Bloodthirsty Liberal

Admittedly a very short drive (like off a bridge, say).

Quote ‘em. Remember this two years ago?

Brilliant move—brilliant. It drove them absolutely bat-[bleep]. And you can bet wrapping himself in the (John) Kennedy mantle helped get him elected.

But this. This has them choking on their ice cubes:

US Senator Scott Brown’s suggestion that he shares with the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy a position on religious exemptions for health care providers is “misleading and untrue,’’ said Kennedy’s son, Patrick, who wants Brown to stop citing the elder Kennedy in radio advertisements.

“You are entitled to your own opinions, of course, but I ask that, moving forward, you do not confuse my father’s positions with your own,’’ Kennedy wrote to Brown. “I appreciate the past respect you have expressed for his legacy, but misstating his positions is no way to honor his life’s work.’’

Patrick Kennedy, a Democrat and former eight-term congressman from Rhode Island, complained to Brown in a letter e-mailed yesterday morning and then released publicly.

Kennedy takes issue with Brown’s new radio ad, in which the freshman Republican senator states: “Like Ted Kennedy before me, I support a conscience exemption in health care for Catholics and other people of faith.’’

Kennedy asked that Brown take the ad down.

“I respectfully request that you immediately stop broadcast of radio ad and from citing my father any further,’’ he said.

Brown will not pull the radio ad, his campaign said yesterday afternoon. The senator replied with a short, open letter back to Kennedy, in which he said: “When your father told the Pope in his 2009 letter that he supported a conscience exemption for Catholics in health care, he did not mean to put himself on the opposite side of the church or to suggest that he would force them to accept a situation with which they could not abide.

“And yet, that is exactly the situation we are faced with today – despite a failed attempt at compromise, the church remains opposed to the federal government’s intrusion into the affairs of private conscience,’’ Brown wrote. “I’d like to think your dad would have been working with me to find an accommodation that all sides found satisfactory.’’

You’ve been pwned, son!

Ted’s mantle is a little bigger, still a little damp from seawater, and smells a bit of stale whiskey and vomit. But it’s still a Kennedy mantle. I knew Scott Brown was biding his time. Let Betty Warren take the early rounds. But she’ll tire, her arms will get heavy. It’s like Muhammad Ali’s rope-a-dope, only with a Harvard law professor (though still a dope).

Bloodthirstapalooza!

The ownership of the fabled Kennedy home at the family’s Hyannis Port compound is being transferred to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, a move that brings to an end the family’s 84-year ownership of the 21-room house.

The Institute announced this afternoon it had taken over the waterfront homestead and will use it as a study center. It said the transfer ‘’fulfills a promise made by Senator Kennedy to his mother Rose that the home be preserved for charitable use.’’

The $5.5 million property is the centerpiece of the compound, where some of the nation’s most dramatic modern political history took place. The compound also includes other Kennedy homes, including former President John F. Kennedy’s house, which will remain in the family.

Can you say “tax write-off”? I knew that you could.

And since Teddy Institute is on the dole, we all own a piece. Can we have first dibs on July 4th?

We’ll have to play a game of touch football, of course, Aggie and I choosing sides as captains. And the alcohol will have to flow freely. Maybe even rent a couple of hookers, just to get the right ambience.

I’m a little unclear what “dramatic modern political history” took place here—unless concocting Ted’s cover story after abandoning Mary Jo counts. Seriously, what else? They are a family of one president, two senators, and various congressmen. Not bad, but the Bushes come pretty close to matching it—and I don’t hear anybody talking about creating a museum out of Crawford.

Anyhow, Bloodthirstani, book your spot early. Spaces are limited.

Mike Barnicle may miss Ted Kennedy, but I maintain the only reason there’s money to build the Ted Kennedy Mausoleum (or whatever they want to call it) is to make sure he doesn’t rise from the grave for one last “waitress sandwich”:

ANN COULTER: What I don’t understand some not understanding, though in the end as I say I think they will understand since I think it’s going to be Romney, is what do they not understand about Massachusetts, the most liberal state in the Union, he ran against Teddy Kennedy. I mean, you’re flipping from positions you held when you came within five points of taking out that human pestilence. Come on: give the guy a break.

MIKE BARNICLE: I, I, I, I don’t know that I’m going to do that with Ted Kennedy. I mean, he was, we miss him in Massachusetts. And I think the country, and especially in the Senate, and I think Barack Obama more than anybody. Because if Ted Kennedy had been alive, the health care debate would have lasted about five months.

COULTER: As a columnist, I miss him desperately.

Touché, Ann. I’ll leave it to the rest of you to determine how much you miss Ted. But if there’s a toothless crone from the auld sod living in Southie who misses him, she’s the only one.

