John F. Stacks on Ted Kennedy

“Edward M. Kennedy, despite his long career in the U.S. Senate, is still often known as Teddy, the diminutive attached to him as the youngest brother in his powerful family. The nickname persists because he was blessed and cursed by the gift of years that let him lead a full and well-publicized life that could only diminish him against the gargantuan mythology grown up around his murdered brothers John and Robert.”

“Clymer reconstructs with impressive and sometimes exhausting detail all the major legislative struggles Ted Kennedy has had in his nearly four decades in the Senate, whether they were winning efforts or losing battles. He recounts Kennedy's steadfast and often eloquent defense of the poor and the disadvantaged. But the description of Kennedy's failed presidential campaign in 1980 is, because the campaign itself was inept and ill considered, devastating. Here was the heir to the Kennedy political myth, the beneficiary of more loyal political talent than any other candidate in history, making a fool of himself and damaging a sitting Democratic President in the process. Ted Kennedy's personal failings, including the fatal car crash at Chappaquiddick, his flagrant womanizing and broken marriage, his excessive drinking, his enabling role in the boozy evening that led to his nephew William Kennedy Smith's trial (and acquittal) for rape--all are dealt with matter-of-factly and unsensationally, but not without judgment. Clymer describes these episodes as they were: egregious cases of irresponsible behavior that disqualified Kennedy from ever being President. But he also paints a sympathetic picture of a lonely man who finds love with his second wife Vicki.”

“Steel makes Robert seem less than we remember; Clymer makes Teddy more important than we may have thought.”