Ted Kennedy

On Morning Joe, Mike Barnicle claims that "everyone so revered" the Presidency and the U.S. Senate not that long ago, and wonders how long it will take to repair the damage to those institutions that is now being done on a daily basis.

The level to which some members of the media would go in order to excuse or explain away the reprehensible conduct of Ted Kennedy never ceased to amaze. On August 27, 2009, journalist Melissa Lafsky, who at one time worked for the New York Times’s Freakonomics blog, wrote this about Mary Jo Kopechne, a woman Kennedy left to drown: 

The voice was instantly recognizable, even though its owner identified himself. ‘'The record shows he has a strange idea of what justice is” intoned American icon and movie star Gregory Peck. The “he” in question was Judge Robert Bork, and Peck was lending his voice to something new in American history: a television commercial attacking a nominee for the United States Supreme Court. 

The New York Times pathetically tried to turn the shock resignation of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman accused by several women of physical abuse into a political plus for Democrats, even though Schneiderman was one of the legal leaders of “The Resistance” and a #MeToo crusader for women. Thursday’s New York Times front-page story by Alexander Burns read: “Sex Scandals Hit Both…

As fans of This Week in Media Bias History know, certain quotes from liberal journalists about liberal politicians are extra cringe-worthy in retrospect. On April 29, 1991, Time magazine fawned over Senator Ted Kennedy, praising him as the “prince” of “American politics,” a man who became “one of the great American lawmakers of the century.” Is leaving Mary Joe Kopechne to drown something a “…

In a Friday New York Times op-ed, Neal Gabler, merely described as "writing a biography of Edward Kennedy" to feign neutrality, expressed alarm that "the despicable Kennedy" seen in Chappaquiddick "will eradicate the honorable if flawed real one." Anyone who knows the history, dramatically retold in the movie I saw, can only hope that the actually despicable Massachusetts senator accurately…

Jason Clarke got quite the education after accepting the lead role in Chappaquiddick. The movie, out April 6, follows the events surrounding the 1969 death of Mary Jo Kopechne. Sen. Ted Kennedy (Clarke) was driving Kopechne. 

How far has the manipulative Kennedy dynasty fallen? Somehow, the movie Chappaquiddick was made with well-known actors, and distributed to movie theaters. Seven years ago, pressure caused the History Channel to deep-six a dramatic Kennedy miniseries (it ended up on the obscure cable channel Reelz). This movie is even drawing favorable reviews from the movie critics.

NBCNews.com has a website called “Think” that offers “Hot Takes” – none hotter than radical feminist Jill Filipovic trying to use the Chappaquiddick movie to slime the Republicans. Her headline was “Since Chappaquiddick, Democrats' views of women have evolved. Republicans' still need to. The new movie about the Ted Kennedy's involvement in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne highlights the progress…

It’s not just liberal politics that play a part in cover-ups in scandals. It’s also liberal Hollywood. In 1979, a producer named Glenn Stensel tried to raise $800,000 to make the film, in the same year when Ted Kennedy was in the running for the Democratic nomination for president. It didn't happen.   

CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King on Friday gushed over “good guy” Joe Kennedy and his “gorgeous” family. Despite April 6 being the day that the Ted Kennedy film Chappaquiddick debuts, the topic of his great uncle abandoning a drowning woman never came up. Yet the two discussed “ChapStick-gate.”

Traditionally, the news media have demonstrated great interest in movies with social or political themes, but so far Chappaquiddick has been completely ignored by CBS This Morning, while NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America have each featured only a single segment about the film.

The Boston Globe's Ty Burr reviewed Chappaquiddick Tuesday, admonishing readers that the movie "might even be accurate." Burr claims that "I'll never know" what really happened the night Ted Kennedy drove off Chappaquiddick Island's Dike Road bridge and left Mary Jo Kopechne to die in his submerged car, "and neither will you." Besides, he insists, though Ted was "flawed but human," he had "…