Former Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the youngest brother in the legendary political family, and surely the least known, died yesterday at his home in Chicago, at 77.
Kennedy served two terms in the Senate in the 1960s and was spoken of as a possible presidential candidate before his career flamed out. Deeply disturbed by the June 1968 murder of his brother Senator Robert Kennedy by a Palestinian-American gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, who was said to be unhinged by American policy in the Middle East, Kennedy took a month off to study the issue and declared that the United States must establish an evenhanded relationship with Israelis and Palestinians. His angry speeches about the matter on the Senate floor brought down the wrath of many former supporters.
His race for a second full term in the Senate in 1970 was plagued by the issue. Kennedy shocked his constituents by claiming that in the previous summer, lobbyists for Israel had invited him to a bacchanalian party on Chappaquiddick, an island off the east coast of Martha’s Vineyard, where they attempted to frame him in an adulterous liaison with a young woman with the aim of political blackmail, causing Kennedy to flee the scene, swimming a channel. He lost the Democratic primary in 1970 by a 2-to-1 margin to a young Harvard Law School professor–Alan Dershowitz– who has held the seat since then.
Kennedy went on to write several books about foreign policy, including Dual Loyalty Among Irish Americans (1990) and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2002). That book, which many reviewers alleged was antisemitic, stated that Kennedy’s older brother John was enraged as president that he had been unable to stop Israel from getting the bomb or to register the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as foreign agents.
Till he was diagnosed with brain cancer last year, Kennedy worked in a small law firm, Percy, Abourezk, Stevenson, Hollings, McKinney, and Findley.
Interesting alternative history, except for “lobbyists for Israel… attempted to frame him”, which is “shall we say” off the charts.
In the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens the prospect of an alternative ending suggested an alternative present and future for a real Ebenezer Scrouge, who REFORMED.
Rewriting the history of the dead is a bit more bitter and petulant, no presidential honeymoon offered, no relief for those in mourning.
No apology for prior false attributions.
No learning from one’s own conscience and indigestion induced reflective dreams.
This is a miracle! I find myself completely agreeing with Richard Witty.
Wow, Phil, for a guy who is so ambivalent about letting go of all the ethnic BS which works to your advantage, you sure hold everyone else (especially if they are not Jewish, which is even more shameful) to a high level of responsibility.
Phil, you can start criticising Kennedy to this extent when you declare, at the top of your blog that you are an anti-Zionist. But that ain’t gonna happen. Mom may not like it.
How about a rewrite of Hitler’s (de facto) obituary? Would you characterize that as
bitter and petulant? Cry tears? Apologize for false attributions? There’d be no learning from one’s own consciene and suffer indigetion and bad dreams?
We don’t need you, Witty, to blare out what is being blared out over MSM about
how great the Liberal Lion was. This is samisdat blog, not MSM. You seem to have missed your calling a la Michael Medved.
Citizen,
Try thinking, reading and writing independently, rather than only in reaction to mass media.
Don’t watch the tube for a week. Read instead.
I don’t have a TV. The only network news that I see at all, is while waiting in line at my bank, and downloads of Sunday news shows.
Witty, just because I keep myself informed of what the MSM, including TV, is saying does not mean I do not think, read, and write independently on a daily basis. Try watching the tube for a week, instead of reading. You might begin to grasp what is left out of “all the news good for yuze” in manipulating public opionion. Watch some of the entertainment shows, not just network news and the opposing cable TV news
shows, as that will also reveal to you cultural manipulation via the nuance of image and script. Don’t just depend on
your reading of someone’s opinion in a book or magazine. It’s nothing to brag about,
having no TV. Cable and Direct TV offer news sources from around the world as well as lots of history. Look at it as a supplement. I do. Ah, I found that hidden
video camera you installed in my home.
Hey Witty, here’s a curtailed summary and exceedingly small dose of what’s on TV these days:
link to counterpunch.org
Dude, Phil. Pull back. That bit about the ‘attempted to frame’ really is anti-Semitic, or self-hating, or call it what you will. It doesn’t read like funny satire, if that’s what it’s meant to be. Be a forceful spotlight on Zionist crime, or misbehavior, or call it what you will, and a strong advocate of Jewish American assimilation and Palestinian rights. But don’t add this kind of silliness to your writing; it turns my sympathies away and fuels your enemies. (For the record, I don’t know much about Kennedy’s abandonment of that poor woman to her death that night, but I don’t believe anyone has ever suggested that anyone other Kennedy himself was responsible for it.)
You got a point.
I’m kind of curious what purpose this is meant to serve or what the author thought it adds to the discussion.
If Dershowitz held the senator of Massachusetts, John Kerry and him could’ve been the dream team. Oh the horror…
…went on to write Dual Loyalty Among Irish Americans. ~liked that one.
