Maureen Callahan: Ask Not The Kennedy's and the Women they Destroyed

The Kennedys suck. Hard stop. From A to Z, RFK Jr included. There's barely a good one in the bunch. Even JFK wasn't the golden son portrayed. He was a deeply flawed man who had a decent presidential run and absolutely should not be on a pedestal.

Jackie was chastised for moving on and finding happiness after JFK was assassinated. It was fine that he cheated on her constantly though.

This is covered in the prologue. These people suck and we propped them up. Shame on us. My goal here is to consolidate why these individuals are awful, and I'll try to distinguish conspiracy theory and conjecture from proven fact throughout. Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. An asshole is an asshole regardless of creed, religion, sex, or party affiliation. The Kennedys are the entry point to an enema.

Maureen Callahan isn't a tabloid writer taking swings at an easy target. She's an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of American Predator, a bestseller about serial killer Israel Keyes. Her previous work is meticulous, source-driven, and deeply reported.

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

Was wary of JFK Jr's overconfidence in his flying abilities. He didn't care. He flew when he wasn't ready. They crashed and they're gone. One man's hubris destroyed the Bessette family because he couldn't follow the rules.

To be fair:l, Jr was one of the better ones. Civil rights activist, charitable, disability awareness advocate, public voice for equal rights. He should have stuck to philanthropy instead of the cockpit. Recklessness caught up with him, but he wasn't the only victim.

Kennedy Score: 8/10 - Spoiled, reckless, womanizer, charitable Accuracy: Proven facts, firsthand opinions

Jackie Kennedy

Wanted to tell the world that despite JFK's infidelity, they were in love. Then that ill-fated day, JFK requested the top be down so the world could see her beautiful face. She kept it together despite being covered in the viscera of her husband. There are no words for that kind of composure.

Dealing with the family sounds like a torturous affair. Distant, more concerned with appearances than actual connection, they quickly worked to extinguish whatever light Jackie carried inside her.

Despite knowing his reputation, she went in hoping to fix him, to finally get him to settle down. It didn't work, and she really had no one to blame but herself for underestimating who she was dealing with.

When losing their first child, John isn't at her bedside, staying on vacation because there was nothing he could do anyway. Bobby handled the funeral planning. When JFK was hospitalized for back surgery, Jackie never left his side. He put a pinup of Monroe over his hospital bed.

Kennedy Score: 9/10 - Naive, committed, dedicated, charitable, loyal Accuracy: Firsthand opinions and accounts, government documents, personal relationships

Mary Richardson Kennedy

Was never satisfied with her circumstances, always reaching for the next level until depression closed in around her. Both she and Bobby had uncontrollable rages, seemingly drawn to each other by those same destructive impulses. Anorexia, suicidal tendencies, and mutual destructiveness defined their path together.

Bobby styled himself an environmental expert but never quite cut it, always believing himself superior. Mary stoked those embers. But Bobby's infidelity eventually produced an anger in her that nothing could contain, never feeling adequate. She discovered over forty instances of infidelity before divorce proceedings finally began.

Side note: Bobby didn't even clean up after himself at the proceedings, acting like a petulant child expecting others to clean up after him. Mary died by suicide. The Kennedy family downplayed the events, burying the lead. Bobby badmouthed her in death, distancing himself from any responsibility for her emotional collapse.

Kennedy Score: 6/10 - Womanizing, infantile, mutually destructive, dickhead Accuracy: Firsthand accounts, news articles, personal relationships, paparazzi

Joe Kennedy

A raucous Jeep trip with a car full of people results in Pam Kelly being thrown from the vehicle and paralyzed when Joe crossed traffic lanes and flipped it. Not his first accident caused by recklessness.

Despite Joe effectively running her life afterward, she never sued. Stuck in a wheelchair, unable to use the bathroom independently, she sought financial support from him periodically. Joe would rebut that he didn't have the money. When she died, Joe didn't attend the funeral, despite her never once having publicly blamed him.

He went on to become a Democratic representative for over a decade and ran a low-income energy company, all while looking like Jake Busey in demon makeup.

Kennedy Score: 6/10 - Reckless, ungrateful, ugly Accuracy: Firsthand accounts, news articles, police records

Michael Kennedy

Used to jerk it in trees.

Accused of having an affair, which is an odd way of phrasing it, with the family's underage babysitter. He claims it didn't happen until she was 16, not 14. Because that makes it legal in Massachusetts.

JFK Jr called him the poster boy of bad behavior.

Kennedy Score: 2/10 - Perv, adulterer, alcoholic, untrustworthy, dendrophobic, pedo Accuracy: Buried news reports, firsthand accounts, media

Ted Kennedy

Is at best responsible for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, drunkenly driving his car off a bridge into a tidal channel. Instead of getting help or attempting to save her, he plotted the cover-up while she slowly submerged.

He couldn't even spell the name of the woman he killed correctly in his initial statement. Drunk, he evaded nearby houses, didn't call the police, and left her there gasping for air in the last pocket of oxygen available for approximately an hour. He could have saved her. He chose not to, then called his support group to clean it up.

Ted's ugly mug also somehow managed to attract an absurd number of women despite looking like halitosis incarnate. Eyes set on the presidency, he lacked the charisma or looks to win favor outside of his name. He held the true story over the family's head for decades, always daring them that he'd tell what really happened if they didn't keep up appearances. He never did.

Kennedy Score: 1/10 - Womanizing, POS, ugly inside and out, coward Accuracy: Firsthand accounts, news articles, personal relationships, paparazzi, mirrors

Rosemary Kennedy

Had developmental delays. By all rights an upstanding and elegant human being, born with the disgusting trait of being an embarrassment to the Kennedy name. What does one do with an embarrassment? Cut out part of her brain and put her away forever, of course.

At 23 they lobotomized her because she had a learning disability. It left her nonverbal and near trance-like. So they tucked her into St. Coletta, only letting her out occasionally in later life.

Kennedy Score: 10/10 - An innocent Accuracy: Bunch of assholes

John F. Kennedy

Wasted no time cheating on his wife in the White House. He wasn't even good at it. Mimi Alford, at 19 while he was 45, recounts what she describes as a three-minute encounter with no foreplay. An intern could not resist the president in her own mind.

Side note: Mimi published her own memoir, Once Upon a Secret, in 2012, documenting the relationship in full detail.

JFK hunted like a poacher at an ivory market, pouncing on easy prey he spotted from a distance, not because he needed it but because he felt entitled to it. A one-woman man he was not. Grooming and exploitation didn't matter to him. How they would feel afterward or what they might attach to him was never his concern.

Horrible husband, absent father, serial predator, borderline rapist. John would sleep with anyone and everyone he wanted, despite being a weak man. Addled with physical ailments, digestive issues, and taking a cornucopia of pills for his issues.

Also. He's ugly ass shit... Seriously just look at photos of him. Really look, get past his nice hair and fine clothing and really look at him. Deep set yet beady eyes, bad teeth, odd face shape. Dude looks like Eddie Munster.

Kennedy Score: 3/10 - Entitled, womanizer, reductive, insincere, unaffectionate, personable, charismatic, unhealthy, arrogant Accuracy: Proven facts, firsthand opinions, second-hand reports, government documents, interviews, victim testimony