Enough to drive Democrats to drink

[Evilmav2]

Enough to drive Democrats to drink

By Wesley Pruden
Washington Times

Teddy Kennedy sounds like a man who needs a stiff drink.

Once the great white hope of the Democrats and having relegated himself to great white whale, Teddy is now the designated doofus for John Kerry, assigned to campaign for him in places where Monsieur Kerry can't, won't or shouldn't go.

The lot of a Democratic doofus is suddenly not a happy one. Only yesterday he could lapse easily into a lament for "the jobless economic recovery," the sad plight of the working man in East Gondola, the unemployed working mother in West Humperdink and the millions who go to bed hungry. "Jobless recovery" was the mantra that Democrats everywhere lived by. Life was about to be good, very good.

But then came the blowout job numbers. The "bad" news released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics makes mourning for the recovery as something irrelevant and relegates the mantra to the trash. Not only that, as soon as those millions give up the Atkins diet to enjoy a crust of good hot bread, they can go to bed satisfied.

Teddy went off to the Brookings Institution yesterday to sing sad songs among the choir, deploring how George W. Bush has cut unemployment benefits, failed to pay for schools for the tykes, tots and teenagers and, worst of all, is about to spend $134 billion more than expected on a prescription-drug plan for the elderly that Teddy himself helped put together.

"This president," he said, "has created the largest credibility gap since ..." He hesitated ever so slightly here, as if he was trying to decide whether to make the comparison to either Hitler or Attila the Hun. Then the phantom light bulb flashed on over his imaginary head. "... since Richard Nixon. He has broken the basic bond of trust with the American people."

You can't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the doofuses, who all winter had been getting a little help from their friends in the elite media in search of bits and pieces of bad news to produce an unvarying tone of gloomy mood music to go with a manufactured landscape of deep shade and dark shadow. Why wouldn't the public-opinion polls suggest that half the American public think the country is mired in recession?

The purveyors of melancholy certainly know better. The recession that began in the late months of the second Clinton administration actually ended just after September 11, and by the end of 2003, the economy was booming at a rate of more than 6 percent annually. You have to go back to the Reagan years to find numbers like that. The Club for Growth researched the so-called "misery index," determined by adding the inflation rate and the unemployment rate, to calculate a figure for the past six presidential election years.

Jimmy Carter, to no one's surprise, set a misery standard that is likely to stand until the Rockies crumble, Gibraltar falls and the Chicago Cubs win the National League pennant. The misery index stood at 20.6 percent in March 1980, which was all Ronald Reagan needed to send Mr. Jimmy home to his peanut patch. An unfavorable misery index preceded the defeat of Gerald Ford (13.5 percent) and George H.W. Bush (10.5 percent) as well.

But here's the surprise: The misery index for George W.'s administration is lowest of all six of those worthies. George W. inherited the Clinton misery index of 8.4 percent and has shaved it (so far) to 7.7 percent. You just wouldn't know it from the coverage of the economy. The Wall Street Journal calls it "the Rodney Dangerfield recovery" because, as Rodney might say, "it don't get no respect."

But that's only among the doofuses and the media elites. What has actually happened is that the economic markers have surpassed those set during the second Clinton term, which usually is presented as the greatest four years in the history of the republic. The stock markets, which went south with the pricking of the dot.com boom, have grown by a little more than a third since the peak set in 2000 and, taken together with surging home prices, have set a record for family net worth. The stunning jobs growth in March marks the seventh consecutive month of jobs gains, with 61 percent of American factories showing payroll expansion. This, too, is the highest percentage since July 2000.

Teddy had to abandon the mantra of "jobless recovery" in his remarks yesterday and lapsed into warmed-over antiwar jive talk from the Vietnam era. Soup as thin as that cries for a lot of strong drink.

-Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Washington Times.

[EricaLubarsky]

not really related to the article but the source: Washington Times is owned by Reverend Sum Yung Moon, the old cult leader who had all those mass weddings. Until he befriended Reagan he was just a cult icon and now he owns a handful of newspapers.

[Evilmav2]

Yeah, but Wes Pruden is a pretty well respected columnist and editor who has a long track record of producing good commentary over at the Times, and the WT also features liberal columnists on their staff.

Besides all that, I posted this column partially because I just enjoyed it's title...

[EricaLubarsky]

I wasnt trying to undermine the credibility, I just thought it was funny and it was a tidbit I had just learned. There's no reason to think that Moon's papers are any less credible than Pulitzer's

[OutletPass]

Funny...for a guy that can go left or right into the paint....
My buddy Evil of Indiana only seems to be able to go the right on the forum.

