Opinion
The Kennedy Syndrome: The Ironic Progeny of a Bootlegger who Married Well
By
Sep 7, 2009, 00:58

Mike Rosen wrote in the Denver Post last week:

The death of Sen. Ted Kennedy has most likely marked the end of the Kennedy dynasty. There is no apparent Kennedy currently positioned to pick up the baton of national political leadership. Liberalism as an ideology and political movement is alive and well, but it will have to find another "lion" with a different family name.

Jack and Bobby Kennedy were charismatic, larger-than-life political figures. Following their deaths, Ted, the last of the brothers, inherited the legacy. Following generations of Kennedys have been lesser figures. Several are lawyers. Some have dabbled in politics with modest results. Others entered the media, charitable foundations and the non-profit sector. There's hardly a secretary, insurance salesman, corporate executive, retailer, stock broker or soldier among them.

Ironically, this is the progeny of Joseph P. Kennedy, the family patriarch. The son of a humble Boston saloonkeeper, Joe was an ambitious, enterprising, hardnosed scrapper who married well and amassed a fortune in banking and shipbuilding, to say nothing of bootlegging during Prohibition. Unlike most of us who are forced to deal with mundane necessities like earning a living, inheritors of wealth (like the Kennedys) are relieved of that concern. Of course, they haven't taken a personal poverty oath but their gratification comes not from producing income and wealth themselves but from redistributing the fruits of other people's production. I call this the Kennedy Syndrome...Continue reading Rosen: Flaws of the Kennedy Syndrome