Tag: kennedy family
Kennedy Biden

Kennedy Family Visits Biden White House -- Without Disgraced RFK Jr.

Members of the Kennedy family visited the White House Sunday for President Joe Biden’s St. Patrick’s Day brunch, and in case there’s any doubt about the family’s allegiances this coming November, Kerry Kennedy posted an image of the clan with the president, writing, “President Biden, you make the world better. Happy St. Patrick’s Day.”

Erstwhile Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as an independent, was missing from the happy tableau.

The famously Democratic Kerry Kennedy didn’t mention her brother, his strange presidential bid, or his bad ideas about vaccines and public health—but she didn’t have to.

In October, Kerry posted a statement on behalf of her siblings denouncing their brother’s candidacy and throwing their support behind Biden.

“Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” she wrote. “Today's announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”

RFK Jr.’s ideas on public health are so out there that his ally list includes speculative running mate Aaron Rodgers, who is an NFL quarterback and enthusiastic conspiracy theorist.

But that didn’t ruin the rest of the Kennedy clan’s St. Paddy’s Day fun. Biden acknowledged their attendance at the event, saying, “Welcome almost home. It wouldn’t be St. Patrick’s Day without you.”

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Those Were The Days On Nantucket Sound

The new memoir about the Kennedys, “The Nine of Us,” is a lyrical looking glass into a time that feels forever lost — when the richest class felt a deep obligation to give back to the people, to serve in the military and politics. The “to whom much is given, much us expected” motto was a mantra in the Kennedy summer compound in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Excellence in all things was encouraged, from riding to sailing to writing thank you notes. On these pages, a clear-eyed sister tells the tale of their younger, vibrant selves.

The scene is set from the beginning, a sharp contrast from the gaudy gold and chrome Trump Tower:

“The white house looked over the sea … an overgrown Cape Cod cottage with white wooden shingles and black shutters. … The white house was full of activity, chatter and laughter. Full of books on shelves and sports gear in closets. And especially full of children.”

Oh, it brings back the old days, of New England zest and camaraderie, a ready wit and willingness to get skin in the game. Touch football, anyone?

Then there were debates over dinner — you had to be scrubbed and dressed for dinner — on the raging issues of the day. “What would you do if you were president,” their father drilled them. Jack, the lover of history and books, would be 99 years old today. The striking Joe, the oldest, was the one groomed for the job, but he volunteered for a dangerous mission in World War II and got blown from the sky. He was the first to shatter the Kennedy family idyll. Jack, in a way, got elected to run by his family first. The ironic, impossibly cool Jack almost had no choice, as the second oldest son.

The author Jean Kennedy Smith is the only living one of the nine Kennedys born between the teens, ’20s and ’30s. At 88, the former ambassador to Ireland remained as the key holder of certain stories and insights about their youth, all nine of them. She and the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy were the youngest, and her character portraits of her sisters, brothers and parents come from that vantage point.

Who knew that the intense Bobby had a pink and black spotted pig named Porky that went with him everywhere? He also tended to rabbits, all manner of animals and made friends easily. “You have a lot on the ball,” his father Joe wrote to his third-oldest son.

A charmed moment is a letter from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a stamp collector, to young Bobby, a fellow philatelist: “Perhaps sometime when you are in Washington you will come in and let me show you my collection.” Indeed, the boy did.

Smith suggests that her brother Bobby was the secret favorite of her parents, Rose and Joe Kennedy, Irish-Catholic Boston stock. Rose’s father, Honey “Fitz” Fitzgerald was the beloved mayor of Boston — political royalty.

Singing “Sweet Adeline” and reciting the classic “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” poem was the stuff of their childhood.

Joe’s dying young was followed by their sister “Kick,” a lively presence who married an Englishman destined to be a duke. She, too, died young in a plane crash. Eunice was “sporty” and such a force she might have been president if she wasn’t a girl. She founded the Special Olympics.

There are London days in Jean’s teens, as father Joe served as the ambassador to the Court of St. James (and gave Roosevelt bad advice about Germany and staying out of the war).

Nothing but the best might as well be written between the lines. Yet the Kennedys have a gift of being inclusive in their exuberant privilege, not running rampant with it simply for vainglory. You feel that you, too, are sailing on Nantucket Sound that summer day. Teddy, with the sweetest social nature, became a great sailor till nearly the end of his days, at age 77. He was the only brother to “comb gray hair,” as the elegiac Irish line goes. The artist Jamie Wyeth painted his friend Teddy sailing into the light.

Jack’s light touch comes through a letter to Jeannie: “I am most pleased to hear from you and am fully conscious of the honor.”

Call me nostalgic, because that’s exactly what I am this Thanksgiving.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit www.creators.com.

IMAGE: AFP Photo

Kerry Kennedy Trial: Sleep Driving Or Misdemeanor Drugged-Driving?

By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

Accompanied by a phalanx of celebrity relatives, Kerry Kennedy, human rights activist, former wife of the governor of New York, daughter of a slain senator and niece of a slain president, entered a White Plains, N.Y., courtroom Monday to face misdemeanor charges in a drugged-driving case.

Kennedy’s mother, Ethel Kennedy, 85, walked slowly into the courtroom but had to sit in a wheelchair, according to news reports from the scene. Also there for moral support were Kerry Kennedy’s brothers, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Douglas Kennedy.

It is rare for a misdemeanor driving case to draw media attention, even in celebrity-saturated suburban New York. But Kerry Kennedy’s fame and family ties ensured coverage. She is the president of the RFK Center for Justice & Human Rights. She is the daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy and niece of President John F. Kennedy, both assassinated.

She is also the ex-wife of Governor Andrew Cuomo. The couple divorced in 2005, before Cuomo became the state’s chief executive.

Kennedy was arrested after her Lexus SUV hit a tractor-trailer on a highway near her home outside New York City on July 13, 2012. She drove to the next exit, where she failed a police test.

Noted defense lawyer Gerald Lefcourt told the six jurors that Kennedy drove erratically because she accidentally took a sleeping pill, zolpidem, instead of her thyroid medication.

“The zolpidem kicks in. It shuts her down. She’s in a state of sleep-driving,” Lefcourt said, according to news reports from the courtroom.

Prosecutor Doreen Lloyd said even if the pill were taken accidentally, Kennedy violated the law “by failing to stop and pull over as she felt the onset of symptoms.”

But Lefcourt said Kennedy never knew what the drug was doing to her. He said the medication “hijacks your ability to make decisions.”

Henry Myers of North Salem testified that he saw Kennedy swerve her car into the tractor-trailer on Interstate 684 and keep driving despite damaging her tire.

“I saw smoke. I figured the car would stop,” he said. When it didn’t, he said, he called 911.

If convicted, Kennedy, 54, faces up to a year in jail.

Photo: abraham.williams via Flickr