How much more loathsome behavior can Americans take of the dysfunctional Kennedys, whose wrenching calamities are followed by media laments, followed by self-inflicted scandals, followed by pleas for "understanding"?
Patrick Kennedy, a congressman from Rhode Island elected solely on his name, now adds to this history of anti-social escapades. Slamming his Mustang convertible into a Capitol security barrier in the middle of the night while in a stupor on prescription drugs, alcohol or both was merely his latest antic since teen drug addiction.
In recent years, he's manhandled a female airport security officer who failed to treat him with regal deference, trashed a rental sailboat while partying ($28,000 in damage) and admitted being in drug rehab last year. He's back in the Mayo Clinic. Public duties be damned.
Unruly behavior is a Kennedy quality. He's the child of divorced parents, Joan and Sen. Edward Kennedy, both with long histories of alcoholism. His father abandoned Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in a sinking car at Chappaquiddick. In 1991, the aging senator rousted nephew Willie Smith out of bed for late night bar hopping in Palm Beach that ended with Willie being accused (later acquitted) of rape.
Whatever good Kennedys achieve vanishes in their reckless behavior; in drugs and alcohol; abuse of women, flagrant disregard for public obligations. Maybe genetics are involved: the womanizing patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, kept silent film actress Gloria Swanson as his mistress while regularly-pregnant wife Rose suffered in silence.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late attorney general and presidential candidate, was arrested for heroin possession. David Kennedy, another son, died of a cocaine overdose in a Florida hotel room. Michael Kennedy, another son of Robert, was embroiled in an adultery scandal, and later was killed in Aspen while skiing.
The dashing John Kennedy Jr., son of the president, tempted Kennedy recklessness with fatal results: in 1999 he killed himself, his wife and a sister-in-law by flying into Martha's Vineyard weather far beyond his piloting skills and crashing into the ocean.
Even torchbearers in the fabled Kennedy Camelot were notorious.
President John Kennedy bedded down in the White House (during wife Jackie's absences) with Mafia don Sam Giancana's moll, Judith Campbell Exner. JFK brother Robert, a presidential wannabe, probably was one of actress Marilyn Monroe's lovers.
And widow Jackie's marriage to shady billionaire Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis was an unabashed deal to amass a nest egg for her twilight years.
Families without the Kennedy wealth and position who act and live with such uncouth manners and squalid morals usually are known as riff raff.
Pat Murphy
