[Bret L]

((The Kennedy Family are a bunch of rich spoiled rotten bums that
should have no place in politics today. Bret.))


TRENTONIAN EDITORIAL: Chappaquiddick

Published: Tuesday, August 4, 2009



"Anniversary stories are a staple of American journalism — the 10th anniversary of this, the 25th anniversary of that. But one anniversary recently was allowed to slip by all but unobserved: the 40th anniversary of Chappaquiddick.

Was this due to the liberal inclinations of the news media? Or to
sensitivity regarding the grave illness of Sen. Edward M. “Ted”
Kennedy, the protagonist of Chappaquiddick? Maybe some of both.

In either event, the anniversary of the July 18, 1969, drowning death
of Mary Jo Kopechne, at the bottom of a tidal channel off
Chappaquiddick Island, trapped inside Kennedy’s Olds 88, came and went
with minimal journalistic fuss.

In fact, the anniversary of that tragic and disturbing event, which
four decades ago held America’s notoriously short attention span in
its grip for weeks, went by mostly unremarked. Instead, the media
busied themselves warming up for nostalgic retrospectives on another
event that occurred not quite a month after Chappaquiddick —
“Woodstock,” the mud-wallowing, dope-ingesting orgy interspersed with
musical performances.

Two New Jersey academics, however — Robert P. George, a professor of
jurisprudence at Princeton, and Dermot Quinn, a professor of history
at Seton Hall, seemed determined to see to it that the Chappaquiddick
anniversary received at least a nod of acknowledgement.

Uncomfortable though it may be to recall the circumstances of Mary Jo
Kopechne’s death, they wrote in a National Review Online article,
“Americans must not forget what happened to her, nor must a delicate
sensitivity prevent us from remembering how a powerful man and his
savvy handlers were able to shield him from responsibility for his
behavior....” The facts are readily recalled.

Kennedy left a picnic/party around midnight with Kopechne, a 29-year-
old former aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.
Careening down a dirt road, Ted Kennedy’s Olds 88 came to a narrow
bridge with no guardrail and plunged into the water. Kennedy got out
and made it ashore. She did not.

His story later was — when he finally told it to authorities — that he
made several futile attempts to extricate her from the submerged car.
In any event, instead of stopping at a nearby house and summoning
police and rescue personnel, Kennedy returned to the party and huddled
with lawyer pals, one of them a cousin. Then the senator retired to
his hotel room for the night in nearby Edgartown.

The later testimony of the two lawyer pals was that they had urged
Kennedy to report the incident to the police and assumed he had done
so. Even the next morning, Kennedy delayed doing so. Instead, he got
on a pay phone and solicited advice from friends and relatives. Then
at last he went to police — after having one of the lawyer pals who
was at the picnic vet a vague statement he had prepared on the matter.

Kennedy political spinners, fixers and legal counsel soon were
swarming over the case as thick as flies on a manure pile.

The upshot was that Kennedy got off with a suspended sentence for
leaving the scene of an accident and a temporary driver’s license
suspension. This despite the inquest testimony of a police diver that
Kopechne might have been rescued had help been summoned immediately.
And despite the finding of the presiding judge at the inquest that
there was “probable cause” for considering criminal negligence or
manslaughter charges.

The summary of Chappaquiddick is an astounding reminder that no
righteous literati rushed forward with novels inspired by the event,
lamenting the toxic mixture of self-indulgent privilege and self-
serving political clout that infects the American commonweal. No
latter day Sinclair Lewis ever stepped forward in the role of liberal
public scold with a cautionary tale in the manner of “An American
Tragedy.”

It’s an ecumenical axiom of all faiths that forgiveness requires (1) a
clear acknowledgement of one’s offense — no weaseling excuses aimed at
off-loading personal responsibility; and (2) a heart-felt expression
of regret supported by a willingness to accept the consequences of
one’s acts.

Kennedy has never offered either response in atonement. Atonement
would have required him to forfeit his privileged place in politics,
and that he couldn’t bring himself to do, if indeed he ever seriously
entertained the possibility of doing so.

Maybe he’ll find forgiveness in another realm. In the here and now,
it’s hard to ignore the nagging, unpleasant truth, even 40 years
later, that he’s done nothing to deserve it."

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