June 11, 2012

"The Rupert Murdoch tabloid loves to package other people’s reporting in World War III headlines."

Writes Howard Kurtz, mocking the New York Post article that has the headline "Mary Kennedy pummeled RFK Jr., ran over family dog and threatened to kill herself for years: court papers," which begins: "Robert Kennedy Jr.’s wife, Mary, beat him up, tried to blackmail him, killed the family dog and, finally, told a servant she needed rope for a new couch — then hanged herself with it, according to a bombshell report.”

The "other people’s reporting" used by the NY Post is in Newsweek/Daily Beast, which is Kurtz's employer. That article is headlined "Exclusive: The Last Days of Mary Kennedy," with a subtitle: "She was the love of Bobby Jr.’s life. Then everything unraveled. In Newsweek, bestselling Kennedy historian Laurence Leamer reveals the heartbreaking story of Mary’s long decline." Heartbreaking. Love of his life. That goes to a different extreme, trying to appeal to a different audience — presumably women who adore bestselling Kennedy historians.

It's not surprising that the Post — like a blogger — would pull out the most lurid details and state them plainly, for readers who don't want the romance and don't need their suicide porn swathed in the pretense of respectability.

From the hardcore Post:

“Mary’s violence and physical abuse toward me began before we were married,” Bobby said in confidential court papers that surfaced yesterday.
The bestselling Kennedy historian Laurence Leamer obtained the papers. That's the basis for the "Exclusive" in the Newsweek headline. Continuing with the Post, because I don't want Kennedy romance speed bumps in my access to the lurid facts:
“Soon after Mary became pregnant with our first son, Mary — in a sudden rage about my continued friendship with my ex-wife — hit me in the face with her fist,’’ Bobby said in an affidavit filed as part of his then-custody battle with his estranged wife.

“She was a trained boxer, and I got a shiner,’’ Bobby said. “Her engagement ring crushed my tear duct, causing permanent damage. Mary asked me to lie to her family about the cause of my shiner.”
Domestic violence. (Of course, the suicide — done at home — was also domestic violence.)
Bobby said that at one point after they separated, Mary “said she intended to kill herself unless I called off the divorce and unless I promised to recommit to the marriage.’’
Psychological abuse. (Of course, the suicide itself was psychological abuse.)
[Bobby said] to the judge that despite years of her abusing him, “she repeatedly says she will call the police and say that I beat her if I threaten to leave her."...
In his confidential affidavit, Bobby had claimed that Mary continued to physically attack him even after he moved out, recounting a May 2011 incident in which Mary asked him to come console the kids over their dead dog.

“Mary ran over and killed the dog, Porcia, in the driveway,” he said in the affidavit. Arriving at her house, he found her drunk, with their son Aidan in the room.

“I opened the door, and she leapt out of her bed and hit me with a roundhouse punch that, had I not blocked it, would have undoubtedly broken my face,” Bobby claimed.

She was “raining blows down on me as I backed down the hall,” landing about 30 blows in all, he said.
“She screamed at Aidan as she hit me, [saying, I’m] ‘a demon. He is the most evil man in the world. Everything he does is evil and a fraud. He is a philanderer, an adulterer, a sex addict.’ ”
This, culled from an article with the subtitle "She was the love of Bobby Jr.’s life."
According to the affidavit, during their marriage, Bobby would awaken in the middle of the night to find Mary beating him, and he said that he once had to escape through a second-floor window.

One time, she threw a plate of spaghetti at him in front of the kids and another, attacked him with scissors while he was in the bathtub, according to the report....

According to Newsweek, Bobby “pleaded” with Mary’s brothers and sisters to do an intervention, and e-mailed them in June 2011 that she was “sinking into terrible darkness.”

Mary’s siblings — who, along with many of her friends have contended that the Kennedy clan is trying to save face over Bobby’s mistreatment of Mary by making her look mentally ill — allegedly told him to take a hike.
So... what do the sisters say now that she's hanged herself? Was she mentally ill or did she rationally and intentionally commit suicide (and if so, why? To torture and punish Bobby?)?

