Ted Kennedy The Deep Thinker

Yesterday during the Gonzales hearing good ole’ Teddy Kennedy was in deep thought it appears. He asked a question of Gonzales that just kinda makes you sit there with your mouth wide open.

KENNEDY: Now, the Post article states you chaired several meetings at which various interrogation techniques were discussed. These techniques included the threat of live burial and waterboarding, whereby the detainee is strapped to a board, forcibly pushed under water, wrapped in a wet towel and made to believe he might drown. The article states that you raised no objection…

KENNEDY: Could you just — I want to point out, if it’s true, as the Post reported, that you held several meetings at which the legality of interrogation techniques, such as threat of live burial and water boarding were discussed…

KENNEDY: Well, just as an attorney, as a human being, I would have thought that if there were recommendations that were so blatantly and flagrantly over the line in terms of torture, that you might have recognized them. I mean, it certainly appears to me that water boarding, with all its descriptions about drowning someone to that kind of a point, would come awfully close to getting over the border, and that you’d be able to at least say today, There were some that were recommended or suggested on that, but I certainly wouldn’t have had a part of that, as a human being.

I’m sure everyone has heard of the word “Chappaquiddick”? With Ted Kennedy speaking so eloquently about being aghast at the near drowning of terrorists, I guess Mary Jo Kopechne would of been better off at being a terrorist. Maybe she wouldn’t be dead now. I wonder if his punishment for the killing of Mary Jo turned him around, seeing as how severe the punishment was. We all know how those suspended sentences can effect you.

John Cole over at Balloon Juice has a question for the Senator.

Just out of curiosity- is this what the water-board device looks like?

Kitty over at Kitty Litter has a link to the audio of this jackass. The audio is the lovely Ann Coulter skewering Kennedy during the playback so it makes it even better.

While we are at it, lets get to some other tidbits of information on the jackass direct from Y Ted K.

Ted managed to graduate from prep school (Milton Academy) in 1950 with only a C average.

Teddy was never a scholar, and his brother Jack once referred to him as “the gay illiterate”.

Despite his terrible grades, Teddy (like brother Robert) was admitted to Harvard as a “legacy”, because his older brothers and father had graduated form there with such distinction.

Yet even at Harvard, young Ted floundered.

In his sophomore year he was expelled for cheating. He had been failing Spanish and feared it would keep him off the varsity football team.

He paid a friend to take the exam for him.

Ted’s friend, however, was recognized when he turned in the exam book.

Both lads were expelled, but were advised that they could apply for readmission in a year if they demonstrated responsible citizenship.

It was a shame and disgrace, but the family would manage to keep it a secret until Teddy ran for the Senate.

After his expulsion from Harvard, Teddy returned to Hyannis Port where he would sit brooding, sometimes for hours.

Finally, he enlisted in the Army.

Not surprisingly, he did not bother to read the enlistment papers and signed up for four years instead of two.

Ted’s father, the US Ambassador to England, was horrified at the thought of his youngest son spending four years in the service, with a good chance of being sent into combat in Korea. “Don’t you ever look at what you’re signing?” he shouted.

With one phone call Joe contacted a friend who managed to get hold of Teddy’s enlistment papers.

Ted’s enlistment period was shortened to two years, a maneuver that was nearly impossible for the average enlistee. Furthermore, Ted would do his service in Europe, not Korea.

Teddy never rose above the rank of private, and was discharged in 1952.

He returned to Harvard in the fall of 1953, as did his test-taking friend, and they graduated together.

Once back at Harvard, Teddy made the rugby team.
During one match in 1954, Ted got into three fistfights with opposing players and was finally thrown out of the game. According to referee Frederick Costick, Teddy was the only player he had ever expelled from a game in thirty years of officiating.
“Rugby is a character-building sport,” Costick said. “Players learn how to conduct themselves on the field with the idea that they will learn how to conduct themselves in life. When a player loses control of himself three times in a single afternoon, to my mind, that is a sign that, in a crisis, the man is not capable of thinking clearly and acting rationally. Such a man will panic under pressure.”

Of course, years later, in the crisis at Chappaquiddick, Teddy would do exactly that.

In 1957, Ted entered the University of Virginia Law School.
The warning signs of trouble would continue.

While in law school, Ted would earn the nickname “Cadillac Eddie”. He was cited four times for reckless driving (three times in 1958 and once in 1959). These violations included running red lights and driving with his lights off at ninety miles per hour in a suburban area.
Teddy was convicted of three violations and fined, but for some reason his driver’s license was never revoked.

On March 19, 1962 Teddy announced that he was a candidate for the US Senate.

Almost immediately, the Boston Globe unearthed the dark secret in Teddy’s past – that he had been expelled from Harvard for cheating.

Robert L Healy, political editor of the Globe, found the story. In order to get it into the paper, however, he had to get some confirmation. He asked the White House to open up the Harvard record and was immediately summoned to the Oval Office.

The President and his aides kept pressing Healy to play down the story, but he stood his ground. “So finally, Jack gave me access to the whole thing,” Healy said.

On March 30 the Globe ran the story. Ted immediately issued a statement accepting full blame:

“I made a mistake. What I did was wrong. I have regretted it ever since. The unhappiness I caused my family and friends, even though eleven years ago, has been a bitter experience for me, but it has also been a valuable lesson. That is the story.”

This was the first of what would become the three historic apologies of Ted’s career.

The cheating story eventually died, and Ted was elected to the Senate.

The admiring journalist Joe McCarthy had no illusions about young Ted. “He isn’t very very heavy mentally……..nothing like his brothers. In many ways he’s a fathead, a little bit conceited, a little bit cocky, the kind of guy who’d never finish a sentence when you asked him a question. He simply didn’t think things through as Jack and Bobby did.”

Check out Dinocrat, Calblog, The Pirates Blog, and Escape Reality for their takes on this idiot.