The Buie Knife

Revelations in Ted Kennedy's Autobiography, "True Compass"

Senator Edward Kennedy's autobiography, "True Compass," is out, and from the reviews, it appears to be honest, reflective and inspiring.

More than 30 evocative quotes from the book are posted on Politico.com. It also recounts Kennedy's stories from his Senate career. The book's prologue is posted at ABCNews.com. His son Teddy Jr. did an extensive interview about the book for "60 Minutes" on September 13, 2009. And both Teddy Jr. and Patrick Kennedy appeared for an in-depth interview on Larry King Live.

In anticipation of writing an article about the book, I obtained it a day after publication. What I enjoyed most was the portrait of a well-rounded man: a surprisingly good painter, a passionate if not always on-key singer, a lover of poetry, sailor extraordinaire who found spiritual renewal and sustenance from the sea. I would say that Ted Kennedy, given the gift of years, may prove to be the best of the Kennedy brothers.

  The book has essentially three major revelations:

Ted Kennedy's Life: Essential to Understanding American History and Politics

Watch CBS Videos Online

Fame is so fleeting. A 20-year-old asks, "Is Senator Kennedy related to the President Kennedy?" My 12-year-old is, of course, unfamiliar with the story of the Kennedys, or specifically of Ted, who ameliorated his brothers' inspiring but relatively brief and tragic lives at the pinnacle of American political power by his half-century of public service. Ted was the chief architect of thousands of bills, hundreds of which became law.

Together, the family's collective contribution over four generations as mayor of Boston, members of the House and Senate, as ambassadors to England and Ireland, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, as founder of the Special Olympics, as President, as Attorney General, as diplomats, journalists, attorneys and advocates on the world stage, and as authors (of such bestsellers as "Why England Slept," "Profiles in Courage," "The Enemy Within," and "Thirteen Days: The Cuban Missile Crisis") over an 80-year-and-counting period is remarkable, and comparable to that other great American family dynasty, the Adams.

"John Kennedy inspired America, Robert Kennedy challenged America, and Ted Kennedy changed America," is how Ted's colleague Chris Dodd put it.

To know the family's history is to know an important part of American history. That's why I asked my son to watch this CBS News documentary, "The Last Brother" -- essential viewing for anyone who wants to have some grasp of modern American history and politics. Teddy was at the center of American politics for 50 years.

Not only is Ted's story an inspiring one of perseverence through unthinkable tragedy after unthinkable tragedy, it is a story of personal redemption, and a story of how the youngest of four brothers through five decades in public life, through steady, reliable, impassioned public service ameliorated the terrible impact of his brothers' early deaths. And in anecdote after anecdote, it became clear just how "other centered" Senator Kennedy became, in the small gestures of kindness toward so many people when the cameras weren't on and nobody was looking.

When my son is older, I should also ask him to read "Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy," and the excerpts and video coverage at the Boston Globe site. I am proud to say that our cousin Bella English wrote part of that book.

Now Kennedy, as was said of Abraham Lincoln, "belongs to the ages." Joel Achenbach adds: "Visitors (to Arlington Cemetary in Washington, where all three Kennedy brothers are buried) will know that these Kennedys really mattered to us. But as they pass into history, it will be harder and harder to remember just how much they charmed us, how much they inspired us and how much they broke our hearts."

The Kennedys are so great at memorializing their fallen and dedicating their memory to causes larger than one individual. Kennedy's work will go on through his political action committe, TedKennedy.org and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Study of the United States Senate (EMKInstitute.org). His memories and observations of the political process have been recorded and preserved in an oral history project through the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. He also has an autobiography coming out called "True Compass."

Related:

• George Will: Ted was the most consequential Kennedy

Previous:

• Ted Kennedy's Full Measure
• Discovering the Charm of Chappaquiddick
  
• Who Are the Greatest U.S. Senators?
• Worst U.S. Senator: Theodore Bilbo Ruled Over DC Like Plantation Overseer
• Jesse Helms, 1921-2008: One of Us
• Ted Kennedy is, Surprisingly, in Deeds if Not in Words, a Master of Bipartisanship
• What a Dark Reputation Ted Kennedy Once Had, and Still Does Have, for Some
• Assessing Ted Kennedy's Career Should Include Measuring Effectiveness of Social Programs He Championed
• Ted Kennedy's Influence on American Policy May Be Greater Than Either of His Brothers
• Ted Kennedy's Personal Life Apparently Not What Early Image Suggested: Religious Beliefs, Volunteering Important to Him
• The 'Made for TV Election' Explodes Myth of Liberal Media Bias in 1980
• Video Clips from 1980 Prove Democratic Divisions in 2008 are NOTHING like the Bitter Carter-Kennedy Race
• Kennedy and Brownback Seek to Strengthen 'Culture of Life'
• Kennedy, Southern Baptists Agree on Immigration Reform

