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While Teddy Kennedy's disasters were vivid, his legislative triumphs, draped in this week's obituaries with respectful homage, were far less colourful. And they were actually devastating for the very constituencies – working people, organised labour – whose champion he claimed to be.
He had the most famous car accident in political history when he drove off a wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in July 1969, saying later that he had failed in several attempts to dive down 10ft to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide of his dead brother Robert. She was in the back seat and drowned.
Ted quit the scene and called a Kennedy speechwriter instead of the police, a misdemeanor which cost him a two-month suspended sentence and any chance of ever following his brother Jack into the White House.
He made only one overt bid for the presidency and that was a colourful disaster too. He challenged the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter, then seeking re-election in 1980. After three years, the left in the Democratic Party was bitterly disappointed in Carter's cautious centrism and Kennedy placed himself in the left's vanguard, declaring in a famous speech that "sometimes a party must sail against the wind".
In those days I was reporting on national politics for the Village Voice and Rolling Stone and covered Kennedy's bid. It got off to a shaky start when Roger Mudd of NBC, a well-known political reporter and TV newscaster, asked Ted on prime time why he wanted to be president. The 30 seconds of silence that followed this easy lob didn't help Kennedy's chances.
Kennedy – bellowing like a mammoth stuck in a swamp — sounded utterly fake
The campaign plane shot backwards and forwards across America, seeking photo opportunities. On one typical morning we left Washington DC at 6am and headed for the rustbelt where Kennedy stood outside a shuttered Pittsburgh steel mill and pledged to get the steel industry back on its feet. We shot west to Nebraska so Kennedy could stand outside a corn silo and swear allegiance to the cause – utterly doomed - of the small family farmer. Then we doubled back to New York so he could stand on a street corner in a slum neighbourhood in the Bronx and promise a better deal for urban blacks and Hispanics.
I asked one of Kennedy's campaign people why they didn't simply equip a studio in Washington with the necessary backdrops – steel mill, silo, urban wasteland – but he said it wouldn't be honest. As things were, the locations we flew to may have been genuine, but the campaign pledges were as dishonest as a studio backdrop, which is why Kennedy – bellowing out his speeches like a mammoth stuck in a swamp - sounded utterly fake.
By 1980 the die was cast. Disdaining the left option offered by George McGovern in 1972, the Democratic Party had thrown in its lot decisively with Wall Street and the big players across the American corporate landscape. The labour unions and the other foot-soldier constituencies of the party would be flung empty rhetorical bouquets, as they have been every four years since 1980.
Though the obituarists have glowingly related Kennedy's 46-year stint in the US Senate and, as 'the last liberal', his mastery of the legislative process, they miss the fact that it was out of Kennedy's Senate office that came two momentous bits of legislation that signalled the onset of the neo-liberal era: deregulation of trucking and aviation. They were a disaster for organised labour and the working conditions and pay of people in those industries.
The theorist of deregulation was Stephen Breyer who was Kennedy's chief counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Breyer now sits on the US Supreme Court, an unswerving shill for the corporate sector.
We also have Kennedy to thank for 'No Child Left Behind' – a nightmarish Education Bill pushed through in concert with Bush Jr's White House, that condemns children to a treadmill of endless tests contrived as "national standards".
Like Jack and Bobby he persuaded the underdogs that he was on their side
And it was Kennedy who was the prime force behind the Hate Crimes Bill, aka the Matthew Shepard Act, by dint of which America is well on its way to making it illegal to say anything nasty about gays, Jews, blacks and women. "Hate speech," far short of any direct incitement to violence, is on the edge of being criminalised, with the First Amendment gone the way of the dodo.
Of course Kennedy did some decent things, which is scarcely surprising in a political career of half a century. But as much as his brothers Jack and Bobby he was adept at persuading the underdogs that he was on their side.
To this day there are deluded souls who argue that Jack was going to pull US troops out of Vietnam and that is why he was killed; that Bobby, who supervised the US "Murder Inc" in the Caribbean, was really and truly on the side of the angels; that Ted was the mighty champion of the working people, even though he gave them deregulation and helped push through NAFTA, the "free trade" pact that was another body blow to American labour.
By his crucial endorsement last year he helped give them Obama too, now holidaying six miles from Chappaquiddick, on Martha's Vineyard. But because his mishaps were so dramatic, no one remembers quite how noxious his political triumphs were for those who now mourn him as their lost leader. ·
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Comments
If I had any remaining doubt, this piece clinched it for me!
Alexander Cockburn is the penultimate malcontent, iconic curmudgeon and just plain most miserable excuse for a human being currently roaming this planet.
He probably delights in snatching candy from babies, kicking dogs and pushing little old ladies into traffic at rush hour!
His commentaries start from a perspective so far into the negative that he couldn't get close to being accurate with a GPS and a guide dog.
Alexander, isn't it time for your month-long holiday in keeping with the European tradition? While you are at it, take two or six!!
Danny, couldn't have put it better myself. With you all the way on this one.
TFP may defend this article saying it provoked comment and discussion. There are so many important and complex issues to be discussed regarding the authenticity and ecology of reform and reformers within the decadent and viral system of cleptocracy, as Michael Reinelt hints at in his comment. However is educated, truthful and productive discussion really supported by such a low standard of journalism as offered in this article? As a reader I am engaged more by facts, specifics and well-constructed arguments, not attention-seeking rants against an individual not yet cold in the ground.