But you have to forgive Barnicle. He’s much better with others’ words than with his own.

Uh, Senator?

How many off them are there?

“Star Wars” actress Carrie Fisher claims the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked her some pretty frank questions while dining out with the star and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).

According to published excerpts from Fisher’s new book, “Shockaholic,” the entertainer, best known for her role as Princess Leia, was fresh out of her first stint in rehab and on a date with a then single Dodd back in 1985. Kennedy joined the pair at dinner in D.C..

Fisher writes, “Suddenly, Senator Kennedy, seated directly across from me, looked at me with his alert, aristocratic eyes and asked me a most surprising question. ‘So,’ he said, clearly amused, ‘do you think you’ll be having sex with Chris at the end of your date?’”

The celeb adds, “Chris Dodd looked at me with an unusual grin hanging on his very flushed face.”

While Fisher writes that she calmly quipped to Kennedy, “Funnily enough, I won’t be having sex with Chris tonight…No that probably won’t happen…Thanks for asking, though,” the author claims that the rather candid line of questioning didn’t end there.

Fisher continues in her latest tome: “’Would you have sex with Chris in a hot tub?’ Senator Kennedy asked me, perhaps as a way to say good night?”

“’I’m no good in water,’ I told him.”

Very wise, Carrie. You don’t want to get anywhere near water when Ted’s around.

BTW, do Dodd’s “unusual grin” and “very flushed face” constitute “non overtly sexual gestures”? Can’t wait to read Politico’s coverage.

Ted Kennedy described socialized medicine as “the cause of his life”, and he accomplished it. Stymying the wind farm in Nantucket Sound might be described as “the cause of his death” (as he was the cause of Mary Jo Kopechne’s), and it looks like he’s accomplished that, too:

The Federal Aviation Administration failed to adequately review how difficult it could be for pilots to navigate over 25 square miles of towering wind turbines in often fog-shrouded waters of Nantucket Sound, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday, imposing another delay on the nation’s first offshore wind farm.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the FAA’s ruling that Cape Wind’s proposed 130 turbines, each 440 feet tall, present no hazard to aviation, a finding that helped form the basis of the US Interior Department’s approval of the project last year after a decade of legal challenges and delays.

“We find it ‘likely as opposed to merely speculative’ that the Interior Department would rethink the project’’ if the FAA ultimately deems the turbines a hazard to air traffic, a panel of three judges wrote in the court’s ruling.

They vacated the FAA’s decision and ordered the agency to review its findings, a process that could take years and put the $1 billion project’s lease at risk, opponents said.

Here’s the imagined view from the Kennedy compound:

Oops! Wrong slide.

I can’t possibly know the truth of this matter, but truth is a stranger in these parts. (Ask Mary Jo Kopechne.) This thing miraculously started to move forward only when Ted turned toes up. But that’s the thing about big families: they have big tentacles. And the Kennedys will not be mocked.

Although the evil he did lives after him:

House Democrats worked to tug on the heartstrings Wednesday, playing to the “Kennedy card” several times while defending Obamacare in a congressional hearing. Sen. Ted Kennedy, who passed away in 2009, called socialized medicine “the cause of my life.”

The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, were holding a joint hearing on the failures of Obamacare’s Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS Act.

The CLASS Act was supposed to be the part of Obamacare that provided a public “long-term care” option. It was also supposed to be financially self-sustaining. Conservative allegations that the CLASS Act was not financially self-sustaining were confirmed a little over a week ago when President Obama’s Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the administration will not be implementing the CLASS Act because it is not financially solvent and, Sebelius said, it has no “viable path forward.”

…

As the CLASS Act, and Obamacare in its entirety, came under fire yet again in Wednesday’s hearing, Democrats turned to the “Kennedy card” as one of their most frequent defenses.

Former Rhode Island Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy even came back to Congress to defend the CLASS Act, a “key priority” of his father — former Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy. Patrick Kennedy testified as part of special hearing panel that included Louisiana Republican Rep. Charles Boustany, Montana Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg and Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch. The other panel that testified before the subcommittee consisted of two senior Obama administration officials, who were present to defend the CLASS Act.

Texas Democratic Rep. Gene Green offered glowing remarks for the late senator’s son, and thanked Patrick Kennedy for Ted Kennedy’s work in Congress. “I want to particularly welcome our former colleague Patrick Kennedy. Patrick, we worked together on lots of mental health issues over the years and I want to thank you for your service to the American people, and particularly to your district in Rhode Island,” Green said before defending Obamacare.

You might say Patrick Kennedy has given his life to mental illness (though I can’t disagree with him about the press):

“But, also I want to thank you for the service of your father. Without your father’s work in the Senate, I don’t have enough fingers and toes to list the issues that would not be in the law today, including the CLASS Act. [I want] just to generally thank you for the service of your family — I think all of us thank you for that.”

