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Howie Carr on Kennedy: no love lost

Like a lot of other people, I couldn't wait to hear Howie Carr's gloss on Ted Kennedy's death today.

Carr's been on the WRKO airwaves for about 20 minutes now, and here's the Cliffs Notes version: he's warned his callers to keep the discussion civil, but has no interest in trotting out a Mitt Romney-type profession of admiration for someone whose politics he condemns.

Here's the disclaimer Carr offered at the outset:

Let’s just set the ground rules. I know a lot of people did not like Ted Kennedy. I of course would be someone who didn’t like his politics at all. But I’m not going to allow lines to be crossed, at least as best I can. I don’t want this to just become a total hatefest.... I’m the last guy who wants to censor anybody about Ted Kennedy, but let’s try keep it somewhat within the grounds of the usual discourse.

A couple minutes later, Carr offered a preview of a column which--if I understood correctly--he's submitted both to the New York Post and the Boston Herald. Nothing in the summary about Chappaquiddick or other moral failings; instead, Carr's focus was class, an issue near and dear to his heart:

I began it by saying that I am one of that one-quarter to one-third of the Massachusetts electorate who never voted for Ted Kennedy. I would never consider voting for Ted Kennedy.... I read today that he was for the working class. I never thought of him as being for working class. You know--maybe for the non-working class, but he wasn’t for me, and the people I knew, and it was really frustrating.

I mentioned, too, that a lot of the people in this state, including myself, grew up in households--at least my aunt’s household--where there was a picture to one side of John F. Kennedy, the martyred JFK. On the other side was a picture of the Pope. And in the middle there was a palm frond from the most recent Palm Sunday of the year.

Then you grow up and you start voting, and you hear, "Kennedy was the first Catholic president. Oh, he's from the same background as us." And [Ted Kennedy] was pushing all this stuff that's just anathema to anybody who comes out of the working class. He wanted racial preferences for various groups. He was always pro-life until it became fashionable to be pro-abortion; then he became pro-abortion. He backed immigration reform in 1965, saying it would not lead to a flood of immigrants--that’s one reason why we have an illegal alien problem now. He may have done it with the best intentions.

He was for a nuclear freeze. He was against the Reagan tax cuts. I don't know. Again, I don’t want this to turn into a hate fest, but I just gotta tell you--I think most of you know where I’m coming from.

Just to be clear, I have absolutely no problem with Carr trying to make a substantive case against Kennedy's legacy so soon after his death. And I respect his attempt to keep the conversation relatively civil.

It's worth noting, though, that when Carr says "working class," he really means "white working class." It's also worth noting that--Carr's suggestion notwithstanding--you don't have to be rich to be pro-choice or anti-nuke. (Or, for that matter, to take time off to care for a new baby or a sick relative.)

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5 Comments

  • Man Who Isn't a Howie Fan said:

    I'd really like to know the answer to this: exactly when are you too rich, too fat, too dumb, and too happy to be part of the "working class" anymore?

    I don't care what he was like as a kid: for many years now Howie Carr has about as much to do with the working class as Ted Kennedy did.  The only thing left is that they both got the masses good and riled up when it benefited their own personal agenda.

    BTW, don't take that to mean I'm anti-Kennedy...far from it.  I voted for him the one time I could, and I'd vote for every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  But I have no illusions of Kennedy's actual relationship with the working class...and nor should anyone have them about Howie.

    August 27, 2009 12:24 AM
  • Peter Porcupine said:

    Adam - I know a few self-employed, conservative African American business owners, esp. in the trades, who would take issue with your implication that race trumps all when identifying as 'working class'.  (I'm a child of the factory floor, myself - proud to be working class, and not a college grad).

    August 27, 2009 10:08 AM
  • Adam Reilly said:

    PP, I didn't mean to suggest that race trumps class. Instead, I think that Howie--by saying Kennedy wasn't pro-working class, and then citing his support of "racial preferences" as evidence--seems to at least be *implying* that his (Howie's) understanding of "working class" may be limited to white people.

    And Man Who Isn't... Ted Kennedy obviously wasn't a working-class dude, but a strong case can be made that his legislative priorities (e.g., raising the minimum wage) reflected a real commitment to at least some blue-collar people. (I know that small-business owners who consider themselves blue-collar wouldn't have shared this priority.) As for Howie, I suppose he's rhetorically committed to the working class--but you're right: he'd be hard pressed to identify himself that way nowadays.

    August 27, 2009 11:50 AM
  • aging cynic said:

    AR,

    Can't argue with your points. That said, whenever someone refers to "working people" or "working class", it strikes me that they think that THEY are the arbiters of who qualifies as such and it galls me. Is my white collar work of less value? Is a professional under LESS stress than others?(Like PP, my parents and I worked on the factory floor. Unlike them,I went to college at night.) Howie has a point when he mentions that many of the "working people" supported by these pols have never done much in the way of private sector/worry-where-the-next-buck-is-coming-from WORK. If there were not a lot of people feeling disenfranchised, Howie would have no act. He may capitalize on it, but he didn't make them feel that way in the first place. We can thank political demagogues for that.

    August 28, 2009 12:53 PM
  • jim kelly said:

    howie--Ihave read your columns & listened to your show for years--but after the last week--you have lost me--you stated that you were taking the high ground on kennedy--but you could not help youself--you didnt voice your opinion, you hammered away

    and could not stop---let's see that when you die--how many " friends & listeners show up" to pay homage to you & your family--reality check--2 bus loads maybe history will judge ted kennedy---you wont even be a footnote

    August 31, 2009 3:03 PM

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