Posted on 07/30/2005 11:35:55 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
The Hero of Chappaquiddick: a profile of liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy
Local Columnist Jack Ward
On the anniversary of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Edward M. (Teddy) Kennedy wanted to make sure everyone was reminded of the incident. Since Sen. Kennedy wants to remind us of history, I feel obligated to mention the anniversary of Kennedy's troubled past.
Teddy is the last son of Joe and Rose Kennedy. The older, famous sons John (JFK) and Robert (RFK) are icons in Democrat politics. But as Cleo O'Donnell, a wife of a former Kennedy campaign aide said, "Teddy Kennedy was the weak kitten in the litter, never able to measure up to his brothers." At prep school his performance was so mediocre his brother JFK once referred to Teddy as "the gay illiterate."
Teddy was admitted to Harvard as a legacy student rather than for academic achievement. Teddy was fortunate that JFK, RFK and his father had graduated with distinction. Teddy's claim to fame at Harvard was getting expelled for cheating in his sophomore year. After getting expelled, he sat around feeling sorry for himself until he signed up for a four-year hitch in the Army.
His father Joe (who was the U.S. Ambassador to England) was very upset. He reportedly said, "Don't you ever look at what you're signing?" He then pushed political buttons and revised the enlistment to two years. It is nice to have a daddy fix your screw-ups. In two years he never go above the rank of private.
After demonstrating his military prowess, Teddy returned to Harvard and joined the rugby team. Rugby has been described as a "character-building sport." In one match, Teddy go into three fist-fights and was finally thrown out of the game. According to referee Frederick Costick, "Teddy was the only player he had ever expelled from a game of 30 years of officiating." Rugby did little to improve Teddy's character.
After graduating from Harvard, he entered the University of Virginia Law School. At Virginia, he was called "Cadillac Eddie." He got four tickets in two years for running red lights and driving at night with lights off at 90 miles per hour through neighborhoods. But even with convictions, fines and strict driving regulations, he never lost his license.
When JFK was elected president in 1960, his Massachusetts Senate seat became vacant. Papa Joe said, "Look, I paid for it, it belongs in the family." But Teddy wasn't 30, so he couldn't run. So Joe got an interim slug to occupy the office until Teddy could be anointed. In 1962, Ol' Joe succeeded and Teddy became a U.S. Senator.
On July 18, 1969, Teddy's sordid past caught up with him at Chappaquiddick, Marths's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Teddy was one of a party of six married men and six single women. Investigators confirmed that a package liquor store sold three half-gallons of vodka, four fifths of scotch, two bottles of rum and two cases of beer for the party. Attendee Joe Gargan said, "Frankly, everybody was a little bombed."
About 12:45 a.m., Teddy and campaign aide Mary Jo Kopechne decided to leave the party. Rather than have Teddy's personal chauffeur (Jack Crimmins) drive, Teddy demanded to drive Mary Jo "to the ferry" - but the ferry had stopped running at midnight.
Deputy Sheriff Christopher "Huck" Look saw a black Oldsmobile driving erratically and the driver appeared to be in a "confused state." Even with the partial license plate, it was verified to be Kennedy's car. After being spotted by Deputy Look, Kennedy sped off. In his haste, he missed the bridge and the car went into the water. Teddy escaped but Mary Jo Kopechne didn't. Kennedy didn't report the accident for more than 10 hours.
Neither Kennedy's timeline nor account of events matched the facts nor the statements from the deputy sheriffs or nearby residents. While the 10-hour delay ensured that he couldn't be charged with driving while intoxicated, his driver's license had expired and he had fled the scene of an accident. Friends recreated his driver's lcense, but Chapter 90, Section 24 of the Massachusetts vehicle code requires "imprisonment for not less than 20 days or more than two years" when a driver leaves the scene of an accident where injuries occur - for all people except a Kennedy.
State police detective-lieutenant George Killen said, "Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."
In 1973, Sen. Ted Kennedy said, "Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?"
Teddy should know.
Jack Ward is a retired aerospace employee who lives in Santa Cruz. He provides a local conservative viewpoint to the Register-Pajaronian. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of the Register-Pajaronian.
State police detective-lieutenant George Killen said, "Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger."
Mary Jo K saved the country from this slob.
"That Chivas is a helluva drug!"
The "conscience" of the left surely is a moral leper.
"Shut up! You lost your credibility the same day you lost your manhood and whatever latent sympathy owed you for the untimely deaths of your brothers when you swan away from a helpless young girl trapped in a sunken automobile."
