Media Celebrated Known Sexual Harasser Ted Kennedy

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Exhibit A: Ted Kennedy. For decades, the Massachusetts Senator and known sexual harasser was celebrated by the media, even though tales of his womanizing ways were well known by reporters who covered Capitol Hill. From his leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in a car in Chappaquiddick, to his propositioning of a 16-year-old girl from his limo to the sexual assault of a Washington D.C. waitress, liberal reporters excused his misdeeds because the “Liberal Lion of the Senate” was advancing leftist legislation.  The Boston Globe’s Charles Pierce actually fantasized that if Kopechne had lived that Kennedy’s “tireless work as a legislator....would have brought comfort to her in her old age.” Time’s Lance Morrow penned this tribute: “He became one of the great lawmakers of the century, a Senate leader whose liberal mark upon American government has been prominent and permanent. The tabloid version does not do him justice.” ABC’s The View co-host Joy Behar host probably best summed up the media’s mentality when she admitted “It’s policy. Teddy Kennedy. Remember Chappaquiddick?....A girl drowns and he abandons her and she drowned, and women still voted for Teddy Kennedy. Why? Because he voted for women’s rights.” 

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In a downtown office, a former congressional page tells of her surprise meeting with Kennedy three years ago. She was 16 then. It was evening and she and her 16-year-old page, an attractive blonde, were walking down the Capitol steps on their way home from work when Kennedy’s limo pulled up and the senator opened the door. In the backseat stood a bottle of wine on ice. Leaning his graying head out the door, the senator popped the question: Would one of the girls care to join him for dinner? No. How about the other? .. In December 1985, just before he announced he would run for president in 1988, Kennedy allegedly manhandled a pretty young woman employed as a Brasserie waitress. The woman, Carla Gaviglio, declined to be quoted in this article, but says the following account, a similar version of which first appeared in Penthouse last year, is full and accurate: ... As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles. Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on [fellow Democratic Senator Chris] Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair. With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair. As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room. 

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