Worst Senator in U.S. History, Theodore Bilbo, Ruled Over DC Like Plantation Overseer

Overwhelming Senate passage of legislation giving DC residents a voting representative in the U.S. House of Representatives reminds me of the long history of the struggle for DC Voting Rights. It was, or should have been, an integral part of the civil rights movement, because of the historic disenfranchisement of African Americans in the district.

The most appalling chapter in that history was in the 1930s and 1940s when Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi was the de facto "mayor of Washington," as the head of the Senate's District of Columbia Committee. He ruled the city like a autocratic plantation overseer. Bilbo was perhaps the very WORST senator in American history: an unspeakable ignoramus bigot. He once called Claire Booth Luce a "nigger lover," repeatedly praised Adolph Hitler, had ties to Nazi sympathizers in the U.S. and declared that whites were "justified in going to any extreme to keep the nigger from voting." For years he blocked anti-lynching laws. (Source)

In his fascinating book, Washington Goes to War, journalist David Brinkley described the awful Bilbo and his rule over Washington. He wrote:

Bilbo seemed to hate everyone: communists, Jews, union leaders, union members, anyone who could, by any definition, be called a foreigner, and above all, of course, blacks. And Bilbo never hesitated to make his hatreds known.

Ted Kennedy's Full Measure

Video: Senator Robert Byrd, the longest serving member of the U.S. Senate, describes the evolution of his relationship with Senator Edward Kennedy. For years, they did not like each other. They were rivals -- Byrd defeated Kennedy for a Senate leadership position in 1971. But over time, they have grown to be friends. "He has become one of my all-time favorites," Byrd said in the interview above, praising Kennedy in particular for being one of 23 senators to vote against authorizing the war in Iraq. Below, Senator Byrd, 90, reacts to news of Senator Kennedy's brain tumor.

My initial reaction to the news that Ted Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor is -- how sad. What a tragic end to the Kennedy "era." The family has been prominent in national politics since Joseph P. Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt first became allies in the 1920s. ""Only the Adams family in the earliest days of the republic had the kind of stature, respect and impact on public life as the Kennedys," former Kennedy speechwriter Theodore Sorensen told Robert Kaiser of The Washington Post. 

One way to look at this news is that life sure has been unfair to that family. Fans were hoping that Ted Kennedy would live a very long life, out serve Bobby Byrd (14 years his senior) in the Senate to become the longest serving member of Congress, finally win passage of career-long goals such as national health insurance, and become the greatest or most influential U.S. Senator in history. That would be a triumphant end to the story of the Kennedy brothers in national politics, since the lives of his brothers were so tragically cut short.

I suppose that's still possible, if by some miracle Kennedy beats this diagnosis the way that Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) and other brain tumor survivors have done. Two of his children and his ex-wife are cancer survivors, so he has personal examples of family members who have battled cancer and won.   

Another way to look at this news is that Ted Kennedy has had a longer than average life, a very privileged life, and given the risks he took, at 76 he was lucky to be alive and living on borrowed time. Genetics may play a role in this malady -- his father suffered a stroke at the age of 73, lost all power of speech, and remained confined to a wheelchair until his death at age 81. 

Ted Kennedy's adult life has been defined by surviving tragedy after tragedy, some the result of family hubris. A lesser man might well have been broken, drowning himself in alcohol and bitterness.

There are sure to be many media retrospectives on his life and career, comparable to those afforded presidents. If his health holds enough for him to return to public life -- people with malignant brain tumors generally have an outside chance of surviving five years -- there will be the public desire, not just in Massachusetts but in Washington and in progressive circles around the nation, to see him and touch him, and to pay respects once last time, to a living political legend. 

There is the likelihood, as with all things Kennedy, of media glare and hype to the point of hysteria, of enlarging his life and historical importance beyond reason, and creating a backlash designed to deflate him and his family in general. Beware of stories that portray him as a saint or demon, painting him with an ideological brush as either the heroic father of modern liberalism or as a prime symbol of what is wrong with this country. At least initially, the voices of those who hate what he stands for will, one hopes, be muted out of respect and good taste.

