The Honorable Senator Ted Kennedy

I know this is tabloid stuff, but if it's good enough for the credentialed journalists of the Boston Herald, the story must be worth relaying.

Mag: Ted K’s secret love child a secret no more


The National Enquirer splashes this week with a shocking story about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s secret love child with a Cape Cod woman whom the mag says he dated during his days as a swinging single.

According to the tabloid’s source, the boy, named Christopher, just celebrated his 21st birthday and is “mature enough to make his own choices about his background and biological father.”

A Kennedy family confidante told the Enquirer, “This is one of the biggest secrets in the Kennedy family and known to only a few people including Ted’s ex-wife, Joan.”

As for the senator, his spokesgal Melissa Wagoner last night called the tabloid tale “irresponsible fiction.”

Here’s the story according to the Enquirer: Back in 1983, Kennedy, then 51, took up with Caroline Bilodeau, an attractive brunette, several months before divorcing Joan, the mother of his three kids — Kara, Ted Jr. and Patrick.

Bilodeau’s friends told the Enquirer the local lass became so smitten with the senator, she “had dreams about being the next Mrs. Ted Kennedy.” But the love affair came crashing down when Bilodeau told Ted a baby was on the way, the mag reports.

“Caroline announced to the family that she was two months pregnant around May 1984,” blabbed a Bilodeau confidante. “Ted was not happy about the news. He already had three kids with Joan and knew a baby out of wedlock could hurt him politically.”

According to the Enquirer, the scandal-scarred senator begged Bilodeau to have an abortion, but she refused.

“He told her he couldn’t undergo another scandal — not after Chappaquiddick, not so close to his divorce from Joan” said the source. “He was very angry when she defied him and had the child.”

During her pregnancy, Caroline’s friends noticed the unemployed young woman who lived with her parents bought a black Mustang convertible, an expensive Shar-pei puppy and moved into her own apartment.

“Later we learned she received about $15,000 from someone in the Kennedy camp,” said the friend.

When Christopher was born in a Cape Cod hospital in December 1984, Kennedy was nowhere near the delivery room. But he did, according to the Enquirer, take a paternity test shortly thereafter to determine if the child was his.

After Bilodeau got the results, she moved back in with her parents but “always seemed to have money,” said the source.

Kennedy’s former flame did eventually find love with a man she met in a pizzeria. They married and he legally adopted Christopher and raised him as his own son, sources said.

“She has always been very protective of Christopher and wanted him to have a normal life, not the life a Kennedy lives,” said the friend.

So--

Did the Boston Herald do any investigative reporting on Teddy's "secret no more" love child, or just repeat what the Enquirer printed?

It appears that the Herald hasn't verified any of this. It's really a story about a story.

The only sources that the Boston paper cites are the ones used by the Enquirer:

A Kennedy family confidante

Bilodeau’s friends

A Bilodeau confidante

These unnamed sources seem worthy of a Michael Isikoff story for Newsweek, don't they?

Is the story of the illegitimate child legitimate?

I don't know. I do think it would be irresponsible for the Boston Herald to circulate a story without substantiating the facts, Newsweek-style.

If the story is true, will it have an impact on Teddy's political future?

Of course not.

If leaving the scene of a fatal accident and failing to report it for hours and hours didn't bring down Teddy, a love child won't.

If it's true that Teddy "begged Bilodeau to have an abortion," the Democratic Party's fringe base will burst with pride.

Imagine their excitement. Teddy, a staunch pro-abortion advocate, put his words into action, and did his best to have his son aborted.

What radical Leftist wouldn't find that admirable or even endearing?