Try as I might, I’m just not that shocked at the news that Ted Kennedy and other Democratic liberal Senators were willing to work with the Soviet Union in a joint PR campaign to undermine and defeat President Reagan at the polls in 1984.
Bryan at Hot Air has the skinny on what is either the most egregious violation of trust in the history of the United States Senate or the most calumnious lie ever told about – love him or hate him – one of the most dedicated public servants in American history:
There’s a new book on Ronald Reagan making the rounds, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. Its author, Paul Kengor, unearthed a sensational document from the Soviet archives. That document is a memo regarding an offer made by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts via former Senator John Tunney, both Democrats, to the General Secretary of the Communist Party, USSR, Yuri Andropov, in 1983. The offer was to help the Soviet leadership, military and civilian, conduct a PR campaign in the United States as President Ronald Reagan sought re-election. The goal of the PR campaign would be to cast President Reagan as a warmonger, the Soviets as willing to peacefully co-exist, and thereby turn the electorate away from Reagan. It was a plan to enlist Soviet help, and use the American press, in unseating an American president.
There are many reasons why this might not be true, not the least of which is that Soviet agents were notorious for lying to their superiors – especially when it came to bragging to their bosses about Americans who may or may not have worked with Communists. Contained in the million or so pages of documents that came to light in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union are the names of dozens of prominent Americans that Soviet agents claimed were helping the Communist cause, including FDR’s friend and closest White House advisor Harry Hopkins as well as famous entertainers like Marilyn Monroe. The long and short of it is, you need a helluva lot more than one memo to prove that Ted Kennedy wanted to take part in this scheme.
Ted Kennedy helped invent the modern Senate. His knowledge of its workings as well as his advocacy for issues like education, health care, and workers’ rights have transformed what at one time was a clubby, almost aristocratic body where little of domestic importance happened into a liberal legislative laboratory, often driving changes in the law ahead of the House. Kennedy’s encyclopedic knowledge of Senate procedure has allowed him to triumph in the face of almost certain defeat many times. In this respect, he is one of the giants in the history of Congress.
He is also a vainglorious hypocrite, scion of one of the most screwed up families in American history who has demonstrated time and time again that he believes that the law does not apply the same way to he and his family as it does to the rest of us. In this respect, I always thought Kennedy one of the greatest threats to American liberty ever to serve in Congress and that defeating many of his more outrageous proposals to smother the American spirit to be a patriotic duty.
The point is, it is not beyond imagining Kennedy or any other liberal from that period taking part in such an effort to betray their trust. This is because one of the core tenets of modern liberalism is that ordinary morality that may apply to most of us can be set aside in the name of a higher goal. For Kennedy, his belief that he would be preventing nuclear war overrode any more mundane considerations like loyalty to the country or his President. This kind of action feeds the liberal’s heroic self image while also revealing the dirty little secret of the New Left; they consider ideals like patriotism and love of country subservient to their belief in the universality of man. And from the time of the Russian revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall, they felt that spirit – despite all evidence to the contrary – was embodied in the old Soviet Union.
I predict that not much will be made of this revelation in the media. Too many years have gone by and the information itself is so tenuous that it will be difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. It will probably be treated the same way that revelations about the possible resting places for Saddam’s WMD in Syria has been covered by the press. But the fact that the information is in and of itself believable says much about the modern left and their continuing war against all that is decent and good in America while calling into question the patriotism and loyalty of such people.
11:51 am
Rick: I don’t doubt it for a minute! Teddy-boy teamed up woth JFK-lite, John Kerry, to undermine the American Military and US Foreign Policy at the time, with the anti-War movement; Kerry never made a move without consulting his mentor, Teddy-boy; and it was a pre-meditated, calculated, callous, and capriciously Politically calculation, that would help undermine the war effort, and literally affect US Military capabilities for 2 decades!
In addition, isn’t there evidence, that Jimmy Carter, went to see the Soviet Ambassador, Dobrynin, and said it was in BOTH their interests, to make sure that Ronald Reagan WOULD’T be re-elected in 94?
That’s treason, where I come from, especially from a Former President of the United States!
Be curious if you’ve ever seen evidence/proof of that?
12:33 pm
Kerry got his billionaire wife after the Senator died in a plan crash, Hayden(not the air force CIA director),Fonda, Chayes family-the introducers – and Shayes from the intelligence committee are not from Massachusetts. The Baseball player wasn’t either.
5:34 pm
Barron’s, via Drudge, reporting that their studies show Republican’s holding both Houses of Congress.