Put up that Lefty, Buddy !!!

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Evilmav2
Yeah, but Wes Pruden is a pretty well respected columnist and editor who has a long track record of producing good commentary over at the Times, and the WT also features liberal columnists on their staff.

Besides all that, I posted this column partially because I just enjoyed it's title...

I'm not seeing "good commentary" in using cliches such as "Great White whale", "doofuses", conjecturing that Teddy was making his speech up on the podium when Wes thought he was "trying to decide whether to make the comparison to either Hitler or Attila the Hun".

Pruden can make his point without that sort of fiction.

[Evilmav2]

Bloato, the beached white whale says, "Great points Mavdog! Thank you for your support!"

[Drbio]

hahaha.....


I would have used a word different than doofus when describing the most immoral politician ever.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Drbio
hahaha.....


I would have used a word different than doofus when describing the most immoral politician ever.

You're referring to Kennedy? Absolutely wrong....Nixon was much more immoral, Adam Clayton Powell as well. The list is full of many more who betrayed the public trust.

[Evilmav2]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

You're referring to Kennedy? Absolutely wrong....Nixon was much more immoral

I don't know if Teddy is the most immoral politician ever, but I will say that some of your above judgement should be balanced by Kennedy's purported involvement in the Chappaquiddick Bridge cover-up back in 1969.

The young Ted's aide (mistress) Mary Jo Kopechne died when he drunkenly careened off of that bridge, and he is pretty darned lucky that his name and powerful familial connections got the whole incident hushed up and swept under the carpet. Thirty years ago, Kennedy dodged a lock-solid manslaughter beef, and since then, his entire Senatorial career has lived on borrowed time that might have been more justly spent in a penitentiary.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Evilmav2

I don't know if Teddy is the most immoral politician ever, but I will say that some of your above judgement should be balanced by Kennedy's purported involvement in the Chappaquiddick Bridge cover-up back in 1969.

The young Ted's aide (mistress) Mary Jo Kopechne died when he drunkenly careened off of that bridge, and he is pretty darned lucky that his name and powerful familial connections got the whole incident hushed up and swept under the carpet. Thirty years ago, Kennedy dodged a lock-solid manslaughter beef, and since then, his entire Senatorial career has lived on borrowed time that might have been more justly spent in a penitentiary.

Everyone knows about Chappaquiddick. Kennedy was wrong to have driven while under the influence, and he was wrong to leave the scene. These are actions that shouldn't be the rationale for "The most immoral politician ever", as just this month a distinguished US representitive from Dakota was found guilty of a similar offense. Hence "The most.." is not applicable if that is the basis.

[madape]

hahah. Those Kennedys don't know how to hold their liquor.

He's another great story about the distinguished gentleman from Boston from Edward Klein's book "The Kennedy Curse"

Because few people had seen the Kennedy compound from the inside, the house had acquired a certain mysterious allure, and men in the family often exploited this attraction during the annual Easter hunt for women. The promise of 'a quiet drink at the house' was a surefire technique for luring women back to the compound for sex."

"Sex itself was never the primary purpose of these evenings; it was an opportunity for the Kennedys to put on a show of manly swagger in front of one another and to demonstrate that women were discardable objects."

"The Kennedys behaved as though they were invulnerable and had nothing to fear. Palm Beach was their seraglio, a place of licentious pleasure. It was there that they could drink themselves into a state of drunken senselessness and turn sex into a power game of seduction, manipulation, and control."

"Perhaps [Ted] was hoping that his young son and nephew could help a drunken, grossly overweight, middle-aged man get lucky again that night."

As it turned out, the two younger Kennedys each brought a woman back to the compound late that night, which happened to be Good Friday. Willy took his companion, Patty Bowman, to the beach just outside. There, according to Bowman, he raped her. What's more, she told a police detective that the senator must have known what was going on.

Klein describes the conversation: "'When [Willy and I] went to the beach, [Ted] was there, and I was screaming, No! and Stop, and I remember thinking, 'Ted Kennedy is here. Why doesn't he come down and stop this man?''"

If Ted Kennedy didn't hear Bowman, perhaps it's because he had become Peeping Ted. His son was in his bedroom with Michele Cassone. At the trial, Cassone spoke about what happened: "Patrick and I were ... making out, kissing. ... About ten minutes at the most later, the senator emerged through the door from inside the house ... and at this time he only has on a button-down oxford shirt. He has taken his slacks off. I didn't see if he had any Jockeys or boxers on [because the shirt] came halfway down the thighs. He was standing there, wobbling, and had no pants on. ... And I was just really freaked out."

