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01/25/01
By Sen. Kennedy's logic, all Supreme Court decisions would stand forever - and none of the civil rights gains that Sen. Kennedy champions could have occurred. Second, the senator says that Mr. Ashcroft should be disqualified for opposing, on ideological grounds, the proposed judicial appointment of fellow Missourian Ronnie White. Sen. Kennedy says Mr. Ashcroft went overboard by calling Judge White's record "pro-criminal." Sen. Kennedy's case here is so hypocritical as to be laughable. In 1986, on purely ideological grounds, the senator opposed the nomination of Alabama's own Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. Then, infamously, Sen. Kennedy in 1987 issued perhaps the most vicious assault ever on a judicial nominee, Judge Robert Bork. "Robert Bork's America," said Sen. Kennedy, "is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens." It was slander, vile and simple, especially considering that Judge Bork had a strong record on civil rights. Furthermore, of the 401 cases in which Judge Bork joined his appeals court's majority, not one had been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Third, Sen. Kennedy insinuates that Mr. Ashcroft's views somehow make him morally unfit for office. Ahem. Recall the details of Sen. Kennedy's experience at Chappaquiddick. The tragedy there was not one of mere bad driving, but of cowardice. After the accident, Sen. Kennedy walked past four houses and a volunteer fire station, without requesting assistance. He summoned two aides, tried to concoct a cover story (they declined), swam across a channel to his hotel, changed clothes, asked a hotel employee the time, slept for several hours, awoke, shaved, dressed spiffily, nonchalantly joined neighbors on a porch for 15 minutes of chit-chat, tried again to talk the aides into a cover story, and only reported the accident after his submerged car had already been discovered. Young Mary Joe Kopechne was found in a position that indicated she had found an air pocket. A medical examiner testified that "she lived for a certain time underwater." Ted Kennedy has no right, ever, to question anybody else's moral fitness.
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