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.htm
Is conventional wisdom wrong, again?
5:53 pm
Rick, you’re quite right about the liberal media not touching this with a ten foot pole – provided the entire story revolves around a memo in a newly released book. Now this is where the entire thing gets interesting: This memo has been released about two and a half weeks before the election. I give this story a week and a half to kick around the conservative blogosphere, then to Drudge, then to Fox where it reaches critical mass. When it hits Fox and if these claims are as damaging as they look, I argue that Attorney General Chavez has no wiggle room to do anything but arrest Teddy on treason for providing “aid and comfort to the enemy.” Now NBC, CBS, ABC, even PBS will have, HAVE, to cover the story once Teddy is lead out of the pub – at which point the Republicans are sure to keep control of the House and Senate.
Or at least that’s how Karl Rove’s October surprise is supposed to play out…
8:09 pm
When intuition fails, I go with the political betting markets. Tradesports.com has the House going to Democratic party control (35% odds of Republicans maintaining control) and ~65% that Republicans maintain control of the Senate. The odds are often off but the political markets are usually pretty reliable at predicting the winners.
Speaking as a partisan Democrat, a Democratic majority in the House doesn’t mean as much as Republicans think it does. It means committee leaderships change, but Democrats do not have (and never really did have) the party discipline that Republicans have had in the last 20 years. The left (such as it is; the Democratic party is right-wing when compared to the lefts of the most of the rest of the world) is known for its “circular firing squads”.
12:49 am
Shorter Moran: Well, there’s not much reliable evidence here, but I hate the S.O.B. and you know how immoral those evil Leftists are anyway, so, what the hell, it must be true.
12:54 am
LRFD:
Maybe I missed it. When did Hugo Chavez become the Attorney General of the United States?
By the way, the United States was not at war with the Soviet Union in 1984, so, how do you arrive at a charge of treason?
One more thing: what about George H. W. Bush cutting a deal with Khomeini to hold the hostages until after the 1980 election in exchange for weapons from the new Reagan administration?
8:11 am
What’s truly funny is that some people seem to think Teddy is even going to be asked about it. It’s not like he missed an air reserve meeting in Alabama or anything. Besides, the press is too busy DNA swabbing Mark Foley. He’s one of them homeosexuals, don’t you know.
8:56 am
Keith Olbermann’s gonna have a revolution
Sister Toldjah has done fearless work, documenting the latest rumblings from the fever swamp. Their current conspiracy theory: Bush and Rove are way too confident about the midterm elections. What could they be up to? What diabolical plans are in mot…
11:13 am
I did some digging on the IT and found that Human Events covered this in far more detail three years ago.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:clKNNDoAp90J:findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200312/ai_n9318614+senator+john+tunney&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=39
What does this say about the MSM..that such an important disclosure three years ago is so little known. The article details Tunney’s lawfirm’s work for the KGB as well.
12:45 pm
[...] Hot Air, CSN News, and Dr. Sanity have more. Also, Texas Rainmaker, Right Wing Nut House, Blue Crab Boulevard, [...]
7:12 am
This is exactly why the political blogosphere is important. Although the evidence at this point of the Kennedy accusation is weaker than skimmed water, it will be churned and followed up on until the memo is either revealed as a fraud or Kennedy is openly hung with a traitor label. Accountability is important, regardless of name, wealth, position or party affiliation.
Even if it comes with crazy-assed partisanship and nutball “all-my-guys-are-good and all-your-guys-are-evil” left and right commentary and true believers for whom “the truth” is whatever their opinion was in the first place, regardless of the quality and quantity of evidence. Huzzah, the blogosphere!
8:46 am
Shocking is all I can say! Ops, I lied. There’s more!
The idea that a Democrat would try to unseat a sitting Republican President is beyond the pale. But what’s more shocking is the fact that he would try to bring about a dialog between two countries at odds with one another in order to avert a thermal nuclear apocalypse. This attempt is even more unconscionable than anything anyone could have ever imagined. If this unbelievable, treason drenched Jimmy Carter like attempt (North Korea) turns out to be true then Ted should be run out of the country after he is electrocuted, shot by a firing squad and given the needle. It is almost as bad as Sean Hannity bringing pro Malosovich Serbian women to the American people’s TVs as we were at war in Kosovo. Shocking, just shocking many times over! As I searched the Internets digging for more info I found that this rumor included Ted planning to meet the Soviets with Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.) accompanying him. This is huge! Now we have Republicans and Democrats in cahoots with one another to stop a nuclear holocaust. Outrageous! First John Kerry is meeting with foreign leader as he was trying to unseat a… No, wait- according to Richard Armitage (under oath) George W. Bush first met with foreign leaders while he was a candidate in 2000, even as he was trying to unseat the Democrats. And what about all of those Neo-Cons colluding with Israeli, Australian and British big wigs while Clinton was President trying to bring peace to the Middle East (even as the Cons were trying to impeach Bubba)? There were Saudis going to Texas and then there are all of those Democrat and Republican Senators and Congressmen going to the Middle East and meeting with all sorts of leaders left and right even as they try to unseat each other. This undermining has got to stop. Mayors go to China, Governors do it, Reverends, reporters and ordinary Americans have been known to meet with foreign leaders. Why I am told that at least one American actually married a foreign leader. Shocking!