90 MPH with the lights off-sounds like very little has changed over the years for Teddy!
After this incident and the Billy "the Rapist" Clinton saga, I wonder that anyone in the Rat party has credibility on the subject of ethics and morality. They will go along with anything in order to maintain their power. (Such as it is.)
Good column...suggest you contact him and recruit him as a FReeper.
The gay illiterate? I think hes well versed on all gay issues.
"A review of the highlights of Sen. Kennedy's career for people like me who are a little hazy on them."
All you need to know is that a piglet becomes boar.
Well, that and the fact that given time and the right treatment, pigs can made into bacon...
It's more along the lines of 'gay blade'.....
I emailed him after the last of his columns I posted (a history of the ACLU) and invited him to FR. I don't know if he took me up on it. He may be on board.
Ted Kennedy = a POS with a neck brace.
At the MRC's "DisHonors Awards for the Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporting of 2003," Pierce won the "Ozzy Osbourne Award (for the Wackiest Comment)" for this assertion in a January 5, 2003 Boston Globe Magazine profile of Senator Ted Kennedy: "If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age."
Well put! I'd like to hear that, too!
I was a receptionist in a radiologist's office when Teddy did his run for prez. My co-workers were strong supporters. They had his face on buttons on their coats. I pinned "Chappaquiddick" to mine.
I know, I'm just a smart-alec
At the time of this mess, it was reported in some of the newspapers that Teddy said he swam the channel to Edgartown because the ferry had quit running. Evidently, he showed up at his hotel, and tried to make a big thing with a hotel employee about the time, and seemed to be trying to establish an alibi. I haven't seen this referred to in years, but it was a part of the original stories coming out of this fiasco.
Another part of the original story also seems to have gotten dropped along the way. Teddy told a pitiful tale of having swum to exhaustion trying to extricate Mary Jo from the Submarine USS Oldsmobile Delta 88 which then was cruising on the bottom of Poucha Pond with her as the only passenger.
ping
Here he sits, like a fat, dumpy piece of s--t and looks down his nose at people like us, and Bush....this just makes me sick....
AND old joe...'this seat is mine, I bought and paid for it' no wonder we can't get rid of the drunken, murdering, slob....
People in Mass. should wake up and smell the sea air... he is such a disgrace fat pig....
Any way to verify this or prove it untrue?
"Teddy was one of a party of six married men and six single women."
So was Teddy one of the single women?
The fact that he didn't alert authorities -- tells me that he DID NOT try to help her escape her death.
Look at comment 13, Lunkhead. It's something I forgot, too. The word gay wasn't expropriated by homo's until well after JFK made that comment.
Does anyone remember the Star Trek (TOS) episode called "And the Children Shall Lead Them." It was about a group of children who were led by an evil alien they called "the angel," The angel led them to kill their parents. The children ignorantly followed him until Kirk & Co. managed to reveal the angel's true appearance-the Gorgan, which looks a lot like modern-day Ted Kennedy (lol). Once revealed, the malevolent entity no longer had any power over the children. Too bad the Dems are too blind with their dogma to see Teddy for what he truly is. I surfed around to find a picture of the Gorgan, but couldn't locate the one that looks like Kennedy.
Incidentally, the actor who played the Gorgan was Melvin Belli, a personal injury lawyer who volunteered to defend Jack Ruby. I know that doesn't really have anything to do with this thread, other than the odd connection back to the Kennedys.
"In two years he never got above the rank of private."
Does anyone know the details on this? Did he make it to PFC (E-3)?
My family always believed that Teddy had gotten special treatment.
I also remember Teddy's tale of trying to dive down and rescue Mary Jo. The public found it unbelievable, because he could have called for help during his long trek back home -- but didn't. I don't have the details at my fingertips, but it was established that he could have knocked on somebody's door along the way and told them to call the cops. He didn't do that, because he was most likely inebriated.
Take the cheating on his Spanish exam during his term at Harvard. He didn't just glace over at the student sitting beside him, which is the usual act of the average cheating student. Ted paid someone to sit in and take the exam for him. Unfortunately for Ted the proctor knew what he looked like and put an end to the ruse.
If only the citizens of Massachusetts were as alert as the proctor
My family, in the late 60's or early 70's, was passing around a copy of an anti-Teddy paperback titled "Teddy Bare", an expose of all of Ted's crimes and shenanigans. Wonder if this book is still around somewhere.
The folks I wonder about are the voters in Massachusetts. How could sane people possibly elect Fat Teddy and Traitor John, time after time?
Q: How many Kennedy's does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: One. But not until 10 hours after it burned out.