Around this time, Bowman says she escaped from the clutches of Smith. She ran back into the house, hid, and then called friends on a cordless phone. They came and picked her up. Then Bowman reported what happened to the police.

Klein describes what happened next: "Teddy appeared to get himself tangled in a web of lies and contradictions." Many of his statements didn't seem to jibe with what others were saying about that night at the compound. "What's more, Teddy stonewalled the police and, at times, interfered with their investigation." When the police came to the compound on Easter Sunday, for instance, one of the senator's henchmen told them that Ted and Willy weren't there — even though they really were. Later on, the Kennedys leaked unflattering information about Bowman to the press, even though liberals aren't supposed to "blame the victim." NBC and the New York Times even used her name, despite Florida's rape-shield law.

Willy, of course, was eventually acquitted — rape convictions can be difficult to secure, especially when one of America's most powerful families has a vested interest in protecting their members. Yet it's impossible to read Klein's account and not think something awful happened that night — and that Ted Kennedy, that hero of Chappaquiddick, was a party to it.

Keep it in mind the next time Kennedy take to the floor of the Senate for a lecture on social justice.

Apparently, in addition to getting drunk and drowning girls in rivers, the senator also likes to get drunk, take his pants off, and watch his sons rape people. I'm glad he's still around to tell us about credibility.

[Drbio]

My bad...I should have posted most "CRIMINAL" politician ever then.....[img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]


On second thought.......I had it right the first time.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Drbio
My bad...I should have posted most "CRIMINAL" politician ever then.....[img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]

Without a doubt THAT is Tricky Dick Nixon.

On second thought.......I had it right the first time.

nope, not even close. Most likely to be intoxicated, currently one of the most obese perhaps, even most eliteist maybe, but not most immoral IMHO.

[madape]

Let's not forget about our other favorite immoral liberal democrat - you know, the one who banged interns in the oval office and gave presidential pardons to terrorists and murderers in order to win votes for his wife.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: madape
Let's not forget about our other favorite immoral liberal democrat - you know, the one who banged interns in the oval office and gave presidential pardons to terrorists and murderers in order to win votes for his wife.

and what "terrorists and murderers" would that be?

besides, they didn't actually "bang" in the WH (depending on your definition of "bang" of course...[img]i/expressions/lips.gif[/img]

[madape]

The 16 Puerto Rican terrorists that committed over 170 bombings in the US during the 1970s. Many suspect that he did it to win support from the NYC Puerto Rican population in order to secure a senate seat for his wife.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: madape
The 16 Puerto Rican terrorists that committed over 170 bombings in the US during the 1970s. Many suspect that he did it to win support from the NYC Puerto Rican population in order to secure a senate seat for his wife.

None of these who received clemency were convicted of any bombings or murders BTW.

[MavKikiNYC]

Apropos of Ted the Boozer...

This thread reminds me of a story an acquaintance of mine tells about her stint as concierge in a Boston hotel back in the late 1970s/early 80s.

She got a call one night around 2AM from some flunkie in Senator Ted's suite, demanding that a couple of bottles of scotch be sent up. As there was some sort of state or local ordinance against delivering alcohol at that hour, she politely replied that the hotel would not be able to comply with the request for a few hours, but that it could be delivered with his morning coffee.

A few minutes later, Senator Boozer himself gets on the line yelling, asking if she knew who he was, and demanding that the scotch be sent up forthwith.

She responded that she was aware of who he was, and that because he was a Senator, she was surprised that he didn't know that it would be in violation of the law for her to send scotch to his room at that hour, and hung up.

Undeterred, Senator Boozer, exercising his droit de senateur, called someone else on the hotel staff and got his nightcap.

Laws, neither big nor small, don't apply to Kennedys.

[Drbio]

How anyone can defend Ted The Immoral Criminal Kennedy at any level is mind boggling.

No matter how many times you say it and no matter how you inflect your words, etc Mavdog you will remain 100% wrong on this issue. Deny away...liberal spin away....you remain 100% wrong.

[reeds]

arent us Democrats 100% wrong on all our takes about Bush and the republican party???? whatever

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: Drbio
How anyone can defend Ted The Immoral Criminal Kennedy at any level is mind boggling.

No matter how many times you say it and no matter how you inflect your words, etc Mavdog you will remain 100% wrong on this issue. Deny away...liberal spin away....you remain 100% wrong.

wow, such compelling arguments and factual responses. You really can present a lucid well thought out post...not.

