THE TELEGRAPH: America's fabled Kennedy dynasty is set to come to an end after the son of the late Senator Edward Kennedy said he would not run for re-election to Congress in November.
Patrick Kennedy with his father, the late Senator Edward Kennedy. Photo: The Telegraph
His decision means that Washington will soon to be left without a member of the Kennedy clan holding political office for the first time since 1947.
Representative Patrick Kennedy, 42, of Rhode Island, who has battled with drugs and alcohol abuse, is to announce on Sunday that his life is "taking a new direction" and indicated that the death of his father in August was a factor in his decision.
"Illness took the life of my most cherished mentor and confidante, my ultimate source of spirit and strength," he said in a television message as a black-and-white photograph of him as a boy sailing with his father appeared on the screen.
"From the countless lives he lifted, to the American promise he helped shape, my father taught me that politics at its very core was about serving others."
The announcement is another blow to President Barack Obama, coming a month after the stunning upset in Massachusetts when Scott Brown, a Republican, won the Senate seat that Edward Kennedy had held since 1962. >>> Toby Harnden in Washington | Saturday, February 12, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Republicans Take Ted Kennedy's Seat in Massachusetts in Historic Upset
TIMES ONLINE: Republicans scored an historic victory overnight that put President Barack Obama's agenda in jeopardy exactly a year after he took power - and could kill health-care reform.
A little-known Republican state legislator came from a 30-percentage point deficit to win Edward Kennedy's old seat in the US Senate in Massachusetts in what appeared to be a massive protest vote against the party that controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.
"This is a huge wake-up call for the Democrats, for the Obama Administration and the country. America is fed up of the arrogance coming from Washington," said Andy Card, White House chief of staff in the George W. Bush Administration.
Democrats were reeling from the by-election defeat, which deprived them of the 60-seat "super-majority" that allows them to overcome Republican filibusters in the 100-member US Senate.
Scott Brown, a lawyer, military officer and former male model, has promised to use his Senate vote to defeat the Democrats' health-care reform, which was on the brink of passage after decades of trying.
Democrats pledged to try to ram through health-care reform despite the loss, but they risk a popular backlash if they do so. Yesterday’s vote was seen as a referendum on Mr Obama's presidency and his signature initiative, health-care reform. >>> James Bone in Boston | Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Scott Brown Says Massachusetts Result Shows Voter Anger
BBC: The shock Republican winner of a Senate election in the Democratic stronghold of Massachusetts has said he tapped into mounting aggravation among voters.
Scott Brown's victory is a serious setback to President Barack Obama's key domestic agenda on reforming healthcare and passing a climate change bill.
The result stunned Democrats and means Republicans now have enough Senate votes to impede the president's plans.
Mr Brown will be Massachusetts' first Republican senator since 1972.
The BBC's Paul Adams, in Boston, says it is a humiliating defeat for the Democrats, and a deeply unwelcome anniversary present for President Obama exactly one year after his inauguration.
He adds that it is one of the biggest political upsets in years - in a seat held for almost half a century by Edward Kennedy, a Democratic Party colossus, who died last year.
Senator-elect Brown told NBC's Today show he did not think the vote was a referendum on President Obama's first year in power.
He said it was a sign of voter disenchantment over partisan gridlock in Washington.
Mr Brown, 50, also said voters had "enjoyed the message" he pushed while campaigning, including his criticism of Mr Obama's healthcare plans. >>> | Wednesday, January 20, 2010
What Bill Clinton Allegedly Told Ted Kennedy about Obama: ‘A Few years Ago He Would Have Been Getting Us Coffee’
Controversy: Senator Harry Reid (left) and former US President Bill Clinton have come under fire for comments they are said to have made about Barack Obama. Photographs: Mail Online
MAIL ONLINE: Bill Clinton was at the centre of a race storm last night after he was accused of denigrating Barack Obama.
The former president allegedly claimed during the hard-fought Democratic primary race: ‘A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.’
He is said to have made the racist remark in a phone call entreating Senator Teddy Kennedy, the party’s vastly influential elder statesman, to endorse his wife, Hillary, in the delicately balanced 2008 nomination battle.
But the call so offended Senator Kennedy that it backfired and helped make up the veteran Washington power broker’s mind to throw his complete support behind Mr Obama’s historic bid for the White House, according to a new book.
Mr Clinton was once lauded by African-American admirers as America’s ‘first black president'.
