Friday, March 29, AD 2024 5:36am

Fifty Years of Mary Jo Kopechne Being Unavailable for Comment

google_quiddick

Half a century with no Earthly justice done.  Here is Ted Kennedy’s non-mea culpa, notable for how little of the details of the incident he could recall, and an example of how to appear to take responsibility while not taking responsibility.  Kennedy was helped by all this occurring while the attention of the nation was riveted on Apollo 11.  He was also helped by the fact that the liberal media was in his corner.

Any other American who failed to report a lethal accident such as this for such a lengthy period would probably have served some jail time, county or prison.  Any other politician would have had his career destroyed.  Something to keep in mind the next time some idiot calls the late Senator  “The Lion of the Senate”.

 

 

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Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Sunday, July 19, AD 2009 2:57pm

Mr. McClarey,

What rationale do you give yourself for deciding to post such a thing on a Catholic blog?

Don the Kiwi
Don the Kiwi
Sunday, July 19, AD 2009 5:31pm

Agreed Don.
I recall the incident well – I was an avid subscriber to Newsweek at the time, and they gave it a pretty thorough coverage.
It was pretty obvious that Kennedy was drunk and – shall we say – seeking some extra-curricular activity with Mary Jo. Failing to report the accident was shameful.
The “Camelot” years were still alive and well in the American psyche of that time, and despite the Vietnam war and issues around that, it appears that the Kennedys could do no wrong.
History is a wonderful teacher.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Sunday, July 19, AD 2009 6:14pm

Even today some of the Kennedys act as if they too can do no wrong and are entitled to public office merely by the fact of their family ties (for example, JFK’s daughter Caroline, who sought Hillary Clinton’s seat in N.Y., and RFK’s son Christopher, who reportedly may seek Obama/Burris’ seat in Ill.)

On a more serious note, the type of brain cancer Ted Kennedy has (a glioblastoma) is the same kind my father-in-law died from 10 years ago. The usual treatment process is, to say the least, not pretty, and most people who have it die within a year. My father-in-law was dead within 5 months after his diagnosis. I don’t know how Teddy has managed to survive this long… I hope he’s taken the time to get his spiritual house in order.

Tito Edwards
Monday, July 20, AD 2009 6:05am

Amen indeed.

Matt McDonald
Matt McDonald
Tuesday, July 21, AD 2009 9:15pm

It’s sickening that so many put such a man on a pedestal who was demonstrated such a depraved indifference to human life. Evidence suggests that Mary Joe lived for as long as 45 minutes by breathing from a pocket of air trapped in the overturned vehicle. Even if Teddy was too drunk to free her himself from the very shallowly submerged vehicle, he could have simply called for rescue at one of the houses he walked past on his way back to his hotel room to begin the cover-up.

Hero of the left. Disgusting.

Frank
Frank
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 4:37am

God permits evil so that a greater good may result. In this instance, perhaps one greater good was that this lowlife was never elected President, as he almost surely would have been otherwise. Of course he still managed to do great damage to he Republic from his untouchable seat in the Senate, thanks to the blind loyalty of most of the voters of Massachusetts to anyone named Kennedy. But it could have been worse. Couldn’t it?

Greg Mockeridge
Greg Mockeridge
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 4:40am

“What rationale do you give yourself for deciding to post such a thing on a Catholic blog?“

What rationale do you give for NOT posting such a thing on a Catholic blog. The feting of the Kennedys by American Catholics, thanks in large part to a morally bankrupt hierarchy, is a national disgrace.

With that I pray for the repose of the souls of both Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 5:45am

Why do you have a set of 10 year old comments appended to this post? (IIRC, Mark deFrancisis was one of the Vox Nova crew. There’s a residue of Vox Nova hosted at Patheos, but none of the contributors are among the people who were posting 10 years ago).

Adam Clymer’s biography of Kennedy (which was published after the man who had been state’s attorney in Barnstable County, Massachusetts admitted publicly that he had caved to political pressure when he’d declined to secure in indictment for vehicular manslaughter) incorporated the disgusting face of the liberal mentality when he wrote (in cold print) that Kennedy’s accomplishments as a legislator benefited swaths of people who had never heard of Mary Jo Kopechne. There’s certainly a rough justice at work in the economic destruction of major media in the last 20 years.

