Daniel J. Flynn: Ted Kennedy, Party Cannibal
[Daniel J. Flynn, the author of A Conservative History of the American Left, blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.]
"The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed," former President Jimmy Carter told 60 Minutes last night."It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill."
Carter's observation, fleshed out in his newly published diaries from his presidency, may seem shocking to Democrats who posthumously credit Kennedy with the health-care bill passed earlier this year. But for anyone who has followed the last brother's forty-seven years in the Senate, Carter's complaint rings true. Ted Kennedy was a party cannibal who built his career devouring fellow Democrats.
Prior to becoming a United States Senator in 1962, Kennedy had cast ballots in just three of sixteen elections in which he had been eligible. Tellingly, his brother John had been on the ballot in each of the contests in which he bothered to vote. The young playboy even sat on his hands when Adlai Stevenson, who had passed over John Kennedy for his running-mate, ran for president in 1956. Ted's apathy served the Democrats' interests better than his older brother Bobby's vindictiveness, which led him to vote Republican for Dwight Eisenhower....