In this environment, it may be impossible to fairly take Kennedy's full measure. He's working on a memoir, for which he received an $8 million advance, which is scheduled to be released in 2010, the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's election to the presidency. That timetable may now be accelerated.

Drill Deeper:

• Who Are the Greatest Senators in History?
• Ted Kennedy is, Surprisingly, in Deeds if Not in Words, a Master of Bipartisanship
• What a Dark Reputation Ted Kennedy Once Had, and Still Does Have, for Some
• Assessing Ted Kennedy's Career Should Include Measuring Effectiveness of Social Programs He Championed
• Ted Kennedy's Influence on American Policy May Be Greater Than Either of His Brothers
• Ted Kennedy's Personal Life Apparently Not What Early Image Suggested: Religious Beliefs, Volunteering Important to Him
• The 'Made for TV Election' Explodes Myth of Liberal Media Bias in 1980
• Video Clips from 1980 Prove Democratic Divisions in 2008 are NOTHING like the Bitter Carter-Kennedy Race
• Kennedy and Brownback Seek to Strengthen 'Culture of Life'
• Kennedy, Southern Baptists Agree on Immigration Reform

Predictions for Congress, 2007-8

Predictions:

• Led by Democrats, Congress will support legislation to increase the minimum wage and make college tuition tax deductible.
   
• Led by Democrats, Congress will be more skeptical of trade agreements that incoming freshman Heath Shuler says have led to a 78 percent loss in textile industry jobs in North Carolina.
• Democrats will be more interested in stimulating rural economies hit hardest by the loss of manufacturing and agricultural jobs.
• Democrats will be more interested in addressing the growing inequality in income, whereby the the middle class is increasingly at risk.
• Democrats will be more interested in addressing health care access, but they won't be able to do much until they get a Democratic president.
• When the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) comes up for renewal in 2007, Democrats will try to increase access for the eight million children who currently do not have health insurance coverage.
• Democrats will cede ground to Republicans on gun control. As the Democrats who won election to the Senate and House tended to be against gun control legislation, Democrats won't bring the issue up.
• Democrats will look for "common ground" on abortion, as Hillary Clinton has already started to do.

It Turns Out Bush Appointed Two Ideologues to the Supreme Court

I was one of those who was snookered -- taken in -- to believe that President Bush and Congress "rose above partisanship" in the nominations of Samual Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But an analysis of their votes during the recent Supreme Court term by Ted Kennedy indicate they are ideologues rather than moderates who consistently apply legal principles. The Senate should learn far more about Supreme Court nominees before it follows its Constitutional mandate to advise and consent, Kennedy contends, even though he expects the next justices will be appointed by a Democratic President and voted on by a Democratic Senate. Kennedy writes:

Discovering the Charm of Chappaquiddick

After three days on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, the part of the region I was perhaps most charmed by was the island of Chappaquiddick. Secluded, pristine beaches, beautiful sunsets, a 250-acre wildlife refuge. My son, age 8, caught his first fish there.

Chappaquiddick doesn’t yet have quite the exorbitant real estate or rental prices of the rest of the Vineyard. You can really commune with nature, and with the beach, find beautiful shells and spy exotic birds.

Above, left: Our son Alex aboard the On-Time Ferry between Edgartown and Chappaquiddick. Above, right: Our dog Shiloh playing with and pawing a live, sputtering fish on Chappaquiddick Island. (I took these photos with LG cell phone with camera and emailed them to my computer.)

It seems most beach destinations of my youth on the East Coast are now over-developed and over-crowded. This is one place that isn’t yet.

Do a Google search on Chappaquiddick and most of the links are to a long ago political scandal involving Senator Edward Kennedy in 1969 when he was 37 years old. He drove his car off the rail-less Dike Bridge, a young woman who was his passenger drowned, and he failed to report the accident for eight hours. Dig deep enough on images.google.com, and there are some fantastic photographs of Martha's Vineyard, and of Chappaquiddick by Philip Greenspun on Photo.net, along with an informative essay about Ted Kennedy's old haunts on the island. This photo appears courtesy of Greenspun. His site is well worth a gander -- artistic, professional, travel photography at its best.

