Teddy Was Once Pro-Segregation

James Taranto points out an interesting factoid about Teddy *hiccup* Kennedy:

Today's Harvard Crimson has an interesting historical footnote about Ted Kennedy:

During his days as a student at Harvard, the youngest brother in the Kennedy clan garnered just one mention in The Crimson--a 1956 article about an inter-house debating event, according to an archive search.

The question at the debate was: "Resolved: That the Federal Government should compel the state of Alabama to grant equal educational opportunities to Negroes." Kennedy's Winthrop team took the negative side and won.

That's right, Kennedy argued for segregation! Now of course a college debate is an intellectual exercise; people don't always agree with the positions they advocate. But if this were a Republican judicial nominee, is there any doubt that Kennedy would consider it disqualifying?

Don't you just know that Kennedy et al would have been apoplectic had such an historical event come to light about Sam Alito, even though it was just an intellectual exercise? We never would have heard the end of it.

Oh yeah, and this could get interesting.