Some Items Left Out of Kennedy-Fest

Last week we saw endless praises and near canonizations heaped upon Senator Ted Kennedy. Someone, somewhere called him the "Lion of the Senate" and others compared him to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster as one of the greatest ever. Of course no Democratic funeral would be complete without utilizing it for political gain. The Kennedy family brought forth children to try and convince the nation to pass socialized health care that the man himself would never have used himself.


You would never, however, go through a Richard Nixon death without mention of Watergate. Kennedy's misdeeds similarly ought to follow praises of whatever it is he did that was great.


Most remember the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Nothing to say about this that readers of thise site do not know already.


What many people are not aware of is how damaging Ted Kennedy was to this state. In 1960 the future Senator took charge of John F. Kennedy's effort to win Southern West Virginia. The region already had an unsavory reputation for corruption. Most county bosses lined up behind Midwestern traditional liberal Hubert Humphries. At this point their influence, especially that of Raymond Chafin of Logan County, was very strong.


Chris Matthews said recently that John F. Kennedy's good looks won him the 1960 primary in West Virginia. In contrast to this rather insulting and condescending assertion, West Virginians themselves have tried to relate the real story of the 1960 primary. Two books in the past few years, West Virginia Tough Boys, by F. Keith Davis and Don't Buy Another Vote I Won't Pay For a Landslide, by former Gaston Caperton Administration official Dr. Allen Loughry, discussed in detail the drama that unfolded in that primary season. Basically what it boils down to is that the Kennedy campaign pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the hands of county bosses. This caused them to switch allegiances overnight to Kennedy and to use some of the funds to line up precincts for their new candidate.


Dr. Loughry also argues that the massive amount of funds injected into the hands of the bosses and by extension many corrupted voters raised the bar for voting irregularities. In essence, to purchase a West Virginia election, a candidate would need more cash than ever. This tied some more tightly to unsavory donors while making for others personal wealth and the willingness to use it in illegal ways more tempting than ever. Obvious fraud and corruption benefitted the status quo since voters reacted by growing ever more cynical. When you have a mindset that all politicians are crooks, you tend to adopt "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" mentality.


And who should answer for this? Ted Kennedy's death removed a man who likely knew a lot, but never uttered a word about that scandalous year of 1960.

Saint Ted?

The Democratic National Convention kicked off with a Ted Kennedy love fest that would make one gag. On one hand, the specter of any human being suffering from cancer is worth sympathy. However, the hero/saint treatment is appalling.

The nation knows about Chappaquiddick, when Kennedy's young female friend died on his watch. He saturated his brain in alcohol, drove off a bridge with a young woman in the car. When he miraculously escaped, he neither tried to help his friend, nor did he call the authorities. Instead he changed his clothes and went to a party while some parents' daughter lay dead under water.

Few people outside of West Virginia know of the felonies committed in our state on his watch. Ted Kennedy supervised his brother's 1960 presidential primary campaign in Southern West Virginia. In separate accounts, political boss Raymond Chafin and Caperton administration official Dr. Allen Loughry wrote about the massive sums of cash sent from "bagmen" in Chicago to bosses in Southern West Virginia. Upon receiving the money the bosses changed their support from Hubert Humphreys to John F. Kennedy. They then used the cash to convince voters to support the new favorite. Ted Kennedy deserved federal prison, not the United States Senate.

Yet this is their patriarch, their saint. Saint Ted was on hand to give his approval to the next generation of crooked politician with questionable Chicago ties. At least the Kennedy ties were with a mob that supported their country in times of war (FDR let J. Edgar Hoover use the Mafia for port security.) Obama's friends such as William Ayers wanted to kill American lawmakers and police officers. Ties to the mob and the Chicago machine are bad. Ties to terrorists should rule out anyone from elected office. Sadly the Democratic Party overlooks such trivial relationships, thinking a Cheshire cat grin and vague calls of unity will mask the reality of Obama's past.