I think it can be summarized as "nah nah nah, I'm right and you're wrong! wah wah wah!"

Great work. [img]i/expressions/rolleye.gif[/img]

Have a nice day

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

wow, such compelling arguments and factual responses. You really can present a lucid well thought out post...not.

Where are your "compelling arguments" and "factual responses"? I just read this entire thread, and you keep doing the very thing you're accusing Doc of doing...

Mavdog: Nope, it's Tricky Dick! nah nah nah, I'm right and you're wrong! wah wah wah!

Did Nixon kill anybody?

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran

Where are your "compelling arguments" and "factual responses"? I just read this entire thread, and you keep doing the very thing you're accusing Doc of doing...

Mavdog: Nope, it's Tricky Dick! nah nah nah, I'm right and you're wrong! wah wah wah!

Did Nixon kill anybody?

If you "read this entire thread" then you should have seen this "compelling argument":

"I'm not seeing "good commentary" in using cliches such as "Great White whale", "doofuses", conjecturing that Teddy was making his speech up on the podium when Wes thought he was "trying to decide whether to make the comparison to either Hitler or Attila the Hun".

Pruden can make his point without that sort of fiction."

With this "factual response":

"None of these who received clemency were convicted of any bombings or murders BTW. "

And this one that has both:

" You're referring to Kennedy? Absolutely wrong....Nixon was much more immoral, Adam Clayton Powell as well. The list is full of many more who betrayed the public trust. "

As for Nixon, I can't name anyone he "kill[ed]". Is that the criteria?

[kg_veteran]

If you "read this entire thread" then you should have seen this "compelling argument":

"I'm not seeing "good commentary" in using cliches such as "Great White whale", "doofuses", conjecturing that Teddy was making his speech up on the podium when Wes thought he was "trying to decide whether to make the comparison to either Hitler or Attila the Hun".

Pruden can make his point without that sort of fiction."

These comments have nothing to do with your position taken later in the thread that Nixon is the most "immoral" and "criminal" politician ever.

With this "factual response":

"None of these who received clemency were convicted of any bombings or murders BTW. "

Again, this has nothing to do with Nixon or Kennedy.

And this one that has both:

" You're referring to Kennedy? Absolutely wrong....Nixon was much more immoral, Adam Clayton Powell as well. The list is full of many more who betrayed the public trust. "

Here, we have your conclusory opinion that Nixon was more immoral than Kennedy, unsupported by either facts or compelling argument. This is exactly what I was talking about.

As for Nixon, I can't name anyone he "kill[ed]". Is that the criteria?

Everyone can name someone that Kennedy killed. I suppose you believe it is "more criminal" and "more immoral" to be involved in a cover-up than it is to kill someone and THEN cover it up?

[Drbio]

It has always boggled the mind how anyone can defend that piece of liberal law breaking murderous shit. Ted Kennedy shouldn't be a senator, he should be a prisoner.


It is typical liberal bullshit that mavdog and others throw out....deflect the fact and current topic by throwing in a "but but but what about so and so waaahh waaaaaaah waahhhh".

If you want ot discuss Tricky Dick then start a thread about him, but quit ignoring the fact that Ted Kennedy is a worthless piece of immoral murderous shit.

[Evilmav2]

The second point was that Kennedy was also "criminal", which is totally inaccurate as he has never been found guilty of a crime

Actually, Kennedy did plead guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and received a suspended sentence for the Chappaquiddic incident, albeit that ruling represented nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the Senator (he didn't even have to serve the mandatory 20 day jail sentence that he should have)...

The fact that Ted Kennedy drunkenly careened off of a bridge in his attempt to get away from a police officer who was trying to give him directions, then fled the scene of the crime, leaving a drowning Mary Jo Kopechne behind (forensic evidence and the testimony of the rescue diver indicate that she probably lived for 20 minutes to 2 hours after the car was submerged), and then proceeded to hide from the police for 9 hours while sobering up and trying to clean up evidence of the drinking party he had left prior to the accident should have netted him a much more severe punishment than he recieved.

In the words of George Killen, the State Police Detective-Lieutenant who directed the initial investigation of the accident scene, "Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head".

Kennedy may not be rotting in prison right now (It's good to have friends and protectors in high places), and he may not be the "most immoral" politician this country has ever seen, but in my opinion, the man is an absolutely corrupt, moral derelict; A craven and selfish, carousing drunk who let a girl die gasping and afraid in order to protect his own political ambitions and because of his own personal cowardice.