Chappaquiddick is being discovered by a generation that wasn’t born in 1969, can’t remember or don't care that Senator Kennedy made the place notorious. Ironically, Bill and Hillary Clinton, with their presidential visits, made Martha's Vineyard quite chic. Edgartown and Vineyard Haven have many upscale cutesy shops -- expect to pay $20 for three sandwiches and three drinks. Hollywood celebrities "summer" there. "Where do Bill and Hillary like to vacation?" The New York Times asks in an attractive ad promoting its travel section online. Click, and you see an overview piece, "36 Hours in Martha's Vineyard," including a section on "Chappy," without mentioning the once-notorious incident at Dike Bridge.

A visit to Dike Bridge at dusk, with the wind whistling through the reeds, remains creepy and spooky. My wife and son did not share my morbid interest in recalling the details of the Kennedy accident or retracing his path, but my wife did start telling ghost stories and my son, not easily frightened, got scared. Maybe the place is haunted.

Today, in our far more safety-conscious society, Dike Bridge has large railings around it. Big signs warn that only four-wheel drive, rough terrain vehicles are allowed across it, and that other vehicles are likely to get stuck in the sand. Even an inebriated senator might think twice before driving a big car across it. And just think if the island had been wired for telephone lines or wireless cell phones back then. For want of a phone call, some might say the Kennedy restoration to the presidency was lost.

• Martha’s Vineyard webcams
• Philip Greenspun's New England photo site, including artistic photos of Martha's Vineyard and Chappaquiddick, retracing Ted Kennedy's steps that fateful weekend.
• Great Escape: Wasque Beach on Chappaquiddick, one of the best beaches in New England, according to WHDH-TV, with video clip.
• "36 Hours in Martha's Vineyard," The New York Times.

Who Are Greatest Senators in American History?

As an amateur student of the United States Senate, I wonder who the greatest Senators in history are likely to be?

Strom Thurmond of South Carolina served in the U.S. Senate longer than anyone else, for 48 years, from 1956 to 2002. He died months after retiring at age 100. Not likely he'll make the list of great ones.

Robert Byrd of West Virginia has, so far, served since 1958, or 46 years. He was born in 1917, the same year as John F. Kennedy. In 2004 he turned 87.

Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, first elected in 1962, has a few days of seniority over Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts. Inouye was born in 1924, eight years before Kennedy.

It's a little easier to determine the greatest senators if they have been out of power a long time. Back in 1957, Senator John F. Kennedy headed a committee that selected these five senators as the nation's greatest:

• Henry Clay of Kentucky: Served in the Senate from 1831 until his death in 1852. A member of the Whig Party, he was "the Great Compromiser" who had a great ability to balance regional and national interests. He was largely credited with keeping the North and South together without civil war for many years despite their differences over slavery.
• John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, leading proponent of "states' rights." In 1957, Senator John F. Kennedy described him as a "forceful logician of state sovereignty" and a "masterful defender of the rights of a political minority against the dangers of an unchecked majority."
• Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, who served in the Senate from 1827 to 1850, except for a two-year stint as Secretary of State. He championed the concept of a strong national government, and was a great orator.
• Robert Marion La Follette, a Republican from Wisconsin, was a leading progressive. He served in the Senate from 1906 until his death in 1925. He championed the regulatory reforms of Presidents Roosevelt and Wilson, and also a more direct democracy, pushing the Seventeenth Amendment (1913), which provided for direct election of senators.
• Robert A. Taft, Republican of Ohio, served in the Senate from 1938 to 1947. He helped write the Labor Management Relations Act, which placed controls on labor unions and prohibited "closed shops."

In 1989, the Senate added to its list of greatest senators

• Robert Wagner of New York, architect of the labor relations act, and
• Arthur Vandenburg of Michigan, who switched dramatically from isolationist to internationalist in early 1945.

Other nominees?

Ted Kennedy Is, Surprisingly, In Deeds if Not Words, a Master of Bipartisanship

Despite Ted Kennedy's reputation as a doctrinaire liberal, his long and substantial legislative accomplishments have required a strong belief in bipartisanship. He is especially effective at "finding Republicans to work with and sharing the credit, or even letting them have it all," biographer Adam Clymer wrote.

Ted Kennedy has been one of the most hard-working and effective lawmakers in history, says Clymer, a New York Times reporter and longtime student of the Senate. To offset suspicions that he's a liberal Kennedy-worshipers, Clymer said he voted for Senator Bob Dole against Bill Clinton in 1996.