Too bad he didn’t say he didn’t have the breath in his body to list the issues. Mary Jo Kopechne would have agreed.

But if you have to appeal to the least impressive Kennedy son of the least impressive Kennedy son, you ought to realize it’s you who has the problem.

Nothing could be greener than taking a pristine ocean setting like Nantucket Sound and sticking 130 windmills in it.

A federal agency approved a construction and operations plan for the Cape Wind project off the Massachusetts coast, clearing the way for work to begin on America’s first offshore wind farm as early as this fall, U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar announced Tuesday.

Approval by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement was required before construction of the proposed 130-turbine wind farm in Nantucket Sound could get under way.

The secretary said the Cape Wind project, which has already received other state and federal permits, could create 600 to 1,000 jobs and that nationwide the wind power industry had the potential for tens of thousands of jobs.

“The wind potential off the Atlantic coast is staggering,” but the vetting process for projects to tap it is too drawn out, Salazar said at a news conference in Boston.

“Taking 10 years to permit an offshore wind farm like Cape Wind is simply unacceptable,” and the Obama administration is examining ways to streamline the permitting process so it won’t take so long, Salazar said.

You know whom you have to thank for that, don’t you?

He as much as said they’d build this thing over his dead body, and damned if he wasn’t right.

But you all just sang hosannas to him at the groundbreaking of his mausoleum. If his obstructionism was “unacceptable”, why did you accept it for so long?

Anyway, maybe the socialist old goat knew what he was doing:

Cape Wind opponents have argued that the project will pose an unnecessary burden for electric ratepayers.

The state’s largest utility, National Grid, signed a deal with Cape Wind that the utility said will cost ratepayers $1.2 billion above the projected market price of comparable energy by the time it’s done. Still, National Grid argues that the deal is a good price for the benefits it is receiving, including a uniquely large size for a renewable power project and proximity to an energy-hungry coast.

The state’s other large utility, NStar, passed on Cape Wind, instead focusing on energy contracts with three smaller land wind farms that it said are a total of $111 million below market price.

Sweet. We’re going to pay way over market price for an eyesore, when we could get a great deal on electricity elsewhere. Democratic market fundamentals.

Who invited him?

Concerned Massachusetts voters ensure Ted Kennedy stays put.

Scott Brown, R-Mass., taking the stage in an unadvertised appearance, addressing Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, and grinning, “I told you I’d come. Little surprise to everybody, isn’t it?”

…

With fiscal negotiations consuming Washington, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick opted to use his remarks at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate to scold the “conservative movement, so-called,” for “sapping the optimism out of our country,” positing Kennedy as the quintessential optimist.

…

Brown, elected to replace Kennedy last year in a historic stunner, said, “Me of all people, I understand the large shoes I have to fill.” He praised Kennedy’s knack for working across the aisle for compromise, then looked at Patrick and addressed him directly: “I have to go and do the people’s business, Governor, as you referenced. There are good people who do want to move things forward, regardless of their political party.”

…

While the exchange between a GOP rock star and one of President Obama’s top surrogates raised eyebrows among the assembled political illuminati, Brown’s remarks brought high praise from the late senator’s son Patrick, a former congressman, who hustled out of the tented ceremony to hug Brown.

“You were fantastic,” Patrick Kennedy said.

Hittin’ the Chivas and Ambien again, were ya, Patches?

But you want the biggest laugh of the day?

Kennedy’s widow, Victoria Kennedy, said it’s fitting that the two centers will be set next to each other, because it was John Kennedy who inspired his younger brother Edward’s enduring love of the Senate and public service.

She said she hopes the institute will do the same thing for future generations.

“My husband didn’t want a memorial to himself or his achievements,” she said. “He wanted to create a place that would spark an interest and nurture the belief that public service can be a noble endeavor.”

The only love John inspired in Ted was for Marilyn Monroe’s… no, I can’t say it on a family blog.

Anyway, watch out, Kathy Griffin. Vickie Kennedy is out to replace you as the most outrageous comedienne.

PS: I’ve always thought there was a more appropriate place for a Ted Kennedy mausoleum.

You’ll have to take my word for it that I’ve been working on a post about Ted Kennedy’s “youthful indiscretions”. But where does one start? Forget my draft and the links—you know it all already.

Here’s one curious thing, however: Judicial Watch came out with the story on the February 25th; the Boston Gob came around only today, March 1st. Even granting them the inconvenience of a publishing schedule, that’s three days late to the party. In news terms, that’s a geologic era. It would be less embarrassing for them to ignore it altogether.

No one can be shocked that Ted sampled the delicacies of a Chilean brothel. The only surprise was that he offered to share. As one caller to local radio put it, while his brother was dealing with one missile crisis, he had his own—in his pants.