26 comments:

KCFleming said...

My first thought from your post, before reading the article, was "BPD".

Indeed:
"In 2006 Bobby talked to Mary’s psychotherapist, then Sheenah Hankin, an author with a clientele heavy with celebrities and semi-celebrities. “You are married to a woman who has borderline personality disorder,” Hankin told him, according to Bobby’s account in the affidavit. “It’s important that you read these books.”

Bobby had never even heard of borderline personality disorder (BPD), but when he opened I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me by Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus, he felt he had an understanding of what was happening with his wife. Bobby read that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association lists nine criteria for BPD, five of which must be present for a diagnosis. Mary seemed to have every one of the nine, including a perceived sense of abandonment, a lack of identity, recklessness, suicidal threats, intense feelings of emptiness, and inappropriate displays of anger.
"

So, she she rationally and intentionally committed suicide (to torture and punish everyone who ever felt anything for her at all, including her kids.

My SIL is one, I think. Hell on wheels.

KCFleming said...

So now I feel sorry for him. Seriously, and for his kids.

One of the better books I ever read was Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship.

In the office, I can pick them out quickly. In life, they are harder to detect.

Should everyone have an MMPI before marriage?

Paco Wové said...

To paraphrase Hermes Conrad, I'd like to put the entire Kennedy gene pool, its sycophants, idolizers, and hangers-on, into a sack and toss the sack in a river and hurl the river into space.

Just go away already.

KCFleming said...

When trailer trash can buy really nice trailers.

redcybra said...

Slime a dead woman publicly, when she can no longer defend herself. That's the Kennedy way.

Darrell said...

Slime a dead woman publicly, when she can no longer defend herself. That's the Kennedy way.

And get a bunch of hacks and sycophants to back it up with professional-sounding analysis.

What's Bobby's trouble, then? Examine his record of behavior.

redcybra said...

You could call it KED (Kennedy Entitlement Disease). I think Bobby's feeling some heat for his treatment of his estranged wife. This is his way of justifying himself. Ethel Kennedy raised some real slimeballs, didn't she?

SGT Ted said...

Telling the truth about a violent whacko with BPD isn't "sliming". I'd say Mary slimed herself when she used the rope in the barn.

And, hey Bobby is a jerk too. Whoopie.

It doesn't mitigate the whackos conduct. Nor should anyone keep this dysfunction in the closet. Lots of folks are victims of a BPD who terrorizes their lives. Telling the truth about how severe such people can get is the best way to deal with it.

rhhardin said...

I've lost track. I thought Bobby Kennedy was dead.

redcybra said...

"Telling the truth"? That Bobby Kennedy was "abused" for years - even before his marriage - and -never- did anything about it, never tried to help his wife? That wasn't mentioned, and surely somewhere in the "sealed, 60-page document .. obtained by Kennedy historian Laurence Leamer" (gee, I wonder who leaked that?) there must be something about his efforts to do so. Poor, poor Bobby...pathetic, helpless victim...after all, who can he turn to for help in this crisis? My heart bleeds for him, all alone in dealing with the "violent whacko" he was married to.

Yeah, right.

cubanbob said...

“Mary’s violence and physical abuse toward me began before we were married,” Bobby said in confidential court papers that surfaced yesterday.


But he married her anyway. So he is as batshit crazy as she was. Poor kids.

cubanbob said...

"The Rupert Murdoch tabloid loves to package other people’s reporting in World War III headlines."
Writes Howard Kurtz, mocking the New York Post article that has the headline "Mary Kennedy pummeled RFK Jr., ran over family dog and threatened to kill herself for years: court papers," which begins: "Robert Kennedy Jr.’s wife, Mary, beat him up, tried to blackmail him, killed the family dog and, finally, told a servant she needed rope for a new couch — then hanged herself with it, according to a bombshell report.”

Howard Kurtz: that has to be a punchline to a joke. But then again what can one expect from a propagandist for one of the party's house organs?

Bryan C said...

