Ted Kennedy appears in The Bob Zadek Show only in passing, as a secondary figure in two separate policy discussions. Neither episode treats him as its subject, and in both cases the reference is made by a guest rather than by Bob Zadek. The excerpts therefore support a short record of two specific claims: Kennedy’s bipartisan support for the No Child Left Behind Act, and his role in the Senate floor attack on Robert Bork that a guest identifies as the beginning of the modern confirmation fight.
No Child Left Behind
In an episode on federal involvement in education, Andrew J. Coulson described the No Child Left Behind Act as “the most intrusive federal education legislation ever passed.” Bob Zadek interjected that the law was passed by a Republican, allegedly conservative president, and Coulson agreed, adding that the president in question “had some bipartisan support from Senator Ted Kennedy, but it was the brainchild of President George W. Bush.” End the Unconstitutional Federal Involvement in Education (2009)
The attribution matters for how the excerpt frames the law. Coulson assigns the authorship of the legislation to Bush and describes Kennedy’s part as support rather than origination. The same exchange places the law in a longer account of federal expansion: Coulson said that education had been a local and, to some extent, state responsibility prior to roughly the 1950s, that achievement at the end of high school had not improved in forty years, and that spending per pupil had risen to two and a half times its inflation-adjusted level. Within that argument, Kennedy’s support is cited as evidence that the law drew backing from both parties rather than as a subject of analysis in itself. End the Unconstitutional Federal Involvement in Education (2009)
The excerpt does not state what Kennedy’s specific contribution to the legislation was, what provisions he supported or opposed, or what he said about it. It records only Coulson’s characterization of bipartisan support.
The Bork confirmation
In an episode on the Supreme Court and the 2016 election, Ilya Shapiro traced the politicization of judicial confirmations to the 1980s. He said that the first confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice took place in 1916, attributing them to anti-Semitism directed at Louis Brandeis, and that the first nominee to testify at his own hearing was Byron White, nominated by President Kennedy in 1962, in what Shapiro called a very short hearing. The poisoned and protracted process familiar in later decades, Shapiro said, “started in the ’80s with Robert Bork, when Ted Kennedy went on the floor of the Senate and attacked Bork,” delivering a speech about how in “Bork’s America” civil rights gains of the previous hundred years would be reversed. Ilya Shapiro on the Supreme Court in the Balance (2016)
Shapiro’s account makes Kennedy the initiating figure in that shift. He dates the change to less than thirty years before the conversation and treats the Bork speech as its opening. He does not, however, quote the speech beyond the phrase about “Bork’s America,” and the excerpt does not report the outcome of the Bork nomination, the vote, or any other senator’s role. Ilya Shapiro on the Supreme Court in the Balance (2016)
The same episode places the confirmation fight in a broader argument about judicial philosophy. Shapiro described a presumption of constitutionality that he traced to 1937, said that between 1937 and 1995 no piece of federal legislation was struck down by the Supreme Court as exceeding enumerated powers, and named Robert Bork, Antonin Scalia and John Roberts as judges of a deferential school. Bob Zadek framed the discussion around judicial deference and judicial engagement and observed that a nominee who said his job was to restrain presidential power would struggle to be confirmed. Kennedy enters this argument only at the point where Shapiro explains how the confirmation process became a political contest. Ilya Shapiro on the Supreme Court in the Balance (2016)
Across episodes
The two episodes touch the topic at different points and for different purposes: the 2009 education episode cites Kennedy as a bipartisan supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act, while the 2016 Supreme Court episode cites him as the senator whose floor attack on Robert Bork opened the modern confirmation era. The excerpts show no development between the two treatments, because neither episode revisits the other’s claim and neither examines Kennedy himself.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe Kennedy’s career, his committee roles, his own legislation, his ideology, or his relationship with Bob Zadek or either guest beyond the two cited moments. They do not state what state or district he represented, when he entered or left the Senate, or what became of the Bork nomination after the speech Shapiro describes. No excerpt records Kennedy speaking in his own voice, and no excerpt states his position on education policy, judicial philosophy or any other matter beyond the two attributions above.