And when a man like Ted Kennedy feels fit to loudly and self-righteously condemn the policies of an American presidency that has freed millions from torture and despotic gangsterism, I would be remiss not to call that bloated degenerate a damned hypocrite.

[kg_veteran]

Honestly, Evil, that was a brilliant post.

Mavdog - Stop trying to wiggle your way out of your own words. You're the one who said Nixon was the "most criminal"; you were the one who said he was "more immoral" than Kennedy. And so, in essence, what you're saying is that a man who killed a woman in a cowardly attempt to protect his own political aspirations is less immoral and less criminal than a man who lied and cheated to protect his own political aspirations.

Pardon me if I beg to differ.

Ted Kennedy is exactly what Doc said he is -- a worthless piece of immoral murderous shit. And if a columnist wants to make fun of him and call him names, well, he should just be happy that's the worst that's happening to him. By all rights he should be somebody's aging bitch in prison somewhere.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: kg_veteran
Honestly, Evil, that was a brilliant post.

Mavdog - Stop trying to wiggle your way out of your own words. You're the one who said Nixon was the "most criminal"; you were the one who said he was "more immoral" than Kennedy. And so, in essence, what you're saying is that a man who killed a woman in a cowardly attempt to protect his own political aspirations is less immoral and less criminal than a man who lied and cheated to protect his own political aspirations.

Pardon me if I beg to differ.

Ted Kennedy is exactly what Doc said he is -- a worthless piece of immoral murderous shit. And if a columnist wants to make fun of him and call him names, well, he should just be happy that's the worst that's happening to him. By all rights he should be somebody's aging bitch in prison somewhere.

well I guess we have a difference of opinion. I see the attempt to pervert the executive office of this country, to discredit the presidency through committing burglary, wiretapping, extortion, witness tampering, tampering with evidence (among others), lying to the country over and over again as incredibly immoral, and yes more immoral and much more criminal than DUI, leaving the scene and manslaughter.

The good citizens of mass clearly don't agree with you as they have voted him back to the Senate 5 times since the accident.

This columnist wrote a piece of crap as if he had been drinking too long and had to file a story in a half hour.

[dude1394]

....witness tampering, tampering with evidence (among others), lying to the country over and over again.......

Durn I thought we were talking about the bloviator and not clintoon???

[dude1394]

Jane Fonda Kenndy?

WASHINGTON -- If, as Senator Teddy Kennedy rumbled recently, Iraq is President George W. Bush's Vietnam, surely the silver-haired Senator is becoming Mr. Bush's Jane Fonda. Of course Teddy is not as svelte as Miss Fonda, for he has never been an adept of fad diets, and an aerobics regimen could impair his precarious health. Nonetheless, Teddy is becoming the Fonda of our time. Possibly he will fly off to Falluja to be photographed on a burned out Humvee or visit Najaf to confer with the scowling Muslim cleric, the Rev. Muqtada al-Sadr. Having become so historically-minded Teddy goes on to call President Bush our era's Richard Nixon.

Actually for this man to encourage Americans to reflect back on 1960s history is quite reckless given his blemished history. They might come across news reports of a senator leaving a girl to drown in his car while he slept off a drunk and later dialing up his high-powered advisers for urgent public relations counsel. They might also find stories of that same senator later boozing with his young nephews before their carousals ended in a rape charge. Other indelicacies have followed.......

[Evilmav2]

witness tampering, tampering with evidence (among others), lying to the country

Well, not to quibble excessively, but Ted Kennedy and his supporters did all of this during the course of the Chappaquiddick Bridge cover up...

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: Evilmav2

Well, not to quibble excessively, but Ted Kennedy and his supporters did all of this during the course of the Chappaquiddick Bridge cover up...

Exactly.

Mavdog, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

[madape]

If the terrorists didn't think that Kerry was such a puss, they wouldn't even be fighting back. He gives them hope.

"We cannot drive Bush out of Iraq. But perhaps we can drive Bush out of the White House" is the prevailing thought amongst our enemies right now. A victory for Kerry is a victory for terror. The bad-guys are rolling the dice on this one. They know that if Bush wins, it's all over for them.

[dude1394]

Mark Steyn

So how bad are things in Iraq?

Answer: not very. Fallujah is not the new Mogadishu, Muqtaba al-Sadr is not the new Ayatollah Khomeini and, despite what Ted Kennedy says, Iraq is not ''George Bush's Vietnam.'' Or even George Bush's Chappaquiddick.