Can’t trust those Irish, especially a Catholic.
Jonathan Swift, you like?
Haha. I got a chuckle or two out of it. Honestly, though, did this part need to be in there?
Right there Phil is sounding like the hundreds (or thousands) of British who “aren’t shedding nary a tear” for the man this week because of his alleged “support for IRA terrorists” (really his thoughts on Irish re-unification). I’ve read more crap from across the pond this week about cooked up links between Kennedy and Noraid, and Noraid and the Provos than usual, though it seems most of Britain’s right-wing and conservative Unionist brigade can’t go a day without mentioning Noraid five or six times anyway.
Revised portion of revised Obituary:
Kennedy went on to write a book discounting the theme of Irish American Dual Loyalty; his stance was that although Irish Americans were 10% of the USA’s population, behind only those of German extraction, and Ireland had been starved and occupied by the Brits for a long time, the USA
had never given Ireland foreign aid or any military aid as a matter of de facto or de jure foreign policy.
The point being I missed the point? Fair enough :P Makes more sense now… I guess I’ve got my Irish Republican blinders on when I should be wearing my Israel Lobby specs.
Teddy was especially angry about what the Zionists really thought of JFK’s interest in inspecting Dimona. Ben-Gurion instructed Democratic fundraiser Abraham Feinberg to “sort out the boy. Make the putz understand the reality of life.”
For God’s sake, Phil, grow up. And stop trying to play both sides of the fence. It didn’t work for Ferdinand, and it’ll do the same to you.
Mooser, please elaborate on why you think Phil is being immature. I’ve commented a number times on this thread about his alternate obituary. Now you too, need to be
specific.
Another revision of revised obituary:
insert after “Kennedy served two terms in the Senate in the 1960s and was spoken of as a possible presidential candidate before his career flamed out.” :
Kennedy eloquently and prophetically protested against passage of the 1965 Immigration Act saying at the time
that while “family reunification” and “birthright citizenship” sounded endearing, it was not constitutional and would doom the nation through anchor and jackpot babies and chain migration, which would make Americans tax mules for foreigners’ welfare and
allow the growth of separate nations speaking their own tongue by law within the country’s breast.
Richard, where’s the false attribution? kinda strong charge, huh?
Yes: Chappaquiddick was a bridge too far; meant to be funny. guess it didnt work
Ethan: The true fact, and germ of this post, is that Bobby Kennedy was killed by a Palestinian American. Terrorism. What was the effect of this murder on the Kennedy family politics? Has that worm finished turning? Arent there other ways to respond to that fact than slavish support for Israel?
The term was “false attributions”.
That was that he was a pawn of AIPAC, which you repeated editorially with the Blankfort article newly posted.
The point that conflicts with that, at least relative to your assertions that AIPAC or other similar organizations were the primary driver in the entry to the war in Iraq, is again and again, that Kennedy voted in the minority AGAINST the War Powers Resolution.
Maybe Kennedy was a sure winner, and because not at play, also not a target ever of AIPAC in election campaigns.
But, the attribution of 100% AIPAC voter is false, in number and likely in spirit.
You’re speculating for a change on Kennedy’s motivations for his positions. NOT a good habit in whatever position.
To take a one-position stand on all persons, puts in strange company, and convinces you to make strange judgements about people.
As I’ve said a number of times, in relation to Palestinian politics, a balanced position that emphasizes coexistence, mutual humanization, law and democracy is THE progressive position on Israel, and in that respect I currently find your choices (as indicated by your editorial choices emphasizing resistance including “by any means necessary”) to be PEP (progressive except for Palestine).
The timing is wrong on this – premature. If you look at Percy’s career, you can see that the Zionist attack was not in the 1960s but much later. The Zionist control of Congress is a relatively recent phenomenon.
It felt so good to stand up to Zionist power that Teddy devoted the rest of his life to recanting his most despicable lies:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Exactly, and this has not been mentioned on MSM/Cable news; in fact in the lists
of his legislative achievements the 1965 Immigration Act is always missing. That’s
why I commented above in this thread:
“Another revision of revised obituary:
insert after “Kennedy served two terms in the Senate in the 1960s and was spoken of as a possible presidential candidate before his career flamed out.” :
Kennedy eloquently and prophetically protested against passage of the 1965 Immigration Act saying at the time
that while “family reunification” and “birthright citizenship” sounded endearing, it was not constitutional and would doom the nation through anchor and jackpot babies and chain migration, which would make Americans tax mules for foreigners’ welfare and
allow the growth of separate nations speaking their own tongue by law within the country’s breast.
Richard, I did not say he was a pawn of AIPAC. I quoted that Jewish Journal writer saying that he voted the AIPAC line 100 percent, the other day.
I never said that AIPAC was the primary driver behind the IRaq war. As W&M show, they were sotto voce.
