This video, captured by a Boston Fox 25 news camera, shows a girl who looks suspiciously like Caroline Kennedy's daughter, Rose Schlossberg, giving the mourners a decidedly ungracious middle finger. Note how the man next to her gives her a nudge of admonishment. Rather than hang her head in shame, she seems to revel in the familial scorn.

Perhaps one of the gathered crowd said something to garner her ire? Regardless: c'mon, Rose! Have a bit of class. Or at least don't get caught on camera!

Kennedy's parents, corrupt political fixer Joseph Kennedy and strict Rose Fitzgerald, had grand ambitions for their sons Joseph Jr., John, and Robert. But Ted, the baby, was allowed, or maybe expected, to be a charming lightweight. The family mocked him for being fatter and slower than his superstar brothers, and he accepted their ridicule good-naturedly.

In the 40s, the family disasters began stacking up: his sister Rosemary was lobotomized and institutionalized. Siblings Joe Jr. and Kathleen died. All this by the time Teddy was 16.

When brother Jack, a sitting Senator, ran for president in 1960, the family sent Teddy out on the thankless and impossible task of winning the Western States. When he failed (not costing Jack the election, thankfully), he expressed a desire to stay out west, with his wife Joan. With his brothers in DC running the nation, Ted wanted to lay low and perhaps work toward a political career on his own terms.

"The disadvantage of my position," he told an interviewer, "is being constantly compared with two brothers of such superior ability."

But Joe told him to move to Massachusetts and take Jack's Senate seat, and so Ted did. He won a bruising primary battle with the very grudging support of his brothers and cruised to victory, whereupon Jack was suddenly gunned down. In the summer of 1964, Ted was in a plane crash that killed one man and nearly paralyzed him for life. (His recuperation provided him an opportunity to educate himself, at least.) And in 1968, his brother Bobby, then running for president (because he saw Eugene McCarthy draw blood from LBJ and decided to go in for the kill himself), was assassinated in California. And so, Teddy, the dumb one, was now, at 36, the last Kennedy brother. He declined to seek the nomination for the presidency, not knowing that he'd kill his chances forever the following year.

Ted was a drunk, and he fucked around. That was true his entire life. He was an intellectually lazy, louche rich kid, whose family bought him his education, his job, and even found him an acceptable wife. He got kicked out of Harvard for cheating in 1950, and when the Boston Globe threatened to reveal this fact as Ted campaigned to be a senator, the president, Ted's brother, invited the reporter over to make sure that the actual news get pushed to paragraph 5 and the headline remained vague.

So when, in 1969, he got wasted and drove a car off a bridge, killing a woman he'd left a party with, without brothers or a father to take care of it, it is not surprising that he did not know what to do. Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne, a former employee of Bobby's, were driving back to Edgartown, or to the beach, or who knows where. Kennedy drove off a narrow bridge with no guardrail into the water, but escaped the sinking car. Kopechne drowned.

Ted was almost certainly drunk, possibly concussed, and probably in shock. He walked back to the party and told the hosts what happened, whereupon they drove him back to the ferry landing. Kennedy says he swam back to Edgartown, went back to his hotel room, and went to bed. The next morning, he called friends for advice (this is when his father, who'd suffered a debilitating stroke years earlier, would've come in handy). When the car, and the body, were recovered, Ted went to the police. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury and received a suspended sentence of two months. And that was basically the end of his chance at the presidency.

The '70s? He did nothing in the '70s, until they ended, and he decided to challenge Jimmy Carter, whom he'd never liked. He didn't even really want to be president, it just seemed like now or never. He lost, and gave the best speech of his entire career at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, and then he buckled down to become one hell of a legislator and workhorse for the remainder of his years in the senate.

Oh, also he divorced his wife, hit the bottle hard, and began fucking around again even more recklessly than before. But he was the very definition of a functional alcoholic, able to achieve bipartisan compromises on important health care legislation by day and then fuck a lobbyist on the floor of a restaurant by night. He destroyed Robert Bork's chance at being on the Supreme Court, and paparazzi snapped him fucking a girl on his boat. He and Chris Dodd went out boozing and skirtchasing together. They'd later be joined by Ted's fuckup son Patrick and fuckup nephew William Kennedy Smith. After hitting the bar with son and nephew in Palm Beach in 1991, William allegedly raped one of the women he and Patrick had picked up. Ted testified. William was acquitted.