Didn’t Kennedy know that by bringing a Republican along with him would mean that his diabolical plan would be exposed were it ever implemented? Not only is he a fiend of enormous dimensions but he is stupid to boot. This is bigger than Abramoff, Foley, Scooter-gate, Cheney-gate, Tom Delay-gate, oil-gate and Iraqi-gate, Harriet Miers-gate, K-Street-gate Katrina-gate, torture-gate, detainees without trial-gate, wiretap-gate, illegal alien-gate, Schiavo-gate and every other gate combined. The next thing that will happen is Democrats will be sleeping with Republicans, dogs with cats, down the slippery slope. When will it end? We must all go out and elect more Church going Republicans to stop this madness. It’s the only way to continue the Conservative Goodness being forced on our great Nation.
Banned but not out.
11:47 am
We should thank larry for his lesson in spin.
Obviously, larry missed the part about Ted trying to do the same thing with Jimmy Carter that he later repeated with Ron Reagan. In the case of Carter though, Ted was vying for the Presidency at the time so perhaps he just wanted an “October Surprise.”
The Kennedy-Tunney overture, mentioned in the memo, was just two months after Reagan’s Evil Empire Speech. Kennedy and Tunney allegedly wanted to help Andropov in a public relations campaign to make Reagan look like a warmonger—all in time for the 1984 election.
It does show a cynicism toward the electoral system and the Constitution that Ted has sworn every two years to uphold, that he would enlist the aid of a foreign power. A foreign power that had sworn to “bury us.” Kennedy is guilty of the appallingly worst judgment in human history.
This may not be treason, but it is rank opportunism. What some would call .. working for special interests .. his own, Tunney and the Soviet Union.
3:10 pm
To: Neo
I don’t do spin. I also did not miss the part about Ted trying to do the same thing to Jimmy Carter. It is implicit in my words that both alleged Kennedy actions were similar to what Carter would later do to Bill Clinton. Democrats have a habit of intruding into foreign affairs for the good of the country. Unlike Republicans (Neo-Cons), when the Democrats do it they tend not the cause the country harm. Bubba did not first appreciate what Carter was up to but he soon sanctioned the efforts and the resulting deal kept nukes out of North Korea for eight years until Dubya came along. Now don’t get me wrong for I am no fan of Teddy for he can sometimes be a bumbling blow-hard, especially when it comes to agreeing with Bush’s immigration policy. The operating word is “sometimesâ€, as opposed to the always “on†incompetence of Republicans. They don’t like you they just want your vote. I will grant you this. I tend to be against these “free radicalsâ€.
Open your eyes and look at the world not as a partisan but as a seeker of truth and you will not find virtue in this Republican Party. Listen to them as an independent thinker and you will hear nothing but lies coming from their power hungry aims. Republicans will tell you that the Arabs hate us because they are Islamo-Fascist even while they ignore the fact that we shot down a fully loaded civilian Iranian airliner in the eighties. It was Reagan who gave Saddam intel that filled many of the mass graves. There is much more but I’m sure you are bored with the truth. By the way did you know that the “Evil Empire†comment was in response to the USSR’s willingness to shoot down civilian airliners (KAL 007) that they deemed threatening to their State? Isn’t it funny that George W. Bush now has the same policy? In fact Bush doesn’t limit it to foreign airliners. It’s not funny. What does it make us? What would Reagan call you?
Banned but not out.
8:34 pm
Ted Kennedy is a bum and so is that little puke Patrick. I don’t know who’s running against Patrick in my district, but I’ll be sure to vote for whoever the Republican is.
7:04 am
One of the best essays you have every written.
1:04 pm
to: bird dog
Thank you but I’ve done better.
It’s the little things in life.
Banned but not out.