Can we rename this piece to: "A Hollow Article - Cockburn's Editorials Are Tiresome For The Very People Who Read Them". I have no doubt that there is an insightful piece waiting to be written on how (like his brothers) Teddy Kennedy was not all he was cracked up to be, but this isn't it. It's not even close. Give it up Alexander. Please.
Alexander Cockburn certainly supports "policies that benefit all people, rather than just corporations and the already-rich". (At least if you exclude the rich from the "all people" to benefit - the upper class and the working class does have different interests). But he claims that Ted Kennedy did not, at least not enough. Anyone should be able to see that he critisises the late senator from the left, not from the right. Cockburn might not be a "liberal" (whatever that means), but he is to the left of neoliberals like Kennedy.
Sorry, pals, but I've lived (as a German) 21 years in the U.S., wondering most the time, what in the hell I was doing there, ... until the coward attack on Iraq finally send me back to Berlin.
So half of Ted Kennedy's tenure in the Senate I observed as a watchful liberal (certainly not as a "fellow" liberal of Ted's) resident alien and I can wholeheartedly support the label of Edward Kennedy's et al. profound cynicism that Alex Cockburn hints at.
Like in Europe (New Labour in Britain or the Social Democratic Party in Germany), Labour's interests have been systematically betrayed and sold old to the kleptocracy that is spread out world-wide (AKA neo-liberalism) by the very same pillagers that falsely claim to have the interests of the working people on their mind.
Good job, Alex, I, for one, enjoy your commentaries. It was high time that someone spoke up about this betrayal. Too many, obviously, love to run around with the wool pulled over their eyes -- bread and games brought another empire down; this one is doomed, and it deserves it!
This article fails to deliver one what it promises, as previous commenters have noted. It is long on assertions and short on substance, as are many of Mr. Cockburn's grumblings. For the most part, this one rehashes old tragedies that cannot be changed. There are those who wish to cling to the past and never allow a person to move on from it. Mr. Cockburn appears to be of that type. Mr. Cockburn also clearly favors his disgruntled hindsight over what might be called "optimistic foresight," which is what I believe Sen. Kennedy had. Yes, some of the bills Sen. Kennedy sponsored have turned out to be disasters. But they usually had a "seed" -- something of value -- in them which I believe Sen. Kennedy thought could be nurtured and could grow into something beneficial. Mr. Cockburn's glee at reminding us yet again that a dedicated public servant had feet of clay is simply another sad example of how relentless those who oppose "liberal" policies -- i.e., policies that benefit all people, rather than just corporations and the already-rich -- can be. And just as President Roosevelt was called a "traitor to his class," it really galls these people that a rich family like the Kennedys could try to help those less fortunate than themselves. Mr. Cockburn is certainly entitled to his opinions, but he should remember the saying that "An opinion is meant to be the results of reasoning, not a substitute for it."
I am sick and tired of the constant rants and negative comments of mr alexander cockburn.He believes that he and people of his ilk are the only ones with the answers to all the issues facing the world.If you are not a right winger,or conservative,or hate everyone who does not fall within those two groups,he has no use for you.While he has every right to his opinions,he should stop foisting his positions on everyone else. He is intellectually dishonest and has no integrity. And the first post is in bed with him since they do not encourage or accept any criticism of him. Just last week,he wrote a columm on the death of mr kovac which was typical of his off the wall reporting.Today ,less than 48 hours since the death of Sen.Ted Kennedy,he is writing a vitriolic article on him.Does he not have any shame. No matter your politics,does it not have room for simple human decency,truth, and reverence?
Mr. Cockburn, with all respect to your writing skills, you are becoming somewhat of a gadfly, but not a clever one. I did not care much for the Kennedy clan, the reasons for which I would have to support with a several-paragraph explanation. Nonetheless, to bash for the sake of bashing is merely a different form of amateur comedic shock by using foul language where the underlying humor eludes the comedian. Sir, you can do better, and it would provide us with a better column, as well. In addition, you really need to bone up on the politics as we *feel* them across the pond -- meaning, stateside. Including that perspective would give your readers the benefit of your understanding. Journalism within commentary is the true art of opining.
Well said Danny. Actually I get this impression of most of Alexander Cockburn's pieces. Playing the devil's advocate needs to be done well and in an informed manner. Otherwise you just become a drone, and people flip to another page.
This article is headed "A Hollow Champion - Kennedy's Senate triumphs were devastating for the very people who now mourne him". The first paragraph repeats this: "... his legislative triumphs ... were actually devastating for ... working people.."
In Ireland we always get a very positive image from our press of Kennedy. I was therefore interested to see another opinion of him. I have no ideological position that I want to see supported: I just wanted a balanced understanding of the man.
Even from my unbiased position I can see that this article is just a rant. The article purports to show that Kennedy's legislative achievements are "devastating " for working people. There were only one or two points during the whole article that were in any way relevant to this thesis. Most of the article concentrated on Chappaquiddick, some rubbish about where he made a speech in 1980, a short rant on Jack and Bobby, and a final paragraph which seems to disapprove of where Obama is taking his holidays.
With regard to the points which may be addressing the supposed subject of the article, apparently Kennedy supported legislation to deregulate trucking and aviation, which Alexander tells us without any supporting argument or explanation were "a disaster for organised labour and the working conditions and pay of people in those industries". Kennedy also supported "No Child Left Behind" and something called the Hate Crimes Bill, both of which Alexander clearly dislikes but which he doesn't even try to say are "devastating for working people".
Alexander, how about giving us a reasoned article explaining your thesis?