Over Kennedy's long career, his influence over the nation has probably been greater than either of his brothers, John or Robert, during their relatively short careers, Clymer says.

Despite his fiery partisan rhetoric, Teddy frequently reaches across the aisle to build consensus, and make alliances with Republicans, Clymer points out. For example, Kennedy worked with:

• Senator Bob Dole on childhood nutrition and food stamps legislation.
• Various Republicans to deregulate the airline industry in the late 1970s.
• Senator Dan Quayle, to pass the Job Training Partnership Act
• President George H. W. Bush, to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Senator Nancy Kassebaum, daughter of 1936 Republican presidential nominee Alf Landon, to pass a Health Insurance Portability Act.
• Senator Thad Cochran, Republican of Mississippi, in support of Public Broadcasting.



• President George W. Bush, to increase education spending significantly and pass the "No Child Left Behind" Act. Kennedy later said Bush broke his promise to fully fund the act, but that discussion will continue through Bush's second term.
• Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, with whom he has worked to significantly increase funding for AIDS research, and to raise $30 billion in tobacco taxes to fund child health care.
• Coming up, he will be a key player in social security "reform."

Despite differences of party, ideology, and the public roles they played as adversaries, Senator Kennedy was also an admirer of President Reagan. He recognized that he was a great communicator, a strong and decisive president who turned the country around from the Jimmy Carter  "malaise." After Reagan's death, Kennedy said:

"On foreign policy he will be honored as the president who won the Cold War, and his 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall' will be linked forever with President Kennedy's 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' President Reagan and Nancy were always very gracious to the Kennedy family and they are both very much in our thoughts and prayers in this difficult time." (Source: Fox News)
 

What a Dark Reputation Ted Kennedy Once Had, and Still Does Have For Some

Long-time Kennedy skeptics are no doubt irritated that Teddy Kennedy might go down in history as a positive influence on the nation. To them, Teddy has had few good qualities to recommend him for anything. He's little more than a tax-and-spend-liberal, a symbol of the welfare state, the permissive society, and everything that has gone wrong with the United States since the 1950s.

• In the 1960s, they portrayed him as an inarticulate, less than intelligent, pampered youngest child who would never have been elected to the Senate without his father's money and his brother's last name; a Northern hypocrite on civil rights who sought to impose high legal standards on Southerners by forcing integration and school busing on others while his own children were chauffeured to largely white private Catholic schools; a "criminal" who in 1969 got away with murder, manslaughter, or leaving the scene of an accident when other less-privileged individuals would have spent years in jail and whose political careers would have been destroyed by recklessness.
• In the 1970s, after his brothers were assassinated, National Rifle Association members portrayed him as a fanatical advocate of gun control, seeking to take away the guns of law-abiding citizens while hiding behind his own bodyguards who protected him with guns. Republicans portrayed him as an egotist who refused to broker a deal with President Nixon to achieve national health insurance reform because of his own presidential ambitions. Some Democrats said he destroyed Jimmy Carter's chances of re-election in 1980 by creating unrealistic expectations for Carter and by his own bitter run against him.
• In the early 1980s, Reaganites charged that he was a misguided advocate of a "nuclear freeze," hysterically kicking up public fears of "nuclear winter." He was proven wrong on that issue when President Reagan successfully spent the Soviets into oblivion, they claim. In the mid-eighties through 1991, Republicans saw him as a holier-than-thou pompous windbag on civil rights, who used "scorched earth tactics" to unfairly and successfully portray Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork as a bigot; and whose staff first leaked accusations that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas as an employer engaged in sex discrimination against Anita Hill.
• Throughout his career, adversaries have portrayed Kennedy as a binge drinker or gluttonous alcoholic; a shallow roue who imbibed "too much wine, women and song"; a shrewd, ruthless operator who has been in the Senate long enough to know how to manipulate the rules unfairly in his favor; a man doomed to a stature far smaller and far inferior to that of his brothers; the head of an arrogant, dysfunctional family of sex addicts and abusers, who toss aside spouses, and, because of their political power, manage to get their marriages annulled by the Catholic Church.

And those are no doubt Teddy's good qualities! It will be interesting to see how scholars sort out fact from fiction in examining Kennedy's life.

Other than the Clintons, there isn't a Democrat in politics today whose very name can still make some people so apoplectic that they will pull out their checkbooks and oppose anything "that Kinni-dy" supports.