Ted Kennedy's moment of candor

It's no secret I don't like Ted Kennedy.

I believe his political epitaph should have been written July 18, 1969, the day his behavior led directly to the untimely death of Mary Jo Kopechne at the Chappaquiddick Bridge.

Until that moment, as the surviving brother of an assassinated president and an assassinated senator-presidential candidate, he had been an object of love and pity for an entire nation. Today, I can scarcely muster the pity.

Over four decades he has served as a kind of "enemy within" the American political system – attempting to elicit the support of the Soviet Union against President Reagan's policies in the 1980s, ignoring the tax-cutting prescription of his elder brother, failing to learn the real lessons of Vietnam, failing even to learn the lessons of his own brother's errors of appeasement in the Bay of Pigs, practicing his own unique brand of plantation racism and blaming America for all the problems of the world.

That's Ted Kennedy.

That even one of the 50 states would deem him worthy of serving in the U.S. Senate for most of his life is something of a national disgrace.

Nevertheless, maybe because of his alcohol-addled brain or his unfulfilled ego, occasionally Ted Kennedy has demonstrated a kind of candor that is in short supply in Washington.

It may have been intellectual frustration that caused Kennedy to admit what he was 13 years ago – and what he remains today.

Ted Kennedy is and was a socialist – and he actually admitted it on the floor of the Senate Jan. 20, 1995.

I've never seen this revelation before, though it has been a matter of public record all these years – published, as it were, in the Congressional Record. I was amazed to find it in a new book by Republican political consultant Marc Nuttle called "Moment of Truth" – a book, I might add, that is a thoroughly engaging read.

Here is how the Kennedy admission came about.

Economist Milton Friedman was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a national constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. Kennedy argued that a requirement for a balanced budget would restrict the federal government's power and its ability to spend – thus, he said, Washington's role in more fairly and equitably distributing wealth, goods and services.

"Senator, socialism hasn't worked in 6,000 years of recorded history," explained Friedman. "Why won't you give up on it?"

Kennedy rose to his feet, according to Nuttle, who attended the hearing, and replied: "It hasn't worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn't have me to run it."

It is unlikely Barack Obama, whom Kennedy today supports for the presidency, would make such a candid statement. It is unlikely Hillary Clinton, who is every bit as committed to socialism as Obama, would ever make such an admission. It is unlikely John McCain, who is promoting a globalist form of socialism with his plans to take on the phantom crisis of manmade catastrophic climate change, would do so. Yet, all three are, indeed, promoting socialism to one extent or another.

Surely Kennedy is not as sophisticated in articulating his position as the others. Surely Kennedy, with his comfortable, unchallenged position as the senior senator from Massachusetts, doesn't need to be so tactful. Surely Kennedy avoids, for the most part, such heated admissions that he believes socialism can work under the right kind of skillful leadership.

But, in essence, most of our political leaders today have fallen victim to this idea that socialism can succeed under the right circumstances. Most of our media leaders believe it. Most of our cultural leaders believe it. And, sad to say, too many ordinary Americans have fallen prey to this seductive, but evil, ideology.

At least Ted Kennedy deserves credit for admitting – if even just that once.

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Get Marc Nuttle's "Moment of Truth" for an incisive analysis of the socialist threat that faces America today.