Or, how not to save a failing family business The Kennedies, natch, "America's Royal Fambly"
Here a quick glance at some of Robert's children is instructive. One of them, David, died of a drug overdose in Palm Beach just a year after another, Robert Jr., was arrested for possession of heroin at the Rapid City, S.D., airport. Courtney's second husband was an Irish Republican Army militant named Paul Hill. Max, who had threatened to run for Congress in California, began campaigning for a House seat in Massachusetts but ceased his efforts when, in his first public appearance, "he scratched his head, giggled nervously, lost his place several times and misnamed at least one member of the U.S. Supreme Court," according to the Los Angeles Times. The fact that, as a student at Harvard, he had assaulted a campus policeman didn't help, either.
Michael was in the midst of accusations of having sexual intercourse with his children's teenaged babysitter when he was killed in a skiing accident. Joseph II, the great hope of the family after his father's murder, was elected to Congress from Massachusetts in 1986 and served six terms, but enjoyed a reputation for bumptiousness rather than statesmanship, and is probably best known for his penchant for befriending Caribbean tyrants (Jean-Paul Aristide of Haiti and, more recently, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela). His sister Kathleen arrived in Maryland in 1986, promptly ran for Congress, and was defeated. A decade later she served two terms as lieutenant governor on the ticket with Governor Parris Glendening, but lost her own 2002 campaign for governor--in a state with an overhwelming Democratic edge in registration...
Having washed out of Georgetown and retreated to Providence College, Patrick was elected to the Rhode Island legislature while pursuing his undergraduate career, then in due course was elevated to Congress. He was, at first, taken up by the minority leader, Richard Gephardt, as a Democratic fundraising device; but his own peculiar demons--vandalizing a rented yacht, abusing an airport employee, crashing his car into a police barrier in the dead of night while en route to an imaginary House vote--soon reduced him to laughingstock status in the nation's capital, and deprived him of Gephardt's patronage. Poor Patrick is now condemned to life tenure in the lower chamber, on behalf of Rhode Island, where his (now publicly acknowledged) manic depression has made him a pharmaceutical role model.
When John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed his private plane into Long Island Sound, killing himself, his wife, and his sister-in-law in 1999, it was said that John, publisher of the now-defunct George magazine, was considering politics and assessing his presidential prospects. No one says such things about Patrick.
As with the hapless Patrick, the most impressive aspect of Caroline Kennedy's brief campaign for appointment was its sheer presumption.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/01/2009 13:18 ||
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#1
yet the media pant and get all moist over Camelot any time one of these losers speaks. I'd forgotten that Patches story part about the imaginary vote. Hee hee.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/01/2009 13:40 Comments ||
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#2
Interesting photograph. Past generations and hope for the future both given the front row.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/01/2009 14:43 Comments ||
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#4
how about the canard the Kennedys keep advancing..."the Kennedys have always had to work twice as hard as anyone else"? Caroline actually used this once the heat got turned up on her vis a vis her meager credentials.
WASHINGTON - Thomas Daschle waited nearly a month after being nominated to be secretary of health and human services before informing then-President-elect Obama that he had not paid years of back taxes for the use of a car and driver provided by a wealthy New York investor.
Daschle, one of Obama's earliest and most ardent campaign supporters, paid $140,000 to the US Treasury on Jan. 2 and about two days later informed the White House and the Senate Finance Committee, according to an account provided by his spokeswoman and confirmed by the Obama administration.
Although Daschle had known since June 2008 that he needed to correct his tax returns for 2005 to 2007, he never expected the amount to be such a "jaw-dropping" sum and "thought it was being taken care of" by his accountant, spokeswoman Jenny Backus said. Can't blame TurboTax this time, but there's always the CPA to throw under the bus...
Daschle is expected to face tough questioning from GOP lawmakers on the Senate Finance Committee about underpaying his taxes and his extensive work for clients in the healthcare industry, Republican aides said yesterday. ...while other committee members from The Party That Shall Not Be Named will do so half heartedly, if at all.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said last night that Obama stands behind his friend and confidant. "The president believes nobody's perfect but that nobody's hiding anything," Gibbs said. At least not until they're nominated for a Cabinet post...
The disclosure of Daschle's tax problems coincided with the convenient Friday afternoon press release of the financial statement he submitted to the Office of Government Ethics, which details for the first time how, without becoming a registered lobbyist, he made millions of dollars giving public speeches and private counsel to insurers, hospitals, realtors, farmers, energy firms, and telecommunications companies with regulatory and legislative interests in Washington.
Daschle's expertise and insights, gleaned over 26 years in Congress, earned him more than $5 million over the past two years, including $220,000 from the healthcare industry, and perks such as chauffeured Cadillacs in Washington, according to the documents.
In mid-December, Obama's transition team discovered that $15,000 of the $276,000 in charitable contributions claimed by Daschle and his wife over three years lacked proper receipts. But the former Senate majority leader did not mention the larger tax liability until after his accountant had filed amended returns.
The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a private session tomorrow to discuss Daschle's tax problems. Daschle, visiting an ailing relative, was unavailable for comment this weekend.
Meanwhile, the disclosure of Daschle's lucrative ties to private companies with Washington interests have begun to raise eyebrows among those who expected Obama to be wary of relying on wealthy insiders to stock his administration.
"Daschle is the quintessential Washington story. You leave a powerful position, and you leverage it to make a fortune," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit government watchdog group.
In his principal campaign speech on government ethics in June 2007, candidate Obama decried the "morally offensive conduct" of lobbyists and lawmakers who help large industries and special interests exercise "an effective veto on our progress."
He singled out the drug and insurance industries for particular scorn, saying they had pushed for a new Medicare prescription drug benefit and that lawmakers and Bush appointees who made it happen were rewarded with "cushy lobbying jobs that pay millions."
In recent months, Daschle has advocated changes to the health system that are unpopular with sizable portions of the industry, including some physicians, drug makers, and insurance companies. Daschle has nonetheless prospered from a stream of income from the health sector, including $220,000 in speaking fees in the past two years, according to the ethics filing. Whig. Daschle's gotta be a Whig, right?
Please note the formatting rules. The article does NOT go into italics. Close the spaces between the article text and your in-line commentary. AoS.
#1
without becoming a registered lobbyist, he made millions of dollars giving public speeches and private counsel to insurers, hospitals, realtors, farmers, energy firms, and telecommunications companies with regulatory and legislative interests in Washington.
I'm "deeply disappointed" in Tom Thumb. Farking lying crap weasel.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/01/2009 10:14 Comments ||
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#2
oh, and note that he knew this as of last June, but didn't do anything about it til he was caught via teh vetting process. Think he'd have paid up if he wasn't forced to? Me neither.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/01/2009 10:24 Comments ||
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#3
The Culture of Corruption is now under, new, Democratic Party management.
#6
One of the most to-the-point critiques I've read of the Democrat label omission, was when somebody got a Blago story and re-inserted the Democrat label in the story. In put things into perspective.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Here a quick glance at some of Robert's children is instructive. One of them, David, died of a drug overdose in Palm Beach just a year after another, Robert Jr., was arrested for possession of heroin at the Rapid City, S.D., airport. Courtney's second husband was an Irish Republican Army militant named Paul Hill. Max, who had threatened to run for Congress in California, began campaigning for a House seat in Massachusetts but ceased his efforts when, in his first public appearance, "he scratched his head, giggled nervously, lost his place several times and misnamed at least one member of the U.S. Supreme Court," according to the Los Angeles Times. The fact that, as a student at Harvard, he had assaulted a campus policeman didn't help, either. 
