Althouse: That time Teddy Kennedy called Obama "Osama bin Laden."

August 26, 2009

That time Teddy Kennedy called Obama "Osama bin Laden."

29 comments:

holdfast said...: No Kennedy fan, but all this proves is that a lifetime of booze can affect your mental faculties.; 8/26/09, 9:57 AM
Treacle said...: I had a cold and some Nyquil was the only feasible remedy. Under such circumstances, anyone could mess up a name, or leave a woman for dead in a creek or gallivant around in his underwear while his nephew rapes a woman in the next room.

Some respect for the dead now, please.; 8/26/09, 9:59 AM
kent said...: At this late stage in his life, Teddy was just one ginger baby step away from biting the heads off of live chickens on some dismal carnival miday, for his daily ration of Four Roses.; 8/26/09, 10:04 AM
Wince said...: Leave Teddy alone!

He was just being bipartisan, having previously accused Bork of being the leader of the Taliban.; 8/26/09, 10:08 AM
Balfegor said...: It's an easy error to make. The schoolchildren of the future will hate us for this.

"Wait, so which one was the enemy of America, and which one was the first Black president?"

The obvious mnemonic (Obama has a "b" for "bad") works the wrong way around. "S" for "sinister?" Or perhaps historians of the future will spare future schoolboys and write "Osama" as "Usama."; 8/26/09, 10:08 AM
Michael Haz said...: He once screamed at a grand-niece who offered him her Bjork CD to listen to while traveling back to Washington.; 8/26/09, 10:12 AM
Pastafarian said...: Balfegor -- is that a trick question?; 8/26/09, 10:24 AM
TosaGuy said...: Ask anyone who is not a politics or history geek to name a senator from 30 years ago.

That is how TK will be "remembered" 30 years from now.; 8/26/09, 10:28 AM
The Dude said...: Ted Kennedy was a senator from 30 years ago.; 8/26/09, 10:36 AM
chuck b. said...: I think you have to be a boomer to think Edward Kennedy is somehow interesting.; 8/26/09, 10:53 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: As a gesture to the "lion of the senate" the Fenway staff is going to bring a lion to parade before the beginning of the red sox game.

At some point the lion will be startled by the long face of John Kerry and escape into the outfield.

“Please remain calm” a voice over the loud speaker will try to reassure the sellout crowd.; 8/26/09, 10:55 AM
Balfegor said...: I think you have to be a boomer to think Edward Kennedy is somehow interesting.

Well, he is rather interesting. He changed from Hal to -- for a brief moment in 1980 -- Henry V, and ended up as Falstaff.; 8/26/09, 11:33 AM
The Dude said...: Henry V - as in he once gave a speech, not as in he actually led men into battle, right? Or defeated an enemy or actually served his country in a sober, intelligent, meaningful way, right?; 8/26/09, 12:59 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: So, let me guess, Ann Althouse and other right wingers, respecting the dead only applies to REPUBLICAN dead?

What a low brow bunch you are. Completely without class and consumed by your hatred.; 8/26/09, 1:17 PM
Rose said...: yeah - Let's name it after Ted - KENNEDYCARE

My thoughts today are with Mary Jo and her parents.; 8/26/09, 1:22 PM
Balfegor said...: Henry V - as in he once gave a speech, not as in he actually led men into battle, right? Or defeated an enemy or actually served his country in a sober, intelligent, meaningful way, right?

I meant as a speechifyer and leader of his party. True, he never led men in battle, but the last President we had who even came close to that was Bush I. And in Kennedy's favour, he never gave an order for the prisoners to be slaughtered, the way Henry V did:

I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight.
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.
Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

This part of the play usually gets, ah, bowdlerised to accomodate our delicate modern sensitivities.; 8/26/09, 1:25 PM
kent said...: What a low brow bunch you are. Completely without class and consumed by your hatred.

FIFY, by adding a helpful link to help better demonstrate your point.

