Chappaquiddick at 40

An attorney friend of mine who describes himself as a lifelong student of the Kennedy family has circulated the following email in honor of one anniversary that will pass almost entirely unremarked in the mainstream media:

I thought I would take a moment to bother you all, ladies included, to remind everyone that this is the 40th anniversary of the infamous Chappaquiddick incident in which an inebriated Senator Ted Kennedy marked a reunion of his brother Bobby’s “Boiler Room” girls by driving one to her death off the Dyke Road bridge.
This manslaughter might have been forgiven if Kennedy hadn’t decided to evade responsibility for the accident and cover it up by failing to report it, trying to co-opt one of his aides to cop to being the driver, and then leaving them to try and fix it for him for over seven hours.
Worse, Mary Jo Kopechne, whose drowned body was found in a position trying to eke out the last molecules of air within the submerged car, was left to drown by the self-involved Senator, who chose not to seek immediate help.
After proceedings by a Kennedy-friendly judicial system in Massachusetts, Kennedy was found guilty of leaving the scene of an accident and had his driver’s license suspended. But perhaps the crowning event was Kennedy’s appalling nationally-televised apologia, which I remember viewing on TV, and which still reigns as probably the worst and most self-indulgent political pitch ever.
He may be “the Lion of the Senate”, but I will never forget Chappaquiddick. For the uninitiated, a must read is Leo Damore’s excellent book Senatorial Privilege.

Ted Kennedy has styled himself an opponent of wealth and privilege, but his career is a tribute to their power when wielded by a man of the left. The lesson of Chappaquiddick thus remains timely forty years on.
JOHN adds: The Kopechne family hated Ted Kennedy, but Mary Jo’s parents are now dead. Which cleared the way, apparently, for Ted finally to visit Mary Jo’s grave. The National Enquirer has the story:

The ENQUIRER reports exclusively that Ted Kennedy, dying of brain cancer, made a secret visit to the grave of Mary Jo Kopechne. …
In his final Thanksgiving celebration with his family, the dying 76-year-old Kennedy patriarch expressed his deep regret over the Mary Jo tragedy.
Only days before the holiday break, Ted made a special trip to visit the parish cemetery of St. Vincent’s Roman Catholic Church in Plymouth, Pa., where Mary Jo was buried July 22, 1969.
“Ted knows his days are numbered and has been wrestling with making this difficult trip,” a family source told The ENQUIRER. “While Mary Jo’s parents were alive, because of the bad blood that existed, Ted avoided going.”

A line from a country song goes through my head: “Jesus would forgive, but a daddy don’t forget.” Nor should he. Whether Kennedy genuinely repents leaving Mary Jo to die while he ran off in search of an alibi, we can only leave to a higher authority.

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