High life
Called to the bars
Taki
Good old Teddy Kennedy. He has yet to let us down. As soon as things begin to get a little boring he reverts to type and, presto, there's merriment all round, espe- cially among those of us who have been following his brilliant career from the start.
As everyone who has ever bounced a cheque knows, the senior senator from Massachusetts had his Harvard roommate, Bill Frate, take a Spanish examination for him and when Frate got caught both he and Teddy were expelled for cheating. All this was kept pretty quiet until some smart aleck discovered it and was about to print it, when Teddy's older brothers decided it might harm JFK's image and a compromise was reached. In 1962, Teddy was allowed to `confess' to a schoolboy prank with the kind of mea culpa that makes hard-core feminists cry and strong men break out in hives. The 'incident' never became an issue in the 1962 campaign, when Teddy was elected to what great liars call the most exclusive club in the world. (More about that later.) Nor did his Virginia capers cramp his style. While attending my old alma mater, the University of Virginia, Teddy was arrested twice for running a red light, speeding away when detected and cutting the tail lights to elude pursuit by the fuzz. The second time was even better than the first. When he got caught, he was stretched out in the front seat hiding. Although convicted both times, for some strange reason his record remained unblemished.
Almost as unblemished as a new book which has been on the best-seller list these past few months — unblemished by any mention by the media, that is. It's entitled Senatorial Privilege, by Leo Damore, and it sets out to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Ted Kennedy 'killed that girl at Chappaquiddick the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger'.
'I think we've picked up Sky TV's test card.' Space prevents me from going into details, except to say that it was Kennedy's cousin's confession (he was co-host of the Chappaquiddick party and trusted opera- tive of the clan) that blows the lid on Teddy. He gives no reasons for coming clean except that he had protected the senator long enough. Other policemen involved in the cover-up state the same thing. Which, if true, means that Kennedy is not only unfit to be a senator but should have been behind bars for a nice long stretch.
And speaking of bars, Teddy Kennedy was one among 11 senators who rejected John Tower for Secretary of Defense 011 account of his drinking and womanising. Which from any rational point of view is like Hitler turning down an applicant on the grounds of anti-semitism. But what really amuses me is the fact that the Senate has always tolerated drinkers and woma- nisers, until today. Just think. Small-timers like, say, Winston Churchill, Kemal Ata- turk, Alexander the Great, Ulysses S. Grant, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Andrew Jackson, if they lived in the present would be unfit to run Defense for Uncle Sam. Nor would great generals like Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, or General Wainwright. Not to mention Harold Mac- millan, Shah Jehan (he only built the TaJ Mahal) or old Bismark. The hypocrisy Is enough to drive one to acute alcoholism. Which brings me to the most exclusive club in the world, the US Senate. The percentage of good members to bad is about 20 to 80. Brave and honourable men like John McCain, Malcolm Wallop and Pete Wilson versus phonies like Christ- opher Dodd, John Kerry, Howard Metzen- baum and good old Teddy. The percentage of white hats as opposed to black hats was better at Pentonville, also an exclusive club, and one Kennedy should join, with any luck.
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