No more rules
Taki
Kennedy fever, like Asian flu, is once again gripping America. Last Sunday the beefy Irish-American adorned the cover of the Telegraph Sunday Magazine. There he was in living colour, his arms around his goodlooking sons, boys who have maintained what has come to be known as the Kennedy-Mondale tradition, i.e. that the children of the most eloquent advocates of forced busing can almost always be found in private schools. Let them ride buses, he seems to be saying. Except for the rich, and various politicians, the only ordinary people who seem to agree with the busing theory must be the Kopechnes. They must figure their daughter would probably still be alive if Teddy practised what he preached — and used buses. But that's hitting below the belt, they tell me. Something only Teddy's friends in the IRA are allowed to do. Ironically, two of the pictures in the eight-page spread of the Telegraph's Magazine are aquatic in context. One has Teddy running over a bridge, the other is of him sailing with his wife. A brave lady. I assume. Ever since his unfortunate midnight swim off Chappa quiddick ten years ago, Teddy is not a favourite for the skin diver of the year award. He is, however, a favourite of the Fourth Estate, the power and influence of which, especially in America, could be compared to that which a vegetarian with a small brush moustache and great oratorical gifts wielded over some disciplined and blond fanatics in Nuremberg over 40 years ago. If you don't believe me, just ask Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Eugene McCarthy and, if you can reach him, Lyndon Johnson. People who were all made and unmade by the press.
Take the Telegraph's article , about Teddy, for example. It is well-written, by a good writer, a man known around the trade for getting on the bandwagon early and staying on for the duration. He hedges his bets as far as Teddy's chances are concerned, but reminds us that there are 29 relatives of his threatening to take over soon. He includes women also because he's no fool. Not mentioning them as presidential material would constitute a breach of the equal rights amendment, a favourite campaign slogan of Teddy's.
Well, the media's love for Teddy, its crude and vulgar manifestations of idolatry, might not be such a bad thing. It's usually reserved for Hollywood —concerned phoneys like Warren Beatty and his sister, or lead guitarists, or even a nice man like the one that blew up the King David Hotel 31 years ago. Noi Teddy is more pleasant to look at even if at times he reminds me of some of those IRA thugs who kneecap women.
The day before I woke up and saw Teddy's familiar countenance staring at me from my favourite Sunday reading matter, I had been watching La Regle du Jeu, Jean Renoir's satirical chef-d'oeuvre of the manners and morals of effete French society crumbling and about to be swept away. When the aviation hero finally convinces the woman he loves to run away with him and she agrees, he prepares to go and tell her husband. She gasps at his folly and asks why. 'Because it's the rules of the game,' he says. Never has a saying sounded more dated and passe than that. There are no more rules, just 'games, and Teddy is the master player. He is as sincere in the defence of contradictory policies — like, promising less inflation, more jobs, and free health insurance for everyone — as he is quick to condemn torture and brutality from caudillos while ignoring murder, concentration camps and mass genocide by commissars.
No, the rules of the game were and are for romantic .fools. People without double standards. Human dinosaurs. Something the Kennedy clan has never been accused of being. On the contrary, theirs is the dynasty of the future. Although some of the boys already have their private defeats etched on their faces, and inside their arms. But for the moment it's Teddy that counts.
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