But the ‘coffee’ controversy has opened old wounds from the campaign trail when Mr Clinton was accused of being racially dismissive about the underdog who went on to derail his wife’s White House dreams.
At the time, Mr Clinton scorned Mr Obama’s primary election victory in South Carolina, noting that Jesse Jackson had also carried the state in his failed presidential bid two decades earlier.
The former two-term president angrily denounced critics who suggested the comments were racially motivated and still seethes about the rumpus it caused to this day.
Last night, he was unavailable for comment about the new claim, which is featured in a new book about the presidential election called ‘Game Change.’ >>> David Gardner | Sunday, January 10, 2010
Washington Converges on Boston for Kennedy Funeral
REUTERS: BOSTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidents, members of Congress and the public gathered on a rainy Saturday to say goodbye to Senator Edward Kennedy, a towering figure in American politics who contributed to major social changes in the United States over the last 50 years.
Senators and U.S. representatives of both political parties joined the large Irish-American Kennedy clan, the country's pre-eminent political dynasty, at a Roman Catholic basilica for a funeral where President Barack Obama was to deliver the eulogy.
Dozens of lawmakers from the last several decades -- many of whom had been Kennedy's fiercest foes on legislation -- attended the traditional Catholic funeral Mass in the stone, 130-year-old Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica.
Mourners -- from Hollywood star Jack Nicholson to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer -- packed the white and gold interior of the church beneath soaring arches and stained glass.
Obama and former presidents Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton sat at the front with their wives. Since Kennedy's death on Tuesday of brain cancer at age 77, Americans have staged a series of memorials to the last of the Kennedy brothers, and his death has been treated like the passing of a president. >>> Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Scott Malone | Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
États-Unis: Un chapitre de l’histoire américaine se clôt
LE TEMPS: Le lion politique est mort mardi soir à l’âge de 77 ans.
En été 2008, bien que rongé par la chimiothérapie, il s’était fait violence pour se rendre au Sénat et voter contre des coupes dans Medicare, l’assurance maladie publique pour les plus de 65 ans. Certains républicains en furent tellement émus qu’ils retournèrent leur veste. L’anecdote révèle ce qu’a été Edward Kennedy durant ces quarante-six ans au Sénat: un politicien passionné qui n’a jamais eu honte de s’afficher sous l’étiquette «liberal», progressiste.
«Une figure unique»
Le dernier patriarche des Kennedy, l’une des familles les plus glamour de l’histoire politique américaine, est décédé mardi soir à 77 ans des suites d’une tumeur cérébrale dans sa maison du Massachusetts. Il sera enseveli samedi au cimetière d’Arlington à proximité de ses frères John Fitzgerald et Robert. La nouvelle a suscité une vague d’émotion à travers toute l’Amérique. Le président Barack Obama a déclaré avoir le «cœur brisé», soulignant que Ted Kennedy a été une «figure unique» aux Etats-Unis.
Considéré comme l’un des sénateurs les plus puissants et plus influents de l’Histoire américaine, le benjamin des neuf enfants de Joseph et de Rosa Kennedy porte en lui le destin tragique de la famille. Après la mort de son frère Joseph durant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, l’assassinat, en 1963, de son frère John, président des Etats-Unis, est un cataclysme. Un an plus tard, Ted échappe miraculeusement à la mort dans un accident d’avion. Le cauchemar se poursuit en 1968 quand, dans un hôtel californien, un Palestinien chrétien tue son autre frère, Robert, candidat à l’investiture démocrate pour la présidentielle de 1968. Prostré, Edward Kennedy se réfugie, dix semaines durant, dans le silence, naviguant seul sur son voilier, au large de Cape Cod. Plus tard, l’alcoolisme et sa réputation de coureur de jupons font les gros titres de la presse américaine. En 1969, un mystérieux accident de voiture sur l’île de Chappaquiddick, où la passagère de Kennedy perd la vie, finira de ternir l’image du politicien.
Après le divorce d’avec Joan Bennett Kennedy en 1982, Ted Kennedy se relève et se remarie avec Victoria Anne Reggie, une avocate de Washington. «Ces événements ont montré ses faiblesses, mais ils l’ont aussi humanisé», confie au Temps un Américain proche de l’administration Obama. D’autant que Ted Kennedy n’a jamais éludé ses problèmes en en assumant publiquement les conséquences avec une franchise quasi désarmante. >>> Stéphane Bussard | Jeudi 27 Août 2009
