Say Anything Blog

Ted Kennedy is one of the great liberal lions of the U.S. Senate. For the past forty years, no one in that body has roared louder for liberal causes.

Name the issue and Kennedy has been there: soak the rich with higher taxes; abortion on demand; protect the planet from ecological damage; take on the wealthy and polluting oil companies; universal health care for all Americans; ban guns; amnesty for illegal aliens.

He clearly sees income redistribution as a moral imperative. If there is a battle to be waged, Kennedy is usually in the middle of it. And unlike many of his Senate colleagues, Kennedy is not one to back down.

No doubt much of the liberal love for Kennedy comes from his air of moral certitude. With fine senatorial bombast he skewers his opponents, frequently calling their motives into question.

But do his actions match his words? Does Kennedy actually live by the principles he so loudly and vigorously proclaims?

A closer look at his conduct in private life reveals that this champion of liberal causes is really the king of liberal hypocrites.

All of the Kennedys have been longtime cheerleaders for alternative sources of energy. Senator Kennedy has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation over the years to encourage the development of solar, hydrogen and wind as alternatives to oil and coal.

As far back as 1980, when he ran for president, he was calling for greater use of alternative energy to become a central part of our energy policy.

He was cosponsor of the 2005 Clean Power Act, which would require a reduction in power plat emissions, which he said”caused deaths and contribute to global warming.”

Joe and Patrick have backed the same sort of legislation in the house. Robert Kennedy has crisscrossed the country, decrying our “addiction” to oil and calling for a new era of “clean energy.”

During a recent speech to the National Press Club, Senator Kennedy said that we need to “start demanding immediate action to reduce global warming and prevent catastrophic climate change that may be on our horizon now.”

Part of the answer was to shift to alternative sources” “We should replace our dependence on foreign oil, not by drilling in the priceless Arctic national Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but by investing in clean energy.”

All of this must have been very encouraging to Jim Gordon when he decided to develop and build a “clean energy” project in Massachusetts.

With their commitment to clean energy, the search for alternatives to coal and oil, and an ethic that says individuals can make a difference; Gordon must have assumed that the Kennedys would support him. But he soon discovered that the Kennedy’s have “clean energy” for other people-not themselves.

In 2003, after several years of research and study, Gordon and his fellow investors launched the Cape Wind Project in an effort to provide clean energy for thousands of homes on Cape Cod.

Their hope was to replace the coal fired plants that were providing much of the area’s power and were believed to be causing health problems.

The Cape Wind Project was expected to provide three-quarters of the electrical power needed by the Cape and other islands without producing pollution or greenhouse gases.

This was not a radical or untried plan. Both Sweden and Denmark (two countries that Kennedy often praises as paragons of enlightened social policy) use similar wind-powered power systems near their coasts.

But from the moment the Kennedy family got wind of these plans (so to speak), they came out in strong opposition. Their complaint: The wind turbines would be built in Nantucket Sound, about six miles off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. The problem was not aesthetic; the Kennedys wouldn’t be able to actually see the turbines from their home.

Instead Robert Kennedy Jr., who had been beating the drums for alternative sources of energy for more than a decade, complained that the project would be built in one of the family’s favorite sailing and yachting areas.

The Kennedys were quickly joined by other affluent “environmentalists” with homes in the area.

When the U.S. army Corps of Engineers was assigned to conduct a comprehensive review of the proposal, Cape Wind was optimistic that the results would sway the plan’s opponents.

“I believe when he [Kennedy] sees the results of this comprehensive environmental review, he will see the compelling public interest benefits: lower electrical costs, a cleaner healthier environment, and energy independence and minimal environmental impact” said Jim Gordon.

Kennedy made a judicious pronouncement to the effect that the idea needed further study. “We have an obligation to preserve the Cape for future generations, which requires us to know the impact of our decisions on the landscape, seascape and environment,” he said in publicly. Privately he worked diligently to get the study canceled.

Environmentalist groups lined up behind the project.  Antinuclear activist Helen Caldecott wrote to Kennedy personally in an attempt to persuade him to embrace the project. But Kennedy wouldn’t budge.

Days after the report was issued, Kennedy called for greater federal regulation of wind farms and got his longtime friend Sen. John Warner, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, to offer an amendment to the defense budget to stop the project.

Other members of the Senate took notice and the amendment was withdrawn.

As of this writing, Kennedy remains completely opposed to the “clean energy” Cape Wind Project.