Ted remarried, to Victoria Reggie, in 1992. In 1994, He faced down the only serious threat to his senate seat ever, when Mitt Romney went after him. He won by 17 points, the narrowest margin of his career. After marrying Vikki and holding on to his seat, he largely avoided publicly embarrassing himself, and his scandalous past gradually faded from the popular consciousness.

In 2008, he bucked the Democratic party establishment and endorsed Barack Obama for president. In May, he suffered a seizure, and was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor. A thinner, weaker Ted Kennedy gave an impassioned speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and then he largely disappeared from the public view.

His most important legacy is the legislation he was instrumental in passing. In the end, Ted Kennedy ended up a much more influential figure in American history than his more ambitious, more driven, probably smarter brothers. From Wikipedia, an incomplete list of major Senate accomplishments:

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, the COBRA Act of 1985, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act in 1990, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, the Mental Health Parity Act in 1996 and 2008, the State Children's Health Insurance Program in 1997, the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009.

Sadly, he didn't live to see his longtime dream of national health insurance actually come to fruition. The man's many, well-documented flaws aside, he was on the right side of history, most of the time, and he did more to actually make America a better place than 90% of the careerists and charlatans who pass through the United States Senate.

And as the undemocratic institution of the Senate (and this celebration of the life of a man who won his seat due to family connections and held on to it for almost fifty years proves the anti-democratic nature of that body) continues to destroy whatever hope this nation has of governing itself responsibly, we'll miss a man who more often than most tried to show that politics can be about tangibly helping real people.

[Top photo: AP. Most of the facts and quotes in this obituary come from The Boston Globe's series "Ted Kennedy."]

At the top: a portion of Kennedy's eulogy of his brother Bobby. Below: audio of Kennedy's entire 1980 convention speech.

The pair supposedly came together after JFK's assassination, first as a means to express their grief, then as a means to express their passion. Camelot insiders, including Bobby's wife Ethel, knew the affair was going on, but everyone knew that it would never go anywhere—because it was the 1960s, because they were Catholic and divorce was what it was, because Bobby couldn't risk a marital scandal if he hoped to take office someday. So the pair continued in secrecy until Bobby's assassination in 1968.

Some factoids from the book, which includes witness accounts from Jack Newfield, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote:

Six months after JFK's death, during a May 1964 dinner cruise on the presidential yacht the USS Sequoia, Bobby and Jackie "exchanged poignant glances" before disappearing below deck, leaving Ethel upstairs. "When they returned, they looked as chummy and relaxed as a pair of Cheshire cats,"

At the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate during Christmas 1964, socialite Mary Harrington saw Jackie sunbathing topless, with Bobby kneeling at her side. "As they began to kiss, he placed one hand on her breast and the other inside of her bikini bottom," Harrington recalled.

According to Gore Vidal, "The one person Jackie ever loved . . . was Robert Kennedy."

Shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis — RFK's rival for Jackie's attention — once threatened to "bring down" Bobby by going public with details of the affair. "I could bury that sucker," Onassis said, "although I'd lose Jackie in the process."

On June 4, minutes after winning the California primary, Bobby was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Jackie flew to his bedside — and Ethel allowed her time alone with the dying RFK, according to the book.

Bobby was brain-dead, but a distraught Ethel refused to pull the plug, and brother Ted Kennedy was in no shape to make the call, Heymann writes.

At 1:20 a.m. June 6, 1968, Jackie Kennedy ordered the respirator shut down and signed the consent form, the book reveals.

So, yeah, there you have it. The only sad, melancholy thing to ever happen to the moneyed, mossy Kennedy clan.

