Patrick Kennedy: Father ‘saved millions’ after Chappaquiddick
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Kennedy Memoirs
Edward Kennedy's memoirs are released.Published: September 14, 2009
Updated: September 14, 2009
BOSTON—U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy said Monday that he thinks his late father was motivated by the death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick to work hard his entire life to make up for his failings.
“The fact of the matter is, this would have just paralyzed any normal person, and he spent his life working to improve the lives of many, and he, in a sense, basically saved millions of people through his work on AIDS, through his work on health care, through his work on so many issues that are of vital importance to saving people’s lives,“ the Rhode Island Democrat told NBC’s “Today” show.
Kopechne, a worker on Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign, drowned in July 1969 when Kennedy, after a late-night party, drove their car off a bridge on the island off Martha’s Vineyard.
He swam to safety but didn’t report the accident for more than 10 hours. The senator later received a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. Kennedy died Aug. 25 of brain cancer at age 77.
During a book tour with his brother, Partick Kennedy said his father’s cancer fight, as well as writing his memoirs, “True Compass,“ led him to open up more emotionally than ever before.
“Everybody knows my Dad wasn’t the most sentimental, emotive guy. He’s old Irish in that respect,“ the congressman said.
The senator’s eldest son, Edward Kennedy Jr., told ABC’s “Good Morning America” the family was always concerned his father could be assassinated like his brothers Robert Kennedy and President John F. Kennedy.
He recalled seeing a bulletproof vest hanging in a closet as his father considered running for president in 1984.
“We were always mindful whenever he went out in public, what if there’s this person who just, you know, wants to become instantaneously famous and, you know, we were worried. We tried to push those feelings down,“ Edward Kennedy Jr. said.
He remembered an incident in 1980, when his father was running for president, and someone in a crowd stabbed him with the pin from a campaign button as he shook hands.
Kennedy said his father suppressed those concerns and told his children, ‘I can’t sit here and worry about this my whole life. Otherwise, I’ll live in a cave.“
Both sons said with so many sudden deaths in their family history, their father’s gradual passing was a blessing and allowed him to check off his “bucket list” of want- and need-to-dos.
“He accomplished everything he really wanted to accomplish the last year,“ Patrick Kennedy said.
“The last year of my father’s life were not sad moments,“ said Edward Kennedy Jr. “They were amazing moments, and I wanted to spend as much time with him as I possibly could. And I wanted my children to be with him as much as they could.“
“True Compass” hit bookstore shelves Monday.
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Reader Reactions
I can’t wait to see the run on sentence that comes from this one. Good job, Chesapeake.
Kennethnkn your a teacher? Chesapeake is a student who obviously does and did his homework. He asked you to comment on his post about Alan Greenspan’s warning.
I hope you can be as respectful to him as this young scholar has been to you.
@chesapeake…don’t forget our beloved SENATOR JACK GREED….he took in MILLIONS of $$$$ for his campaign war-chest and sat on the right-hand side of the LORD…SEN CHRIS (the crook) DODD on the Senate Banking Committee.
and there’s more…..
SEN JACK GREED is the chairman of the sub-committee that oversaw the insurance companies and securities industry on WALL STREET. You can’t find a more incompetant person than this LOSER!! Imagine, he oversaw AIG, LEHMAN BROTHERS, the OIL SPECULATORS and trading abuses that brought this country to the worst economic conditions since the GREAT DEPRESSION.
WAY TO GO RHODE ISLAND…...vote him back to Washington. Jack must go to bed at night and laugh his @#%$ off!!
Kennethnkn
I thought about it and I decided to post this. I believe this article to be true. Thats all I wanted was to find the truth.
It goes on to say that three senators who protected Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd and all of them recieved campaign contributions in the hundreds of thousands from Fannie and Freddie.
It also says that John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of the S.190 that was the bill that would have averted the mess.
I wouldn’t have voted republican anyways I want Barack Obama to stop the war.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this sir.
Thank you
Kennethknk now that you have been schooled by Chesapeake (good job Chesapeake)
Maybe now you will take your ridiculous knowledge and poor spelling skills to the autobody shop (Kennethknk is a wana-be autobody mechanic) and just fade away.
Greenspan’s Warning
The clear gravity of the situation pushed the legislation forward. Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,‘’ he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.‘’
What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.
Different World
If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.
But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.
That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. Wallison wrote at the time: ``It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. The Democrats and the few Republicans who oppose portfolio limitations could not possibly do so if their constituents understood what they were doing.‘’
Thanks Pollyana,
Im finding that when you ask one political question you get ten different answers…
I even found a site that I could of copied and pasted that tells of the Democratic part in the financial crisis.
I don’t know if it was true but I didn’t want to do that to Kennethnkn he might have a kaniption…my mom says that!
Chesapeake: You sound like a smart young one. You can believe in what you want to believe in ... but you have to see everything in the same light in order to be sure what you are saying is what you really mean. No one, either Republican, Democrat or Independent, would willfully (I think) walk by anyone who is hurt or needy. Why do you think everyone comes to this country - not too many try to escape it? Because we HAVE programs that benefit everyone - no one goes without anything in this country unless they choose to do so. That is what freedom is like - it’s your freedom to make your own choices. What does happen, unfortunately, is that choices are made in Washington that, on the face, are for the good of all, but if you understand politics, lobbyists, and the system, you understand that the government have lots of people working for it that do NOT have the welfare of everyone at heart - just the welfare of those who can give them the most money. So don’t believe the “Republican” or “Democrat” garbage. Use your internet to check EVERYTHING out. THEN you’ll be a very wise, well educated young one.
Kennethnkn,
It was that last post that finally did it…I’m I’m starting to hate the republican party.
“The power of Kenneth compells you”!!!
“The power of Kenneth compells you”!!!
Ken My head is spinning!!!
You bet we’d help you Chesapeake and so would Kennethnkn. Have faith in your fellow man.
I think kennethknk has a drinking problem. Oh wait that would explain the reason he’s a Kennedy fan!
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