Still, the Massachusetts pols who did this are the grossest of all. Joseph Kennedy had been stuck in a wheelchair for nearly years and was four months from death. John Kennedy was dead. Robert Kennedy was dead. The local Republicans and local newspapers needed to make a stink and the local Democrats needed the resolve to cut Ted Kennedy loose. Which they could bring themselves to do. Because utterly corrupt.

ken
ken
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 8:23am

As I heard on the radio this morning, the greatest villains in this disgusting affair are the people of Massachusetts who returned him to the senate six more times.

CAM
CAM
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 10:57am

“Kennedy liked to joke about Chappaquiddnick”. Another example of the pro-abort Lion of the Senate having no conscience.
When are the American clergy and Irish-American Catholics, especially those in Massachusetts, going to have a conscience and detach themselves from the Democratic Party?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 11:59am

the greatest villains in this disgusting affair are the people of Massachusetts who returned him to the senate six more times.

Agreed. The time to take him out would have been in 1970. The Massachusetts Republican Party nominated a useless creature named Josiah Spaulding to run against him.

https://books.google.com/books?id=nqpFDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT265&lpg=PT265&dq=josiah+spaulding+chappaquiddick&source=bl&ots=ITyRlV6HLA&sig=ACfU3U2LQ84aBmayAyMWP8Mlz_bnDfs14A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwil0fiChb_jAhUBvVkKHZdIBcMQ6AEwBnoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=josiah%20spaulding%20chappaquiddick&f=false

And it should damage George McGovern’s reputation that he actually offered the VP slot to Kennedy in 1972.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 12:02pm

When are the American clergy and Irish-American Catholics, especially those in Massachusetts, going to have a conscience and detach themselves from the Democratic Party?

Irish Catholics for whom the Church is something more than what G.K. Chesterton called ‘the religion of the household gods’ have already done so.

Dennis D
Dennis D
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 1:12pm

There’s a misspelling in your above article, Art. Kennedy was the lyin’ of the Senate. Not lion.

OrdinaryCatholic
OrdinaryCatholic
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 3:03pm

Ken, I was once a resident of Massachusetts from my birth to the early 70’s there is one quote from WBZ TV in Boston which came from a random interview with the “man on the street of Boston” during an election campaign in which Teddy was involved. The question was “Who will you vote for for Senator?” The guy on the street gave the reporter an incredulous look and said: “Ted Kennedy of course! Come on, this is Boston, Massachusetts! He’s a Kennedy, we always vote for the Kennedy’s!” That is the mentality down there(down from New Hampshire where I now live.) I still have a bunch of family that still live there and I can tell you they just walk around like zombies and do what they’re told. It’s a sickening sight. Those same people from Taxachusetts have now set their sights on NH. This state, NH, I call home is going down the tubes real fast with the invasion across our southern NH border. Pray for us.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Thursday, July 18, AD 2019 3:25pm

I still have a bunch of family that still live there and I can tell you they just walk around like zombies and do what they’re told.

You’ll notice that outside of the Boston media market, the Kennedys aren’t that competitive. One of Ethel’s brood was elected to a municipal council in southern California and one of Eunice Shriver’s served a couple of terms in the Maryland legislature (a state where her husband’s family has history). Edward Kennedy’s older son served a couple of terms in the Connecticut legislature. That’s about it. Arnold Schwarzeneggar had a Kennedy connection, but it’s difficult to make the case that was of any consequence. Kathleen Townsend’s efforts to build a career in Maryland politics were a failure; four attempts to win an office in her own right, four losses. Caroline Kennedy’s efforts to cadge an appointment to a U.S. Senate seat in New York were rebuffed by Gov. Patterson.

And, of course, you’ll remember that the Lion of the Senate hisself won all of 11 states in his misbegotten effort to take out Jimmy Carter. Hubert Humphrey stomped the cut-and-run faction flat at the 1968 Democratic convention, so you know Robert Kennedy would have failed had he not been shot to death by an Arab loon. The NPC’s you’re talking about are found in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

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