The Kennedy Family

Teddy's got brain cancer

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1808037,00.html

wow. I just saw him a few months ago at an obama campaign rally as well. It was pretty exciting!

Somehow I'd missed he was first elected in 1962. Crazy.

due to that longevity, Ted has done more for this country than the rest of the clan combined. well, except Jack saved our asses in Oct '62 whereas Nixon wd've fried us.

Teddy - they didn't shoot him

I saw him the weekend before last at a hotel downtown when my parents were visiting. He didn't look well.

teddy hasn't looked well since pre-chappaquiddick.

We do these things not because they are easy, but because we just don't give a shit.

At least he's going out in style.

This makes me kind of sad. Ive always had a soft spot for TeddyK.

morbs OTM. ted kennedy doesn't deserve a third of the shit he gets.

espec compared to st. bobby, whose admittedly tragic death obscured the fact that he was a complete shit until, like, the last 4 or 5 months of his life.

or as Gore Vidal called RFK, a phony little Torquemada.

morbs, we don't give a shit about gore vidal

Is that a Royal we? Gore Vidal is at least mildly entertaining with the patrician gay touch of Highsmith/history prof thing he's got a gaun' on.

that's a we for Americans who don't prefer another country

http://individual.utoronto.ca/salvo/samflag.jpg

Sen. Robert Byrd breaks down in tears when discussing Kennedy on the Senate floor. Says “Thank God for you, Ted” and “I love you.”

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_Photo/2008/05/17/1211048397_5295.jpg

Sen. Robert Byrd Ben Affleck breaks down in tears when discussing Kennedy on the Senate floor. Says “Thank God for you, Ted” and “I love you.”

Morbs was fine to post that.

Gab, stick to what you personally believe and don't even pretend there's a 'we' you represent - you're too much of a loner to get by with that, or somehow you have the full backing of non-expat Amurrrica but ehhh, don't think so somehow.

yeah, or create another gratuitous campaign thread you can jizz over.

Suzy's right: Alfred also cares about Gore Vidal.

gabb otm

how did I KNOW this was going to start?

Since I know little about Bay Colony politics, can a homegrown citizen give me an idea -- without consulting Wikipedia -- of Ted's legislative accomplishments? I'm genuinely interested.

suzy, i'm sorry if the royal mien of my extremely excellent opinions cramp your style, but i assure you that your objections and epithets will not stand in the way of my continuing to give them their fullest exercise

if that's your idea of a good time

"what was truly singular about robert kennedy (was that) he aroused extravagant political hopes while standing opposed to all that was best and most promising in his day. ... he was a man who regarded grass-roots movements as something for 'the professionals' to bring under control, who spent most of his adult life envisioning this republic turned into a hideous sparta. ... he was a man so thoroughly estranged from the principles of a democratic republic that the foolish left-wing journalists, who think the constitution a bankers' plot, saw in kennedy another julius caesar come to rescue the peasantry from republican trammels. that estrangement revealed itself even in kennedy's best moments, for while he calculated how to serve a corrupt party oligarchy he offered his compassion to its most conspicuous victims, the benevolence of a prince toward his impotent subjects." -- walter karp, harper's, 1978

That Karp book we always cite, J.D., has some damning stuff on Teddy, who, according to Karp, represented the revenge of the Democratic establishment on the dense insurgent Jimmy Carter. I always thought this line was too easy. Counter-arguments welcome.

Ted's legislative accomplishments? I'm genuinely interested.

It isn't a legislative accomplishment, but against a very strong (and self-serving) tide among Democrats, Kennedy openly and vocally opposed the Iraq War. That took political courage. So if your question is, more broadly, "Why does Ted Kennedy matter?," I think that's a good example of why he does.

alfred: i think karp's argument is more that a vain TK was being used by the dem establishment as a weapon against carter than that he was himself a reactionary (kennedy, after all, was more liberal than carter).

http://thepage.time.com/2008/05/26/sen-kennedy-completes-massachusetts-sailing-race/

Ted's been rushed to the hospital...

http://thepage.time.com/senator-kennedy-returns-to-senate/

Sen. Ted Kennedy collapsed Tuesday during a luncheon held in President Barack Obama's honor hours after the nation's first African-American president was sworn in.

CNN reported that Kennedy, who is being treated for a brain tumor, suffered a "seizure" and was still suffering seizures as he was put into a wheelchair and taken out of the luncheon.

