The media has showered Edward Kennedy with nonstop praise without even attempting a more honest appraisal of this man’s life. While there may have been isolated moments where he actually did something praiseworthy, there are far more aspects to his life (and the Kennedy family in general) that are worthy of condemnation.

Of course no discussion of Sen. Kennedy is complete without mention of the most infamous point in his life with the killing of Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick. While a tragedy, it was no accident that it took Kennedy ten hours to report it while he was thinking up an alibi and calling people for advice. Many believed she could have been saved had he reported the accident right away. No ordinary citizen could get away with it, but because of Teddy’s political connections and family name, he did. The liberal media has always downplayed this part of his past and rarely makes mention of it. (Ted has been cited for reckless driving several times.)

Kennedy has used his position to ensure cronyism and nepotism are integral parts of Massachusetts’s politics. As described in the American Spectator:

Five years ago, with high hopes of electing their junior U.S. senator to the presidency, the Massachusetts state legislature stripped the governor of the power to fill senatorial vacancies. Every Democrat voted for the measure. Then, the governor, Mitt Romney, was a Republican. Now, the governor is a Democrat.

Welcome to the banana commonwealth of Massachusetts, where more than fifty years of one-party dominance has fostered a make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along mentality among those who make the rules. Almost a half century ago, in the infancy of the Democrats’ Bay State hegemony, Jack Kennedy maneuvered his baby brother Ted into a Senate seat, though he had never held a steady paying job (save a stint as an army private) prior to that point.

After his election to the presidency, John Kennedy refused to resign his Senate seat until the outgoing governor, a Democrat, agreed to appoint a seatwarmer senator — John Kennedy’s Harvard roommate — who would essentially cede the seat to Ted once he became constitutionally eligible. President-elect Kennedy threatened to allow the incoming Republican governor to make the appointment if the outgoing Democrat didn’t do his bidding.

With both nephew Joe Kennedy and wife Vicki Kennedy reportedly interested in the seat, Ted Kennedy seeks to orchestrate for the benefit of his relatives a repeat performance of the skullduggery that helped make him a senator in 1962. The banana commonwealth way of doing political business a half-century ago is still the way of doing political business in Massachusetts today. So is Ted Kennedy’s habit of abandoning professed principles for personal benefit.

In 1965, Kennedy authored the Immigration and Nationality Act. The act abolished the national origins quota system and provided for “family re-unification” and unlimited “refugee” admissions. He promised America that “our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually” or cause other massive problems (i.e. crime, affect jobs, increase welfare), but he was wrong on all counts. Additionally, our country went from 2.5 million illegals in 1986 to a total of 12-20 million illegals today.

Kennedy once said that Americans must “start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now.” He was a strong proponent of developing alternative sources of renewable energy, except when his own back yard is at stake. Kennedy and his family vehemently opposed a proposed wind farm not far from his estate, which would have interfered with ‘their’ favorite yachting area.

He was also very outspoken in denouncing the ‘greed’ of oil companies and the environmental damage they cause. However, what rarely gets reported is that for decades the Kennedy family made countless millions from the oil industry. The Kennedys’ oil connections goes back to 1950, when Joseph Kennedy purchased the Arctic Oil Company, which drilled mainly in Texas and Oklahoma. He later purchased two additional oil companies, Kenoil and Mokeen Oil, which eventually struck huge deposits in Texas and Louisiana. When Ted Kennedy tried to close a tax ‘loophole’ in the oil industry, he specifically wrote the bill in such a way as to - surprise - exclude his oil companies. The Kennedys continue to enjoy tax shelters that generate huge extra profits for the family.

Apparently Kennedy has a trust fund safely tucked away on the island of Fiji, and not subject to the taxes normally imposed on trusts domiciled in the United States. Aside from always supporting new taxes for the rest of us, the Kennedys transferred at least $300 million in trust funds from one generation to another in 2005, but had only paid  $132,000 in estate taxes — a rate of four one-hundredths of one percent. Had they set up those trusts in the United states, they would have owed more than 7,000 times that amount in taxes (source). All this from a person who strongly supported the death (inheritance) tax, yet avoids paying taxes on his own wealth and income.

Ted Kennedy also attacked Bush for warrentless wiretaps, but showed no such ‘outrage’ when Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorized warrantless wiretapping on American citizens during the John Kennedy Administration. Ted Kennedy also supported virtually every piece of anti-gun legislation, and thus did harm to our Bill of Rights. Expect to see even more attempts to pass anti-liberty legislation in ‘his honor’ as those in the media and government use his death to further their agenda.

Kennedy comes from a family whose name is synonymous with power, corruption, and hypocrisy. Moreover, Edward Kennedy has spent his life trying to undermine the values this country was built upon, as well as attacking our liberties. Born into a family of wealth and privilege, he never held a real job in his life. But his inexperience with life did not stop him from making an effort to force his preferences onto Americans that is both very different from what we are supposed to be, and very different from his own. In the end, Ted Kennedy’s life was much less admirable than the media would have us believe.