Chappaquiddick for the Edgartown police in 1969, after he scrawled the words “Mary Jo” in the first sentence he left a blank space — because he had no idea what his victim’s last name was.
That’s one of the many facts about Ted Kennedy that you won’t learn by visiting the new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. In case you haven’t been eagerly anticipating this magic moment, the “Institute” opens tomorrow amid yet another orgy of shameless bum-kissing of what was once called “America’s First Family” by the mainstream media.
It will be a monument to the bum who did more to destroy America than any other person. At Teddy’s funeral Obama called him “the soul of the Democratic party.”
Enough said.
Ted was named after Edward Moore, his father’s faithful procurer.
This white elephant on Columbia Point was supposed to be paid for exclusively with private donations. Liberals are, after all, so generous — they’ll always give you the shirt off somebody else’s back. But the reality is that the Beautiful People throw around quarters like manhole covers, and once Teddy was dead, what good could he do them?
So the federal taxpayers (that’s you and me) are on the hook for $38 million, and the state (ditto) got clipped for another $5 million.
It’s an “interactive museum,” and for the kiddies, there is what is called a “Senate Immersion Module.” Yes, immersion. Although presumably not in the backseat of a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont.
In September 1972, in the Oval Office, Henry Kissinger told President Nixon a story about Cristina Ford, Henry Ford’s wife, being stalked by Teddy in Manhattan. Finally Mrs. Ford locked herself in her suite at the Carlyle Hotel, where FBI reports in 1965 said Teddy had been engaging in wild “sex parties,” like his older brothers before him, with Marilyn Monroe.
Kissinger: “(He) practically beat her door down … She finally told him, ‘What if the newspapers get this?’ He said, ‘No newspapers are going to print anything about me. I’ve got that covered.’ ”
Nixon: “Jesus Christ! That’s pretty arrogant.”
What I take from that story is Ted’s framed mementos will not include the famous FBI report from Dec. 28, 1961, which described how during his visit to Santiago, Chile, he “made arrangements to ‘rent’ a brothel … for the night.”
Entering the museum, visitors will see a video that includes snippets from some of Ted’s famous speeches. I hope the family retainers include the very truthful remarks he made in 1965 about the Immigration Reform Act:
“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 …”
How about this speech about Nixon’s pardon in 1974, five years after the brooming of what the inquest judge described as his manslaughter of Mary Jo what’s-her-name:
“Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?”
Here’s another snippet, from the Senate debate in 1991 over Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to the Supreme Court. At the time Ted was under subpoena to testify at his nephew’s rape trial in West Palm Beach:
“Are we an old-boys’ club — insensitive at best and perhaps something worse? Will we strain to concoct any excuse? To tolerate any unsubstantiated attack on a woman?”
Finally, the museum has an “almost exact replica” of Teddy’s Senate office. I trust that means a very well-stocked bar has been included, and if it’s really going to be exact, it will have to be an open bar.
Bartender — a Chivas on the rocks!
Listen to Howie’s radio show every weekday from 3-7 p.m. on WRKO AM 680.

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