Edward M. Kennedy; A Biography

New York: William Morrow & Company, 1999. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. xii, 692 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Signed by the author. This book focuses on Sen. Kennedy's career, addressing the difficulties he has encountered and studying his influence as well. Adam Clymer (April 27, 1937 – September 10, 2018) was an American journalist. Clymer's journalism career began when he was in high school; he wrote for the school newspaper and collected sports scores for The New York Times. He did post-graduate work at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. In 1960, he joined The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, a job which he followed up with work at The Baltimore Sun and the New York Daily News. He was a prolific political correspondent for The New York Times. Clymer worked for The New York Times from 1977 until July 2003, and served as its national political correspondent for the 1980 presidential election, and polling editor from 1983 to 1990. As polling editor, Clymer collaborated with CBS News. He worked as political editor for George H. W. Bush's presidential campaign in 1988, and chief Washington correspondent from 1999 through 2003. Clymer covered the 2000 presidential campaign for the Times and wrote at least one article that was considered unfavorable by the campaign of George W. Bush. Clymer wrote an analysis of Cheney's tax returns, including his conclusion that he only gave 1% of his $20 million earnings to charity. In 2004, Clymer became a visiting scholar at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Political Director for the National Annenberg Election Survey. Edward M. Kennedy is one of the most influential senators in Congress. For the last 35 years, he has played a major role in events ranging from the Vietnam War to Supreme Court confirmations. He has also been closely associated with issues such as health care, civil rights and campaign finance reform. More than the foremost lawmaker and best orator in the Senate, he has enthralled (and disappointed) a generation who saw him as the keeper of his famous brothers' flame. He has seen America -- and her politics -- change in drastic ways. In this definitive biography, New York Times Washington Editor Adam Clymer draws an in-depth portrait of this complex man. Through interviews with Kennedy, and the people close to him, he places Kennedy's career in a historical perspective, and observes how Kennedy's personal life has affected his political performance. The Senator has dealt with his infamous legacy, struggled to overcome the Chappaquiddick incident, and handled spectacular failures as well as many truimphs. He is one of the few old-fashioned liberals who has held the Democratic Party to its principles, and is a hero to many. This is a unique, enormously readable chronicle of one of the most fascinating political figures of our time. Derived from a Kirkus review: The Washington editor of the New York Times serves up this thorough, generous analysis of the life and political career of the senior Senator from Massachusetts. Clymer begins this by describing a November 1982 strategy session during which Kennedy decided—for the final time in his life—not to run for the presidency. Clymer then returns to 1932 (the year Kennedy was born) and proceeds in stout prose to explore one of the most remarkable lives in American political history. Clymer contends that the Senator’s political enemies have fashioned a misrepresentative Kennedy-caricature: a tax-and-spend libidinous liberal. To support his thesis that Kennedy is not only “the leading Senator of his time” but “one of the greats” in the history of the Senate, Clymer describes with painstaking fidelity the Senator’s devotion to those causes most closely associated not only with him but also with his slain older brothers: health care, voting rights, education, women’s rights, hunger, and poverty. No fair-minded person who reads these pages can deny the sincerity of Kennedy’s commitments to the underprivileged or the facility he displays in the Senate. Clymer neither ignores nor wallows in the sordid aspects of Kennedy’s life. In his Chappaquiddick chapter, for example, Clymer provides in full the statement Kennedy gave to the police (with all of its vile equivocations), but he concludes that there is “no reason to doubt” the claim that he tried to rescue Mary Jo Kopechne from his submerged vehicle. Similarly, Clymer chides Kennedy for the reckless behavior that ultimately led to the 1991 rape case against his nephew William Kennedy Smith, a case that severely diminished the Senator’s moral authority—and virtually silenced him—during the subsequent Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill controversy. Well-researched and -documented (Clymer conducted over 400 interviews, including 21 with the Senator), Clymer’s biography provides a hefty counterweight to the many distortions of the Senator’s life. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Edward Kennedy, Arms Control, Chappaquiddick, Democratic Party, Liberalism, Mary Jo Kopechne, Jimmy Carter, Massachusetts, Senator, Politician, Election, Voting Rights, Health Care

[Book #50770]

Price: $150.00

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