Snappy newsletters. Simple Facebook sharing. Spirited comments. Sweet features are waiting… GET THEM NOW!

Hot on Facebook
Uproar After NC State Agent 'Fixes' Girl's Lunch Preschooler has to eat chicken nuggets instead of mom's meal »

Camelot Slips Away With Kennedy

No one appears ready to take up the torch

By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 26, 2009 4:02 AM CDT
Email

(Newser) – A fabled political dynasty sputtered with last night's passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who left no heir apparent in the powerhouse family. Though several younger generation Kennedys are active in civic life, none packs the punch of the senator or his famous brothers. "There seems to be no one to pick up the torch," said Thomas Whalen, Kennedy expert and political science professor at Boston University. "There doesn't seem to be someone in the next generation to carry the load here."

Kennedy died just weeks after his sister, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, passed away, and was the last survivor of the four Kennedy brothers, two of whom were assassinated. Camelot watchers focused attention on JFK Jr. until his plane-crash death in '99, and hopes for sister Caroline faded when she bombed out in her tepid bid for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. Kennedy's seat could be inherited by his nephew, Joseph, a former Massachusetts congressman. Kennedy's son, Patrick, is a congressman in Rhode Island.

Ethel Kennedy is escorted by brother-in-law Sen. Ted Kennedy to their pew in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for the funeral services of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.
Ethel Kennedy is escorted by brother-in-law Sen. Ted Kennedy to their pew in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for the funeral services of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968.   (AP Photo, File)
Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks outside the Statehouse in Boston before a bronze statue of his brother in 1996.
Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks outside the Statehouse in Boston before a bronze statue of his brother in 1996.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)
John F. Kennedy, Robert and Ted Kennedy pose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.
John F. Kennedy, Robert and Ted Kennedy pose at the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Mass.   (AP Photo, File)
« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow
To report an error on this story, notify our editors.
A snapshot of the day's best news stories.
 
COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 12 comments
brawne
Aug 27, 2009 2:30 AM CDT
It's not healthy to be a writer researcher with a photographic memory? I know more about Napoleon than the Kennedy's. He just wasn't the subject. I haven't read a thing about the Kennedy's in years. Is it my fault that I remember everything that I do read? I can understand that you would think it weird to drop these things, but really I just flip the pages in my brain and they come up. And yes Cap it takes a few minutes to scan those pages that I see and pick out something interesting. Sorry it looked like an obsession. And sorry that I bothered you.
gabo
Aug 26, 2009 11:51 AM CDT
Joe Kennedy would bring his girlfriends home and tell his daughters to tell Rose they were their roommates at school. What a guy.
brawne
Aug 26, 2009 10:26 AM CDT
Well Dark, i'd never say a word against the fact that Kennedy kept the generals from shooting the nukes during the missile crisis. As long as you agree that after Krushchev met our charming on so many painkillers from that bad back president that he walked from that summit and put the missiles in Cuba to force Kennedy to pull ours out of Turkey. We had them pointed in his face and he thought that Kennedy was weak. Now name the soviet GRU spy who leaked to the Kennedy's that Kruschev wouldn't launch? He is someone you should remember because the Kennedy's made it too apparent that they had an inside man. He was captured, tied to a gurney and fed alive into a crematoriam. The KGB filmed it and served it up as an example of betraying the SU. Good book about him--The Spy Who Saved the World. They say he screamed for twenty minutes but hey you hang on to what you know. OK?

 
Ted Kennedy • Joe Kennedy • Camelot • Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg • JFK assassination • JFK • Robert Kennedy

More Newser Stories

Air Force One Death Call to Rose Kennedy Released

ABC Says Jackie Tapes Not So Sordid, but Won't Spill

Report: Jackie O Thought LBJ Plotted JFK Assassination

JFK's Last Night Alive Revealed on Home Movie

Hey, Kennedys! 'Enough With the Entitlement'
NEWS FROM OUR PARTNERS
Other Sites We Like:   24/7 Wall St.   |   Betty Confidential   |   BuzzFeed   |   Cracked   |   Fark   |   Timelines   |   The Frisky   |   Geek Sugar   |   NewsOne