There is no better example of how corrupt and dishonest the “mainstream media” are than how it never misses a chance to refer to the Kennedy family as “America’s royalty” or “America’s first family.” JFK Jr. (R.I.P.), was routinely called “America’s Prince.”
An American Atrocity is more like it. Keeping in mind that Webster’s defines the word “atrocious” as “shockingly wicked, cruel, or brutal . . . shockingly bad or tasteless; abominable,” consider the short obituary for Rosemary Kennedy, sister of Senator Ted Kennedy, who passed away last Friday, from page A-23 of the Sunday, Jan. 9 New York Times.
Rosemary was the third child and first daughter of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. But, writes the Times, “Rosemary’s mild mental retardation would lead her into a situation that could damage the family’s reputation, and [ so her father, Joe Kennedy, Sr.] arranged for her to have a lobotomy. She was 23.”
Being only mildly retarded and the daughter of a multimillionaire, Rosemary could have lived a long, decent life, maybe even marrying, and enjoying the love of her family. But since she “had taken to sneaking out of the convent where she was staying at the time” and “there was a dread fear of pregnancy, disease, and disgrace,” the “first family’s” patriarch decided that she needed a lobotomy, an operation on the brain in which the frontal lobes of one’s brains are scraped away. After the operation, the Times, writes, poor Rosemary was “reduced to an infantlike state, mumbling words and sitting for hours, staring at walls.” She was institutionalized in Wisconsin in 1949, and remained there in this state until she died last Friday.
Meanwhile, the Kennedy family made as much political hay of her situation as it could, founding the Special Olympics in her honor. I’m sure she would have been very happy about that, if only she could have comprenended it.
I wonder what kind of lesson this event taught the young Kennedy boys about how they should treat the women in their lives?
8:09 pm on January 9, 2005