Image via Getty

James Auchincloss (pictured, with munchkin), the 62 year-old half-brother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, is currently under investigation for child porn in Oregon. Police found a huge stash of pictures in his home, allegedly. A little local paper broke the story, and you could just feel the Post's palpable silence—heavy, building, breathy. Turns out they've been hard at work! They got three scoops in this nasty story.

1. Jackie Kennedy didn't want Auchincloss around JFK Jr., because he "showed an unusual obsession" for him when he was seven years old.

2. Auchincloss apologized to members of his church for the child porn thing, which sounds like a confession.

3. Details about his porn stash that you could have done without:

The pictures included shots of a young Ron Howard, Ricky Schroeder, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Dylan and Cole Sprouse of "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody." There were also multimedia slideshows — set to rousing John Philip Sousa band marches — featuring the celeb pictures along with young boys at a local Fourth of July parade.

The New York Post is the early favorite for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for PORN PERVS.
[NYP]

Auchincloss (pictured on the right, with munchkin on left) shares a mother with Jackie O, but has a different father. He's lived a relatively quiet life in Ashland, Oregon for almost 15 years. But last October, police were tipped off that he and a friend had a stash of child porn; the investigation is ongoing (computer data mining issues are involved), but the accusations are pretty stank:

In an Oct. 17, 2008, affidavit for a search warrant, Det. Arthur LeCours with the Ashland Police Department said he found photographs in booklets and on carousel slides of naked, 7- to 16-year-old boys in sexual poses at Auchincloss' home...

In addition, two Ashland residents, Eddy McManus and Karl Iverson, told the Daily Tidings that they saw Auchincloss and Vickoren viewing child porn on a computer in Auchincloss' home, located in the 700 block of Benjamin Court, last summer.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The cops also think Auchincloss has "taken photographs of clothed children locally," but he's not judged to be an "immediate threat," so he's free and uncharged so far as the investigation continues. He was turned in by his personal assistant. Caroline Kennedy is his half-niece. In case you were wondering. His denials do not seem particularly vociferous:

He didn't refute LeCours' statements in the affidavit concerning the child pornography found at his home, but said the situation was a matter of privacy.

"I think the point has to be, 'Is there a manner of being predators? Is there a manner of encouraging sex abuse by offering money or being in that trade?' And none of that is true," he said.

Oh well, "His willingness to talk about famous relatives has made him something of a persona non grata in Kennedy circles over the years." They must be pretty close to cutting him out of the family entirely. First it was the talking to the media, now it's the child porn. Only one more strike, James!

Camelot!
[MailTribune.com. Pic via]

Not that any public statement this woman makes on her disastrous senate "run" can be believed, but on Today today the Princess of Camelot said "nonsense" to charges that Rose and whatever the others ones are named push her around.

"Anybody who knows my children and knows me knows that that is absolute nonsense," said Ms. Kennedy, who was appearing to promote this year's winners of the Profile in Courage Award, founded to honor her father, former President John F. Kennedy.

"All in all, it was a great experience for me," Ms. Kennedy added. "I know you may find that hard to believe, but I met a lot of interesting people, I saw, you know, how much there is to do."

And when asked what had driven her to withdraw abruptly in January, Ms. Kennedy deflected the question.

"That was the right decision," Ms. Kennedy said, adding, "When you make the right decision, it doesn't really matter what anyone else thinks."

And when faced with a question on David Paterson, the guy who embarrassed the nation by jerking around a woman who thought she was entitled to be appointed to a Senate seat for no reason in particular, she was all annoyed! "As I said, I've moved on, I'm looking on to, you know, what I can to, and hopefully I will be able to be, you know, courageous in my future services," she said. And then she bit Matt Lauer's face off and the world rejoiced. Except she was appearing via remote so that didn't actually happen.

Anyway, breaking, Paterson and the press are still the actual real-life reasons Caroline gave up the Senate thing.

