Kennedy Memoir: Chappaquiddick 'Inexcusable'

Senator will discuss failed presidential bid, Chappaquiddick

(NEWSER) - After a 6-day auction, Ted Kennedy's memoirs have sold for more than $8 million, the New York Times reports. Assuming the Senate Ethics Committee OKs the deal, Kennedy will discuss his lengthy career, infamous car crash, and failed presidential bid. He’s “walking, talking history,” gushed the book's publisher. More»

'Heartfelt' memoir depicts pursuit of public good, atonement

(NEWSER) - In True Compass, Ted Kennedy’s memoir, he writes with “searching candor” about the personal losses he endured, the mistakes he made, and the struggle to live up to his family reputation, writes Michiko Kakutani for the New York Times. The result is a powerful tribute to perseverance and the satisfaction that can be gained from slow, steady work in “pursuit of a cause” or “atonement for one’s failures.” More»

Senator's remorse was real and his good works atoned for inexcusable behavior

(NEWSER) - Ted Kennedy's behavior after the Chappaquiddick crash was inexcusable, but it's time to accept his atonement, the Boston Globe writes in an editorial a week after the senator's death. Kennedy's remorse was genuine, as shown by his actions toward the end of his life and his words in an upcoming memoir; it probably spurred him toward great accomplishments in health, education, and civil rights, the paper notes. More»

(NEWSER) - On the weekend of his inauguration, John F. Kennedy gave his youngest brother a cigarette case engraved with the words, “And the last shall be first.” Fifty years later, that prophesy has come true, writes Richard Lacayo of Time. The "long shadow of Chappaquiddick" may have kept Ted Kennedy out of the White House, but "as the Romans understood, there can be Emperors of no consequence—and Senators whose legacies are carved in stone." More»

Senator invited Kopechne's parents over, couldn't talk

(NEWSER) - Though he longed to tell Mary Jo Kopechne’s parents about the 1969 accident that killed their daughter, Ted Kennedy couldn’t find the words on two occasions when he invited them into his home, a new book on the senator says. “When the time came, after plenty of small talk, he said he just couldn’t talk about it,” Gwen Kopechne told the author, the New York Daily News reports. More»