Ted Kennedy died the other day. You can get the predictable hagiography elsewhere.
I’ll instead focus on the other side.
We’ll start with Chappaquiddick. That’s the common name used to describe the incident in which a drunken Ted Kennedy killed a woman. (It happened on Chappaquiddick island.)
It goes like this: Ted Kennedy, a US Senator and married man, met up with 5 male friends and 6 unmarried females for a party. At some point in the evening, he took a woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, for a ride in a car.
Kennedy, who was drunk, crashed the car off a bridge. Kopechne drowned. Kennedy returned to the party and did not tell his friends what had happened. The police were not called.
He returned to his hotel room later that night. The next morning he eventually called the police at the urging of his friends (and after the car had already been discovered). He had his driver’s license suspended for six months and received a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of the accident.
So how did the magnanimous “Lion of the Senate” feel about the incident? Remorse? Nah, it was his favorite topic for jokes:
I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.
The conventional wisdom says that Chappaquiddick is why Ted never became President. I still want to know why it wasn’t his record as a felon that precluded him from serving.
Over at The Huffington Post they want to know if Kopechne could have seen what a great Senator Teddy would become, if she wouldn’t think dying was worth it. Actually, that meme is not just a HuffPo thing.
Other classy Kennedy fun facts:
- Noted feminist and hero to women everywhere had a thing for sexually assaulting women.
- He had the chance to pass Universal Health Care during the Nixon Administration, but instead torpedoed it.
- He actively worked to undermine Ronald Reagan’s dealings with the Soviets in 1984.
But other than all of that, I’m sure he was a really great guy.
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At least you were classy enough not to do a 'Harbinger of Death' post.
Ideally, I would like each and every human being to find forgiveness and reconnect with God before their life is taken.
When that obviously doesn't happen, it's a sad thing.
That said, I won't specifically mourning his death. My heart instead goes out to those who are still here and are struggling to choose between right and wrong every day.
So to encourage them, I would have to say that canonizing this tragic figure is completely uncalled for, as is crude humor about the death.
I'd say the most just thing we can do is simply, with taste, try to tell the whole truth about a man who relentlessly tried to forge his own path, while combating a wretched addiction to chemicals and to lewd sexual misconduct. He certainly made a mark and we can't afford to forget the lessons as we write the history of Michael Jackson.
…I mean Ted Kennedy!
crap