Nicole Kidman, plastic bee-stung actress of floundering status, has joined Woody Allen's next movie. Also on board are Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, and Freida Pino. Generally Allen's more star-studded movies turn out to be the worst ones (with the exception of Everyone Says I Love You), so this doesn't bode well. [Variety] Meanwhile the so totally still likable Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are said to be on board a James Mangold-directed movie about a luckless lady love loser who meets a mysterious stranger on a blind date. The movie was originally going to star Eva Mendes and Chris Tucker, so that should speak to its quality. [Variety]

The top 35 ad-based cable networks—Fox News, Food Network, Cartoon Network—are up 7% this year in ratings. Fox, for example, averages a depressing 1.7 million households, up 22% from the same quarter last year. Though other networks like MTV and Lifetime have seen drops, 16% and 12% respectively. Makes sense to us. What with the economy and all, no one has time to pay attention to things like music and women. [Variety]

Hm. Noted conservative 24 producer Joel Surnow (who is responsible for this) is penning a 10-hour miniseries called The Kennedys, which will dig into "the soiled and crooked steps" that the family took to insinuate themselves into the White House. A Canadian distributor plans to shop the idea around Cannes in May. Good luck finding actors! Though, I bet Bruce Willis would look fabulous in a wig and pillbox hat. [Variety]

Area hottie boombalottie Ian Somerhalder (Boone from Lorst) has been cast in a CW pilot called Vampire Diaries. He plays a vampire who is fun one minute, evil the next. And nude. Hopefully nude. [Variety] Former hottie boombalottie Orlando Bloom will be featured in the last unproduced screenplay by the late playwright Horton Foote. He'll play a small town North Carolina policeman. Also joining him in the cast is Andrew McCarthy. [THR]

Donald Sutherland will star in The Eastmans for CBS. [THR] Isaiah Washington is lined up to star in that Lou Rawls biopic everyone's been clamoring for. [THR] The comic American Jesus, about a modern-day bout between the Savior and the Antichrist, may be adapted into a film by X-Men director Matthew Vaughn. [THR]

Caroline was a quiet pretend lawyer who wrote some nice little books and probably sat on some charitable boards or something, no one was sure, but it was always nice to see her out, endorsing Barack Obama and looking pleasant and normal, for a Kennedy. Hah. Now her life is a mess, with everyone hearing about her failed marriage and learning that she (like all of us, but still) punctuates every utterance with "like, um, y'know." Suddenly the Governor of New York is ratting on a Kennedy's nanny and tax issues to the tabloids! And god, this is a classic line:

Several sources close to Ted Kennedy were "furious" that one of Caroline's allies invoked his brain cancer and his fatigue-induced seizure on Tuesday.

"No Kennedy would have said that," said a Kennedy family source.

Ok, source, but the Kennedys have traditionally demonstrated a willingness to say and do all sorts of crazy terrible stuff—maybe the quote should've read "in the past, no one would've reported on a Kennedy saying that, until they were dead." 'Cause honestly?

The Kennedy political dynasty began with a humble Massachusetts State Senator who birthed a mobbed-up fixer named Joe, who bought his kids public office with his bootlegging money (probably!) and connections to the Chicago mob (possibly!). He always wanted his eldest son, Joe Jr, to be President, but Joe Jr died in the War, and each additional son was somehow worse than the last. Jack was a chronically ill womanizer, Bobby wiretapped Martin Luther King and swerved left in the late '60s when it became politically expedient, torpedoing the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy, and Ted was a drunk who actually killed a woman. (He became a much better citizen and Senator at some point after he gave up his presidential dreams in the '80s.)

And their kids! John-John started a fancy magazine called George about politics-as-celebrity, thus symbolizing everything wrong with the '90s and Democrats, Caroline turned out to be an entitled empty-headed princess after years spent gracefully out of the limelight, Bobby Jr is a publicity whore who spouts the crazy vaccines cause autism nonsense, and Patrick J. Kennedy, Ted's son, is a Congressman who also has problems with pills and, like dad, drunk driving. This is not even mentioning the one who died of a drug overdose (David), the tangentially-related one who was convicted of murder (Michael Skakel! Remember him?), and all the Kennedys who died in plane crashes, car crashes, and skiing incidents.

The only Kennedy "curse" is that they're a family of rich assholes and each succeeding generation is dumber than the previous one.