PJ Media

PJ Mediahttps://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/09/10/ted-kennedy-and-the-odor-of-holiness/feed/PJ Media is a leading news site covering culture, politics, faith, homeland security, and more. Our reporters and columnists provide original, in-depth analysis from a variety of perspectives.en-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 18:43:53 -0400Ted Kennedy and the odor of holiness<![CDATA[In the midst of the hallelujah chorus of praise that greeted the death of Ted Kennedy last month, several conservative commentators, including myself, sounded a sour note. Kennedy’s lifelong addiction to cheating and womanizing; his callous (not to say felonious) behavior in that Chappaquiddick affair, when he left Mary Jo Kopechne to asphyxiate while he worked out an appropriate alibi and let his blood alcohol level drop; his brutal behavior towards his first wife, Joan; his histrionic and mendacious performance on the Senate floor during Robert Bork’s confirmation hearings — Kennedy stood before a battery of television cameras and emitted a series of lies about one of our greatest jurists in order to keep him off the Supreme Court: these were prominent items in the bill of indictment that Kennedy’s critics put forward. Perhaps the most egregious tort — in some ways even worse than his behavior at Chappaquiddick — was what Peter Robinson called Kennedy’s “Soviet Gambit,” his approach to Yuri Andropov, the Soviet leader, in 1983. “Kennedy’s message,” Mr. Robinson observed, “was simple. He proposed an unabashed quid pro quo. Kennedy would lend Andropov a hand in dealing with President Reagan. In return, the Soviet leader would lend the Democratic Party a hand in challenging Reagan in the 1984 presidential election.”]]>Thu, 10 Sep 2009 07:05:20 -0400<![CDATA[Roger Kimball]]>https://pjmedia.com/roger-kimball/2009/09/10/ted-kennedy-and-the-odor-of-holiness-n116047