I believe that the neocons supplied the most important ideas for that disastrous war, and that the Israel lobby, of which neocons were a part, was a crucial driver.
It’s great that Teddy didn’t vote for the IRaq war. I love him for it. Great man, in a lot of ways.
I find it fascinating that he folded though so completely on the Palestinian issue and that he primaried Jimmy Carter in part on that basis. It shows a tremendous faultline in our politics, liberal politics, and deserves to be hit and hit hard.
Your comments above contradicted the gist of your last three years posts.
I’m not going to quote chapter and verse.
You pillaried a man who is not even in the ground, on the basis of an oddly constructed interpretation of a single issue.
If you “love him for it”, why was that not the first and clearest post on the acknowledgement of his death?
Historically, as of 1976 and 1980, the PLO was regularly conducting terror campaigns, hijackings, bombings. It was a rational position to oppose.
Or do you or did you support it?
You can’t quote chapter and verse because what you say is not true about Phil’s
last three years posts.
So Phil and Citizen,
Next time Phil states anything about AIPAC and the Iraq War, I’ll remind you of this exchange.
Or, is this just “fine dancing”?
It’s not myself or Witty who is dancing here, but you:
One of the odder notions to take hold in recent years is that AIPAC specifically, and the so-called “Israel lobby” more generally had absolutely nothing to do with the Iraq War, and that anyone who says otherwise is an anti-semite. As John Judis writes for The New Republic, however, this is just false:
At the time, a Senate staff person with a responsibility for foreign policy told me of AIPAC’s lobbying. But I don’t have to rely on my memory. AIPAC’s lobbying wasn’t widely reported because AIPAC didn’t want Arab states, whose support the Bush administration was soliciting, to be able to tie Bush’s plans to Israel, but it lobbied nonetheless. In September 2002, before Congress had begun considering the administration’s proposal authorizing force with Iraq, Rebecca Needler, a spokeswoman for AIPAC, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, “If the president asks Congress to support action in Iraq, AIPAC would lobby members of Congress to support him.” Then at an AIPAC meeting in New York in January 2003, before the war began, but after Congress had voted to authorize Bush to go to war, Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s executive director, boasted of AIPAC’s success in lobbying for the war. Reported the New York Sun, “According to Mr. Kohr, AIPAC’s successes over the past year also include guaranteeing Israel’s annual aid package and ‘quietly’ lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq.”
And, obviously, other institutions of the hawkish “pro-Israel” establishment — the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Saban Center, JINSA, The New York Sun, The New Republic, etc. — all advocated strongly in favor of invasion. That’s not to say that “the Jews caused the war” (I think Bush, Cheney, Blair, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. had a little something to do with it) but it’s still true.
LOL, of course I mean “It’s not myself or Phil who is dancing here, but you Witty.”
So, it was not your impression that Phil described over years the impact of AIPAC and other organizations of the “Israel Lobby”, in compelling the US to go to war in Iraq.
Certainly the vote on the War Resolution would have been a telling measure of one’s conforming to the Israel Lobby or not.
I really dislike the deniability of publishing an intentionally inflammatory article, as if it reinforced Phil’s voice (the world of Weiss), and then declaiming that that is the case. “It wasn’t my voice, but his.”
That is exactly what his criticism of the New York Times and other media consists of, their editorial choices (what material, how headlined, how presented).
The New York Times has an editorial page. “We think ….”. The editorial framing is less overt.
Phil doesn’t have an editorial page. He only has his deniable editorial framing.
So, Witty, please not only skim, but digest what I said. Seems your head is teflon
to information you don’t want.
Besides the obvious: Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian, killed his brother, there is another subtler reason why Kennedy may have supported Israel. The common enemy of Irish independence and Israeli independence (at one time) were the British occupiers. At a New York City memorial for Menachem Begin in 1992, Paul O’Dwyer spoke of his support for Israel, and it had nothing to do with New York politics and everything to do with anti British sentiments. Today’s Irish Catholics view themselves as the equivalent of the Palestinians and the Israelis as the parallel of the Protestants, but once upon a time there was a natural sympathy from those who wished to throw off the British yoke in Ireland for those who wished to throw off the British yoke in Israel. Kennedy was an old Irish pol and reflected the sentiments of his generation.
I really hate to tell you this Phil, but the Jew’s problems are not Ted Kennedy’s problems. He has absolutely no need to sacrifice his career to the problems we have made for ourselves, when you won’t even risk being cut out of the will.
It is not the world’s responsibility to fix Zionism’s problems for us. That is our problem. Your fucking problem.
I wish it were so, Mooser. But the USA is Zionism’s number one enabler. It’s every
tax paying Americans problem, to say the least.
And it’s been so since Truman, the failed seller of hats.
How many ladies can a guy condemn to death to lead social progression in this country?
link to ocregister.com