"That Bobby Kennedy was "abused" for years - even before his marriage - and -never- did anything about it, never tried to help his wife?"

Wait a sec. I'm no fan of Bobby Kennedy or his family, but what's with the scare quotes around "abused"? Most men don't make a big deal out of being punched or yelled at and are told to suck it up and move on.

For occasional societal friction that's usually that's excellent advice (for both genders), but it's not good advice when you're in a relationship with someone who does it all the time. That's abuse, even if you're a Kennedy.

redcybra said...

Bryan C - you are right, I was overdoing the sarcasm there. I just find it hard to believe that given his money, position and contacts, Kennedy did nothing for all those years. He's not the average Joe writing in to Carolyn Hax or Ask Amy.

tim maguire said...

The Post is a tabloid. One would expect Howard Kurtz to know that.

grackle said...

While I have sympathy for most suicides(they are obviously in extreme mental anguish or mentally ill) I do not automatically condemn those who are close(family, friends, employers) to the suicide. If someone is determined to kill themselves there is little anyone can do to stop them – short of incarceration and a round-the-clock watch on them.

Joe said...

Living with a BPD spouse is very difficult. Not all are physical abusive, but all are psychologically abusive. Many are very good at mimicking normal people. Like me, there are many men and women who truthfully say "my spouse wasn't like that when we were dating."

One common thread I've observed with myself and other people in various support groups I've been part of, is the assumption that the borderline behavior is the exception and that the "nice personality" of the BPD is the norm. Yet, it's not only the other way around, the "norm" is entirely phony. This is very hard to comprehend when dealing with a BPD for the simple reason that they are essentially sociopaths and as such their thought process is completely outside the realm of our understanding.

To put this last point another way, and in this post's context, for normal people, if one person hits another, there is a rational explanation for their behavior, even if it isn't justified. For BPDs, this "rage" has no rational explanation.

One last point. BPD or not, wife on husband physical abuse is much more common than people realize. Women are as, if not more, physically abusive than men. The same goes for emotional abuse. And it's getting worse, aided and abetted by government. (I believe this is the primary reason men are avoiding marriage--they are tired of the abuse.)

edutcher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
edutcher said...

Keep in mind the Post caters to a more Conservative crowd, thus you see stuff beyond the pale for the Tina Brown crowd.

/sarc

Can't wait to see how the Newsweek gang spins it the day Hillary dumps Willie.

William said...

It was said of Hearst newspapers that they were like a screaming, naked woman running down the street with her throat cut. Murdoch papers work in that tradition, and the Kennedy family is an almost inexhaustble source of screaming, naked women.....Some of the Murdoch papers actually make money. It's interesting to note how establishment journalists like Kurtz try to portray the Murdoch papers as suffering from BPD while they're the ones struggling to remain alive.....I suppose this woman was extremely disturbed, but that begs the question. If she was extremely disturbed, what dark lightening about her attracted Bobby. Is being attracted to a BPD personality some other kind of, as yet, undefined pathology.....Anyway, it's way too slick for the Kennedys to be releasing all this negative info on the poor woman. Whatever her problems, they were exacerbated not assauged by Bobby's own flaws.

dreams said...

Remember it is just his side of the story but she did kill herself.

ken in tx said...

Pogo, anyone who cannot fake the MMPI is stupid. I can't believe any BPD or Sociopath would answer the questions truthfully.

Bryan C said...

"I just find it hard to believe that given his money, position and contacts, Kennedy did nothing for all those years. He's not the average Joe writing in to Carolyn Hax or Ask Amy."

Understood. The Kennedy family does seem to have trouble coping with mental illness.

KCFleming said...

"Pogo, anyone who cannot fake the MMPI is stupid. "

Well, how about a pre-marital Voight-Kampff test?

RobH said...

Prediction - Michelle will dump Barack within a year of being defeated in 2012.

leslyn said...

"The Rupert Murdoch tabloid loves to package other people’s reporting in World War III headlines."

Now wait just a darn minute. Are you mocking yourself?