But what I can’t get my mind around is his voracious appetite for Communists. While Jack was facing down Reds in Cuba (pronounced Cuber), Vietnam, and the Soviet Union, Teddy was rubbing… elbows… with every Marxist-Leninist south of the Rio Grande. And while he was the acknowledged Senator-in-waiting (waiting to be of age), he was serving as an assistant DA here in Mass.

President Kennedy had no love for Communists, so what was Ted doing? If you wanted to send someone on a fact-finding mission to gather intelligence on your enemy, would you pick a hardened CIA operative, a learned academic, or a snot-nosed kid with a bad case of priapism?

When you look at Ted’s later career, his outreach to the Soviets to sabotage Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan looks even more treasonous (if possible) in light of these revelations. Not to mention his support of just about every lame-brained left-wing (to be redundant) cause, from the nuclear freeze to socialized medicine.

And your tax dollars are supposed to erect (!) a monument to this disgraceful excuse for an American. Write your legislator.

Looks like they don’t treat the hired help too good:

Shortly after construction begins on the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate this spring, its president — handpicked by the senator just before his death — plans to make his exit.

The unexpected resignation of Peter Meade, combined with the recent departure of the chief executive of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, is fueling a growing sense in Boston’s political circles that there is confusion and conflict behind the scenes among the keepers of the vaunted Kennedy legacy.

In an interview, Meade, a longtime team player with the Kennedy family and one of Boston’s leading civic figures, confirmed he is leaving the institute, but insisted his departure is amicable.

‘Course it is. Who would suggest otherwise?

Well…

Reports of Meade’s departure after little more than 18 months in the position have caught his friends and colleagues off guard, but not completely by surprise. While none would speak for the record, they have said he was not comfortable in the position, particularly with the intense interest that Kennedy’s widow has in the day-to-day operations.

…

The Institute is constructing a 40,000-square-foot structure that will be part of the University of Massachusetts Boston. The largely one-story building, which will look out over Dorchester Bay, will be located next to the presidential library but is not part of it.

To be sure, the institute appears to be on track, despite some setbacks in federal funding.

The part where the stupid thing gets waterfront property makes me cry; the part where Buck, Carol, Judi, et al have to pay for it (at least in part) makes me laugh so hard I cry, too, and my ribs are sore.

But Meade’s planned departure comes just several months after another Kennedy family institution, the presidential library on Dorchester’s Columbia Point, saw its president step down after only a year on the job. David McKean, a scholar who served as a top staff member for Senator John F. Kerry until 2009, has moved back to Washington, leaving the library position, which had seemed ill-matched to his skills.

The abrupt departure of both men has come at a time when the family — stripped of its patriarch in August 2009 — appears to have lost some of the respect and clout that gave it cohesion and kept its legacy intact.

…

On top of it all, another one of the late senator’s pet projects, the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, is struggling to realize its original vision as a centerpiece for Boston’s downtown.

How long before the airport goes back to being called Idlewild?

The story makes the point that the next generation of Kennedys doesn’t appear to have the clout of their parents, which is sad (to some) and true. Patches just left the House to spend more time with his Absolut, and Joe is front man for a tinpot, oil-rich dictator.

Well, mine. (Parental guidance is suggested.)

I woke up at about quarter past five this dark, damp, cold New England autumn morning, and heard the sound of a single cricket chirping. Around here, crickets start singing in late July (show tunes, mostly, a little light rock—kind of like Glee), and carry on until the weather turns cold. This fellow, evidently, was the last hold-out, singing his forlorn number for an audience of none.

Somebody wants to get laid, bad, I thought.

And then I remembered a story I meant to share with you. I was in a Cambridge bookstore the other day, and saw on the remainder table The Last Lion, that gag-inducing, coma-causing tribute to Ted Kennedy that the Boston Gob published on his death. [FX dept: insert flat line and cash register sounds here.]

Now, you might be confused: didn’t William Manchester name Winston Churchill “The Last Lion”? Was the Glob seriously suggesting The Chappaquiddick Kid can be mentioned in the same breath as the British wartime leader who alone stared down Hitler? No confusion. Yes, they were.

Anyway, I was amused to find this doorstop, this waste of trees, remaindered—in Cambridge, no less. But I had one more curiosity to satisfy. I picked up a copy (don’t worry, I always have a hazmat suit with me in Cambridge) and checked the publication details. It was a first edition.

Scott Brown’s election was a miracle. But echoes of the miracle are detectable to this day. I wouldn’t use the book to… uh, how shall I put it, cleanse myself in the lavatory. And neither, apparently, would anyone else.

Ted Kennedy and a frustrated cricket: you won’t find that on Kos.