In his address to the luncheon shortly before 3 p.m., Obama said his prayers were Kennedy and his family.

CNN said paramedics were called at 2:35 p.m.

What an attention hog.

Ted said to be speaking in hospital, doing "well"

just like rosemary kennedy

A friend got me onto the JFK Jr./Carolyn Bessette series on F/X. It's actually not bad. The two leads are really good, and so is Grace Gummer (loved her in Mr. Robot) as Caroline. The one puzzling character/performance is Dree Hemingway as Darryl Hannah. The resemblence is shaky, and the portrayal makes her clingy and weirdly off-putting. I also think Naomi Watts could have done better on Jackie's voice--she's adopted some kind of voice that's not her own, but it's not Jackie O's. But the leads make up for all that, plus lots of good period music.

yeah Naomi Watts is uncharacteristically awful in this role

that lady doing Hannah doesn't look much like her in the face but her body mannerisms and demeanor are spot on, the very first shot of her (from a distance) was uncanny, I thought.

Mentioned in the streaming thread but holy god how much money did the music rights cost on this? there is a banger playing loudly every 60 seconds.

dude playing JFK Jr has never acted before (he's a model). not bad for a first job.

"portrayal makes her clingy and weirdly off-putting" I think that's the intention

I've watched three or four of these Ryan Murphy productions, and the music's always good--he really has a feel for the late '80s/early '90s (Versace, Pose, and I think even the Dahmer series was his). That's pretty impressive about him never having acted; his performance seems very unmannered.

(xpost) Yeah, that's clearly what they want--is it accurate? Hannah must hate this.

At this point the whole extended family must just be coasting on Joe, Sr.'s money and the moldy leftovers of Camelot.

Insane that the most successful Kennedy is RFK Jr

i guess it depends how you define success

not being shot to death

Collector of useless things that I am, I kinda wish I had a copy of that first George issue. (Sells for stupid money on eBay.) When I look at their list of contributors on Wikipedia, though, some very dubious names.

A former colleague of mine at the writer’s charity where I worked right after college was a pleasant Brown grad who knew JFK2 and lo and behold, became managing editor of George.

I used to have the first issue of George, I probably tossed it in the recyling when I moved out of an apartment.

I saw one on eBay for $5,000 yesterday--could be the copy you recycled--which is approximately $4,985 more than what I'd be willing to pay.

E5 was odd, in a good way--I admired the way their argument over JFK's rejected proposal was extended and elided in a series of fragments, like it was Scenes from a Marriage or something. And I've always liked that dumb Better Than Ezra song.

Vaguely recognized the actress playing Ethel but had to look her up: Jessica Harper from Suspiria and lots else.

Thought E6 was quite good: JFK and Carolyn dancing to Pulp (not an important song to me, but loved the scene), Carolyn's mother's speech at the pre-wedding dinner, the scene where Carolyn quits Calvin Klein. Even something as mawkish as the exchange of vows was handled well.

Genuinely got mixed up there for a second or two.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Cdmp-uCZL._UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg

As usual I'm more likely to see the discourse about the discourse than the actual media which I am not watching. But apparently there's a subsection of women who are rediscovering(?) CBK as a style icon? I mean sure, whatever. Particularly around the perfect blondeness of her hair, which stylists are pointing out requires hundreds of dollars and a dozen hours in the salon every month to maintain.

Given who is watching this, I guess there's some more conservative girlies spouting off about CBK's "classic" style and trying to make her into some kind of patrician-nosed classically WASP society figure? And people who actually lived through it are responding with -- this was a woman who regularly screamed at men in public. Who famously screamed at JFK in public! And who for sure was doing a lot of drugs and chain-smoking because everyone did, so don't bring your wellness culture anywhere over here. And never forget that if it weren't for her less competent male partner, she had her sister wouldn't have died in a plane crash together. This is a take I can get behind.

I'll probably get crucified for saying this, but I don't remember being attracted to the real Carolyn at the time; the actress player her, Sarah Pidgeon, very much so.

Darryl Hannah was all over the internet yesterday attacking the show's portrayal of her...as I suggested above, I'm sympathetic. It's one thing where I think the show's way off (akm disagrees).

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but Tatiana Schlossberg's November essay in The New Yorker keeps coming back through my head: the most hurtful kind of beauty, quietly merciless lucidity, here for free, moneywise: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/a-battle-with-my-blood

E7--getting hounded by the press ("hounded" too mild a description) was genuinely depressing.