Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Next up - Patrick Kennedy
Topic Started: Feb 5 2010, 08:58 AM (1,718 Views)
brittany

In his first term, Kennedy waged a legendary verbal scrap on the House floor with the late-Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY) as lawmakers debated a repeal of the assault weapons ban.. Trembling and his voice cracking, Kennedy shook his index finger at the then-majority Republicans.

“Shame on you!,” he scolded GOP members from the well of the House. “Families like mine know all too well what the damage of weapons can do!”

Solomon, then the chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, leaped from his chair to challenge Kennedy. He warned his junior colleague that he “ought to be a little more careful.”

“My wife lives at home alone five days a week in a rural area in upstate New York!” Solomon charged. "She has a right to defend herself when I'm not there, son, and don't you ever forget it! Don’t you ever forget it!”

Solomon then asked Kennedy to “step outside.” But blows were not exchanged.

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
chatham
Member Avatar

In his own words
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEbouh86DwY


The way others see it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uny_cIRMVyA&NR=1
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Carolyn says
Member Avatar

On one hand, I feel sorry for a kid trapped into a life he never wanted simply to please his drunk, womanizing father - but on the other hand, why should WE have to pay for that? American citizens deserve better than an addict of drink and drugs doing a job he never liked - and by all accounts one in which he was never any good at.

Patrick Kennedy? We're just as glad to see you leave as you are to go.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100212/ap_on_go_co/us_patrick_kennedy

Politics was not a smooth fit for Patrick Kennedy

It was never a perfect fit — politics and Patrick Kennedy, the latest and perhaps the last in the long line of Kennedys at the heart of American political life.

The sometimes fragile son of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy has spent all of his adult life in public office, but he has rarely seemed at ease in the spotlight. On Friday, five months after his father's death, he announced he'll retire from Congress, expressing a sense of relief. It will be the first time in six decades that Washington will be without a Kennedy in office.

"It feels like a load off my shoulders," said the Rhode Island Democrat, who started pursuing public office before he graduated from college.

"I'll have a private life and a personal life that heretofore I really haven't experienced," he said in a telephone interview. "I am looking forward to it."


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Carolyn says
Member Avatar


Folks, this is a question which I ask in honesty, not in hate. It is not meant to belittle Patrick Kennedy or to demean him. It is instead an honest question as to the 'real' demon which has plagued Patrick all his life.

The public 'demon', of course, has always been Patrick's alcoholism. It is obviously a natural thing to assume to be the main cause for his bitter unhappiness. The source of this cause has, naturally, been his family's history - i.e., both his parents are/were blatant alcoholics who never managed to shake their physical addictions to drink. Medical research tells us that while one is not born an alcoholic, one is born with the genetic predilection to it i.e., a physical weakness and susceptibility to alcohol worse than the average person. In addition to drunk parents, Patrick's other 'demon' has been the bipolar illness which he's clearly inherited his poor mother. And of course there's been the overwhelming 'demon' of stress which this not-particularly-gifted young man has dealt with in being forced into a life he never wanted simply because it was the only way he could be close to the father he adored. Finally, there's been the overwhelming 'demon' of the pressure of the Kennedy name - this pressure has been ruthless in forcing practically everyone in its orb to go into politics. Even Ted Kennedy himself was forced in against his will - JFK himself became a politician simply to please his own father, etc. So all of these 'demons' have surely played a role in Patrick's bitter unhappiness.

But I strongly believe that a hidden 'demon' has been at work here. Namely - I believe that Patrick Kennedy is a closet homosexual. This belief is borne out by several things - most obvious is the fact that he is 42 years old and not only unmarried but without a girlfriend. In a family which is obsessed with marrying and procreating, it is exceptionally odd that Patrick has done neither. Worse, Patrick's unmarried, female-free life becomes even more odd given the fact that all the men in the Kennedy family blatantly judge their worth by their heterosexual libido and the women they've bedded.

All of this leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the worst 'demon' in Patrick's life has been the fact that he is a closet homosexual. Yes, he's obviously been driven to drink by the inheritance of alcoholism from both parents, the inheritance of bipolar illness from his mother, plus the stress of a father who forces the son into a lifestyle the child loathes. If I had to deal with that, I'd hit the bottle too. But past that, there just seems something else which has prevented this son from dealing with his demons - and I believe it to be his sexual identity.

I could well be wrong. But I don't think so. A lot of my certainty about the signs I've observed in Patrick come from the fact that they are the same signs I've observed during my nearly 40 years of living in the homosexual mecca of San Francisco. After a while, you just get to recognize the signs of a person struggling to hide their sexual identity - and to me, too many of those signs are exhibited by Patrick Kennedy.

Perhaps it's not true. I could be wrong. Frankly, I don't care if he's gay or not - doesn't matter. All I am saying is that from all that I know of closeted homosexuals, Patrick Kennedy is a person who surely nails the bulk of those criteria.

I wish him well. I am so glad for his constituent's sakes that he's out of politics - they deserve better than him. But frankly, Patrick deserves better as well. He has suffered painfully and I do not gloat in it, despite his being on the other side of my political world. A man in torment is a sorrowful and painful thing to see in any human. I wish him recovery. If what I have supposed is true about his sexual identity, than I hope and pray that he will get the guidance and strength to confront it and to accept it - for that will be the only way this wretched man will ever achieve peace. The 'demon' of his overpowering father has finally left him - now it is time for him to confront the sexual 'demon' which I truly feel has been at the heart of his illness all these years. Again, I wish him well - I truly and sincerely do.


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
chatham
Member Avatar

Watch out for all these politicians that are not going to run next election. IMO, they will be back.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Carolyn says
Member Avatar

chatham
Feb 12 2010, 07:08 PM
Watch out for all these politicians that are not going to run next election. IMO, they will be back.

What else is a former politician fit for except running for office again? Patrick Kennedy admitted that being a politician meant he'd 'never worked a job in his life!'

Yeah, those jerks will try to come back again. There's nowhere else for them to go.







Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
brittany

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100213kin_grief_forced_patrick_kennedys_hand_rumors_swirl_of_2012_run/srvc=home&position=4

The grief did it. Friends and family say he hasn't ruled out a run in 2012 for his father's seat.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Deleted User
Deleted User

What did the Dems offer him? What did they hold over his head? He needs to get his OWN life. Otherwise, he will forever be a "PS" on the bottom of the Kennedy letters.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Carolyn says
Member Avatar

brittany
Feb 13 2010, 01:06 PM
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20100213kin_grief_forced_patrick_kennedys_hand_rumors_swirl_of_2012_run/srvc=home&position=4

The grief did it. Friends and family say he hasn't ruled out a run in 2012 for his father's seat.

I dunno - I can't see that. Patrick HATES politics. The only reason he went into it was to please his dad. Now that the drunken murderer is dead, Patrick is leaving politics.

And even if he did try for the Senate seat in 2012, I doubt the Machine would back him. Coakley showed how much damage an incompetent idiot can do - so why would they back an incompetent bipolar drunk?


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
cks
Member Avatar

A run for his father's seat - I doubt that sincerely. The Democrats will want to run the strongest candidate possible. His indiscretions, his run-ins with the law, all would be (and to be honest should be) exploited by his political opponents (a primary fight would do him in). One does not "deserve" a seat because one's father and uncle once occupied it. There is no "Kennedy" seat in the senate. This is something that I think the voter's of Massac huseets have come to realize, belatedly.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience.
Learn More · Sign-up Now
« Previous Topic · LIESTOPPERS UNDERGROUND · Next Topic »
Add Reply