I give. I'm a giver.; 8/26/09, 1:30 PM
Methadras said...: Ted Kennedy lived his life like the rat pack lived theirs. Except he had his on politics and thankfully not in entertainment. However, he certainly provided plenty of that.; 8/26/09, 3:34 PM
MamaM said...: Ohhh! More hot entries for the "Name the Militia Bar in Wyoming Contest"

"Completely Without Class" and
"The Low Brow"

join the two previous entries,

"Spittle and Foam" and
"Lick of Sense"

Unless someone ups the ante, the prizewinner will receive a chit for two cocktails and a bowl of idiotsticks, redeemable at any militia bar west of the Hudson.; 8/26/09, 3:42 PM
Rose said...: Not consumed by hatred. Kennedy isn't worth the energy that takes. Merely 'holding him accountable' - that favorite phrase of politicians, especially liberal politicians.

If you have kids, have nurtured a daughter into adulthood, seen her get a job, look forward to a bright future - imagine the Kopechne's pride in their daughter as she got a job with a prominent family, with a bright future - you can then imagine the pain they had to absorb as they found that that prominent family thought their daughter was less than dirt to be swept under the carpet to protect the precious male child's prospects in politics.

It isn't just Kennedy himself who was responsible, though a better man would have moved heaven and earth to save her that night, a better man would have gone for help at the very least, not returned to the house and hid out til morning hoping no one would find out. It's not just Kennedy - it is the entire Kennedy family who is complicit and responsible. What he did that night condemned them all to purgatory. For covering it up. And for not holding him accountable.; 8/26/09, 3:57 PM
Balfegor said...: It's not just Kennedy - it is the entire Kennedy family who is complicit and responsible. What he did that night condemned them all to purgatory. For covering it up.

It was an act of cowardice by a callow young man, sure (well, not all that young). But in the list of Kennedy sins, it's actually not all that high. If it provides insight into his character, it is not insight into a vicious or degraded character; only a character that couldn't hold up in a crisis. He confessed, and made a public statement very shortly after the incident. If there was a "cover-up," it lasted all of a few hours, given that the car and her body were found by some fishermen the next day.

A real Kennedy cover-up would be the Michael Skakel case -- and Skakel was just a Kennedy cousin, not a Kennedy proper.; 8/26/09, 4:15 PM
Colin said...: My fav memory:

http://sonsoftherepublic.blogspot.com/2005/08/kennedy-dodd-waitress-sandwich.html; 8/26/09, 4:22 PM
AllenS said...: I felt so bad about Teddy Kennedy's passing, that I bought a 24 pack of beer.; 8/26/09, 4:44 PM
campy said...: Ohhh! More hot entries for the "Name the Militia Bar in Wyoming Contest"

From the same comment: "Consuming Hatred."

VW: redillic a communist illic; 8/26/09, 4:51 PM
The Dude said...: How to tell Obama and Osama apart:

One is a muslim extremist bent on destroying America, the other has a beard.; 8/26/09, 4:55 PM
campy said...: "Consuming Hatred."

"Hatred," of course, being the bar's proprietary microbrew.

A bitter stout, I'd guess.; 8/26/09, 5:02 PM
MnMark said...: We're not disrespecting the dead. We're "speaking truth to power" and having a "conversation". Those are favorite liberal things, right?

I think it's funny that the Kennedys so controlled MA that they could get the law regarding filling a vacant senate seat changed when a Republican was governor so he couldn't appoint the replacement, and now want to change it back to let a Democratic governor name a replacement. "The state of Massachusetts needs two senators", argued Kennedy a few weeks ago. Apparently they didn't need two senators back when a Republican was governor?

I mean how can you be a Democrat and be associated with that kind of open corruption of the system? How can you admire someone whose family so openly and brazenly bought political power and ran things like 19th century ward bosses? Kennedy mystique my ass.

Hey Alpha Liberal, would you have argued that we should pay proper respect to Boss Tweed when he died? Why should we give any more respect to Kennedy than we would have Tweed? Go ahead, eat yourself up inside over the fact that conservatives aren't refraining from lambasting a drunken disgrace who only got into office because his daddy's money bought it for him.; 8/26/09, 5:09 PM
Dusty Fog said...: Rose for the active leadership the Kennedy family have given in the fight to destroy innocent human life while pretending to be Catholic, there is no "purgatory."

Old Scratch has his fat ass on the Weber grill right now.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.; 8/26/09, 6:40 PM
rcocean said...: So many great posts. Thanks "Rose" - my thoughts exactly.

Yes, we don't hate Teddy, we're just starting a "dialogue".; 8/26/09, 7:19 PM