Most everyone knows that fifty-two American hostages were taken in Tehran on November 4th 1979. Only people who followed Ted Kennedy's campaign for president or who followed politics closely back then know that he had a disastrous interview with television newsman Roger Mudd on that same day. I was a volunteer on the phones for Ted Kennedy during the Pennsylvania primary but it took a couple of weeks before I came up to speed of the news on either of these two events....this because my father died that same day.....and was buried in Arlington Cemetery not far from where all three of the Kennedy brothers are today buried.
I was a Kennedy family acolyte since 1960 as I saw John Kennedy in person as he campaigned in Buffalo where I was born....and also remember watching the returns on election night 1960....but Robert Kennedy was my real hero. There's a recent biography out on RFK....and on the cover is a photo of him with his wavy locks, thin tie and white shirt sleeves rolled up as he reaches out grasping the hands of the black people in the Detroit crowd...I believe it was Detroit. That is the RFK that I and much of the American youth fell in love with in 1968.
While at Pitt after the service I took a university sponsored bus trip up to Harvard for a conference that I didn't really care about. I just wanted to live on the Harvard campus for a few days because that was the Kennedy's campus. My wife and I honeymooned on Cape Cod and while there I had to take a first hand look at the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick. We took a second honeymoon there this past summer.....and we saw the movie Chappaquiddick this afternoon.
I think that most of us who over the years have felt as if we were somehow distant kin of the Kennedy family knew that Ted Kennedy was not of the same mold as Joe or John or Robert as it pertained to greatness....how many are....and how the pressures on the youngest were just too much anyway....for his brothers were beyond extraordinary. I never even warmed up to Joe Kennedy the patriarch. This is self-analysis here.....but when I supported Ted Kennedy in his campaign....I thought that I was supporting the legacy of Robert Kennedy....and of JFK.
The events of July 14th, 1969 on Chappaquiddick Island...almost joined to Martha's Vineyard....may have been evident since the inquest that followed the young woman's death but if you happen to see the movie it's as if they are pumped into the blood stream. Everyone in that theater today was probably uttering to themselves....'just run up the road and pound on the door of that house!' In reality.....Ted Kennedy's quest for the White House didn't end with the Roger Mudd Interview.....although politically it was the death certificate.....it ended on a flat wooden bridge on a warm summer evening on Chappaquiddick Island.
About two years after the events of November 4th 1979 God had mercy on the lowest of the low and the unworthiest of the unworthy. Through a string of events I saw that I had lived my life in rebellion to a Holy God. There was no pride left....but there was something else that appeared in its place. This Jesus who I had been only remotely acquainted with for most of my life became more real than life itself. Mercy was being extended and His glory revealed in what I was learning was too magnificent to even try to comprehend. I didn't know it then but later could see why Old Testament prophets fell like a sack of potatoes in His presence.
Over the past thirty-six years as I watched Ted Kennedy make the most outrageous statements and take the most despicable positions on issues....I could at least understand how he could claim the compassion of RFK as a banner but carry poison arrows in his quiver. Ted Kennedy's decisions on that day in 1969 destroyed any discernment he might have had had he just....run up the road and pounded on that door!
The film is sobering.....not a sound was heard throughout except one or two gasps. The actor who played Senator Kennedy was mesmerizing....and this to someone who has lived through Camelot and the Kennedy saga.
I was a Kennedy family acolyte since 1960 as I saw John Kennedy in person as he campaigned in Buffalo where I was born....and also remember watching the returns on election night 1960....but Robert Kennedy was my real hero. There's a recent biography out on RFK....and on the cover is a photo of him with his wavy locks, thin tie and white shirt sleeves rolled up as he reaches out grasping the hands of the black people in the Detroit crowd...I believe it was Detroit. That is the RFK that I and much of the American youth fell in love with in 1968.
While at Pitt after the service I took a university sponsored bus trip up to Harvard for a conference that I didn't really care about. I just wanted to live on the Harvard campus for a few days because that was the Kennedy's campus. My wife and I honeymooned on Cape Cod and while there I had to take a first hand look at the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick. We took a second honeymoon there this past summer.....and we saw the movie Chappaquiddick this afternoon.
I think that most of us who over the years have felt as if we were somehow distant kin of the Kennedy family knew that Ted Kennedy was not of the same mold as Joe or John or Robert as it pertained to greatness....how many are....and how the pressures on the youngest were just too much anyway....for his brothers were beyond extraordinary. I never even warmed up to Joe Kennedy the patriarch. This is self-analysis here.....but when I supported Ted Kennedy in his campaign....I thought that I was supporting the legacy of Robert Kennedy....and of JFK.
The events of July 14th, 1969 on Chappaquiddick Island...almost joined to Martha's Vineyard....may have been evident since the inquest that followed the young woman's death but if you happen to see the movie it's as if they are pumped into the blood stream. Everyone in that theater today was probably uttering to themselves....'just run up the road and pound on the door of that house!' In reality.....Ted Kennedy's quest for the White House didn't end with the Roger Mudd Interview.....although politically it was the death certificate.....it ended on a flat wooden bridge on a warm summer evening on Chappaquiddick Island.
About two years after the events of November 4th 1979 God had mercy on the lowest of the low and the unworthiest of the unworthy. Through a string of events I saw that I had lived my life in rebellion to a Holy God. There was no pride left....but there was something else that appeared in its place. This Jesus who I had been only remotely acquainted with for most of my life became more real than life itself. Mercy was being extended and His glory revealed in what I was learning was too magnificent to even try to comprehend. I didn't know it then but later could see why Old Testament prophets fell like a sack of potatoes in His presence.
Over the past thirty-six years as I watched Ted Kennedy make the most outrageous statements and take the most despicable positions on issues....I could at least understand how he could claim the compassion of RFK as a banner but carry poison arrows in his quiver. Ted Kennedy's decisions on that day in 1969 destroyed any discernment he might have had had he just....run up the road and pounded on that door!
The film is sobering.....not a sound was heard throughout except one or two gasps. The actor who played Senator Kennedy was mesmerizing....and this to someone who has lived through Camelot and the Kennedy saga.
