BOOK REVIEW: CAMELOT’S LAST HURRAH
Washington Times
Feb 11 2010
In 1964, not too long after President Kennedy’s assassination, Bill
Adler published "The Kennedy Wit." It quickly became an international
best-seller. This year, with his son and namesake, Bill Adler Jr., Mr.
Adler has brought out "The Wit and Wisdom of Ted Kennedy." Call it
Camelot’s last hurrah if you wish, but don’t bet on it selling nearly
as much as the original.
There are three reasons why sales of this book might be meager. First,
the timing is bad. JFK’s death at an early age shocked people and
thus made them more curious about the late young president. His
brother’s death from brain cancer at 77 was a long time coming,
and Kennedy aficionados have his posthumously published biography,
"True Compass" to clutch.
Second, the Kennedy cachet isn’t what it used to be. In a debate
for the recent special election to fill the vacant Senate seat from
Massachusetts, moderator David Gergen called it "Teddy Kennedy’s
seat." Republican challenger Scott Brown shot back that it’s the
"people’s seat," won the special election and ground workings of
Congress to a halt.
Third, there is the subject matter. Ted Kennedy, it turns out, was
neither witty nor wise. Most of the force of his speeches came from
his larger-than-life, frequently drunken presence. As President Obama
eulogized, "We can still hear his voice bellowing through the Senate
chamber, face reddened, fist pounding the podium."
We shouldn’t make light of that presence. Even the senator’s greatest
detractors didn’t doubt his effectiveness. His unfair diatribe against
Judge Robert Bork turned the distinguished jurist’s last name into
a verb (meaning roughly to deny a qualified nominee confirmation by
smearing him).
Republicans were infuriated by that, but they frequently worked with
Kennedy for two reasons. One, he was affable when the cameras weren’t
rolling. Two, when all the haggling was done, once he had made the
deal, he stuck to it.
Still, this is not wisdom. Consider:
"It is wrong – dead wrong – to grant oversized tax breaks for the
wealthiest Americans but to fail to invest more in our nation’s public
schools. What we need is not just a tax cut but an economic plan that
responds to today’s shaky economy by helping all Americans to get a
good education and good jobs. If we expect our children to succeed in
the 21st-century economy, we must do better. If we expect our schools
to meet the challenges of modern education, we must do more. "
Or: "It’s better to send in the Peace Corps than the Marine Corps."
Or: "Based on some estimates, guns are statistically like rats: They
outnumber our population. And not surprising, our output of ammunition
for civilian firearms almost staggers the imagination. American
industry outdoes all other nations in the production of bullets. All
of those bullets could not only wipe out the world’s entire human
population but destroy much of the world’s wildlife as well." (There
goes Bambi).
Or the oft-repeated sign-off from his sour-grapes speech at the 1980
Democratic National Convention: "The work goes on, the cause endures,
the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
There are a few surprises. In the late 1970s, he said some disparaging
things about regulations and actually worked to deregulate the
trucking industry. But then he decided to run against Jimmy Carter
for the Democratic nomination and returned to form. He spent most of
his career as a predictable Democratic party hack.
The Adlers quote Kennedy taking some bold stances once it was safe
to take bold stances. He said the U.S. government should recognize
the Armenian genocide perhaps two decades after President Reagan had
called it a genocide. He faulted President George W. Bush for how he
managed the war in Iraq, not for going to war in the first place. He
was against discrimination and bigotry and for the children.
As for his wit, he liked to recycle jokes. When he heard that North
Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms was about to undergo heart surgery, he
told Helms, "It’s no piece of cake, but it sure beats listening
to Ted Kennedy on the Senate floor." Then, in his get-well note,
Kennedy wrote to Helms, "I would be happy to send you tapes of my
recent Senate speeches if that will help your speedy recovery."
One imagines that Helm’s replied, "Stop it. You’re killing me."
Jeremy Lott is the editor of the Capital Research Center’s Labor
Watch newsletter and author of "The Warm Bucket Brigade: the Story
of the American Vice Presidency" (Thomas Nelson, 2007).