Who do you think is the dumbest Kennedy?
The dimmest Kennedys
The Weekly Standard
Yesterday's news that William Kennedy Smith -- best known for his 1991 acquittal on rape charges -- has decided he won't run for Congress in the near future brings to mind a recent debate in The Scrapbook section of The Weekly Standard:
Ever since the New Republic labelled Joe Kennedy, the now-retired Massachusetts congressman, "the Dumbest Kennedy," family-watchers have fiercely debated: Can this possibly be fair? After all, competition for that distinction is stiff. Indeed, The Scrapbook has always been partial to representative Patrick Kennedy, trasher of yachts, mauler of airport security guards, son of Teddy (or, as the Boston Herald's Howie Carr once put it, "the runt of the runt's litter").
Our boosterism comes not just because Patrick's own mother once described him as a "slow starter." Or because he said that as a Kennedy, he'd never have to worry about "making mends meet." Rather, Patrick is our man because of performances like the one he gave at a congressional hearing where Louis Freeh was supposed to be getting grilled about the FBI's bungling of the Timothy McVeigh case.
Never one to bypass an opportunity for cheap partisan grandstanding, Patrick steered the inquiry into a ditch by demanding to know Freeh's position on capital punishment. What this had to do with the price of potassium chloride in Terre Haute wasn't clear, but it did allow Kennedy (who has twice switched positions on the death penalty -- he's currently against it) to get off some howlers, such as, "What is your answer to the fact that ... minorities and poor people have a greater likelihood of being put to death than they have of getting cancer from smoking?"
When we asked Kennedy's office to give us the specific reference for his executed-minorities-to-smoking-deaths ratio, they gave us a statement from Kennedy, explaining the information originated with Richard Dieter, author of The Death Penalty in Black & White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides. Dieter states that "Race is more likely to affect death sentencing than smoking affects the likelihood of dying from heart disease." Oops -- not exactly the same. "He kind of paraphrased it," explains Kennedy spokesman Larry Berman.
There is, however, good news for the Rhode Island Democrat, who's seen his home-state favourability rating drop so precipitously that Republicans believe they might have a crack at his seat. There may be a new contestant in the Dimmest Kennedy sweepstakes. Cousin Max, who's considering a run for cancer-stricken Joe Moakley's seat, gave a Patrick-like coming-out speech to the Robert F. Kennedy Children's Action Corps. The Boston Globe reported that Max "lost his place, appeared confused, and, at one point, erupted in nervous laughter for no apparent reason."
Later in the day, he described former Supreme Court justice Byron White, whom Uncle John appointed to the Supreme Court, and who retired in 1993, as a current justice. While one of Kennedy's supporters described the event as being "one of those times when you want to close your eyes," Max said, "I had fun."
We'll all have fun if he runs for Congress, something that shouldn't be difficult since, with his family's extensive donor network, Max should have no trouble making mends meet.
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