Ted Kennedy is the ultimate Democrat and appropriate spokesman for the party of Godless communists, socialists, traitors, criminals, perverts, race-baiters, parasites, pseudo-intellectual elitists, and the feeble-minded. But not for Ted Kennedy, who could adequately speak for the vermin of this country?
Thanks Homer Jay, that article is a keeper!
So why did the Harvard administrators allow him to re-enroll after his army enlistment? Oh, wait. Isn't Harvard in Massachusetts?
Please disregard my silly question.
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life." Dean Wormer, Faber College.
But it is worthy of a tagline!
I was at National Airport in DC one time, (I think it is now Reagan Airport), between planes, having lunch at a lunch counter between concourses. He passed by, within 2 feet of me. I instantly recognized him. He didn't yet have the weight in this picture you sent along, but I was struck by the pocks and scales all over his face. He looked as if he had a skin disease of some sort. Lost my appetite, and was thankful afterwards he wasn't on my plane,nor in the seat next to me once I boarded.
The exam he cheated on was for Spanish???
Not Physics, Calculus or Organic Chemistry?
Gee, that's tough - I am shocked!
Mary Joe is an American heroine. In losing her life, she
kept Tubby Teddy from ever becoming President.
Before we let Ted Kennedy take his seat on the Justice Committee for the John Roberts confirmation hearings, we need him to release the sealed documents from his case in
Chappaquiddick. In Kennedy's own words (concerning Judge Roberts' Justice Department documents), "There is no privilege, there is no rule, and there is no logic that would bar us from getting these documents . . ." If sealed documents are so important in determining a Supreme Court justice, then they are just as important for the American people to know the qualifications of these committe members.
This is the first I've ever heard about the "honorable" Senator's distinguished and "brilliant" military career. When I was in the military, we referred to people like Red Ted as dirtbags. And he had the gall to attack President Bush's military record. Give...me...a...break.
You're so right CedarDave,
What's behind all the blinders proudly worn by our friends the Dummycrats aka Kennedy's Useful Idiots?
Surely that don't really believe Kopechne's death isn't important just because 36 years have past? They can't really believe that Kennedy receiving a slap on the wrist for leaving the crime scene is justice served for a death HE caused either accidentally or otherwise? They were once a major force that fought against the death penalty on the grounds that "if just one innocent person is exucuted, it's murder or at the very least wrongful".....in their pursuit of what they considered justice. Like Kennedy doing nothing in the hours immediately following Mary Jo's death, they today, as they have for decades since Chappaquiddick have done nothing to see that justice is served in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne here in Massachusetts. What happened to the ideal of "if just one innocent person is executed...."? She was afterall one of their own flock, innocent, deserving of her civil rights.
Even Libs must admit blinders with blinders on and all, that the Kennedy family alone has inflicted more pain & torture upon women and children than they would have us believe Saddam & his sons Uday and Qusay ever did. Let's never forget Michael Skakel's murder of Martha Moxley and the 27 year cover-up of that brutal crime (side note: Skakel's own ex-mother-n-law, Hope Sheridan, had her own plunge into the Atlantic in 2004 under mysterious circumstances eerily similiar to Mary Jo's). Let's never forget Michael Kennedy's alledged rape of his fourteen year old babysitter in Cohasset, Mass nor the local "press" referring to as simply an "alledged affair" (note: Michael's life came to a sudden end too). Let's not forget the Kennedy family circling wagons during the William Kennedy Smith trial, Smith was accused back then of raping Patricia Bowman during yet another drunken Kennedy weekend, this time with a half dressed Teddy present along with his son Patrick Kennedy & nephew William K Smith. Smith beat that rap with the help of the elder Teddy but was later forced to resign as president and chair of the Center for International Rehabilitation in Chicago after charges that he had sexually assaulted Audra Soulias in 1999. Smith then reportedly paid six figures in an out-of-court settlement to Laura Hamilton for similiar misconduct against her, yet another female victim of a Kennedy. Let's not forget the mental anguish dished out by Joe Kennedy to his former wife Sheila Rauch, his "firecracker" incident, or the treatment Joan Kennedy is now receiving from the Kennedy syndicate.
Shameful perhaps but it's best explained if one realizes that our friends here in Boston have contracted "Cardinal Law Syndrome". That's when one knows all about crimes & misconduct committed by one's own flock and then not only chooses to ignore it but eventually accepts the misconduct as normal, then embraces it, then even promotes it.
Consider this: "Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking Republican in the Senate, refused yesterday to back off on his earlier statements connecting Boston's ''liberalism" with the Roman Catholic Church pedophile scandal, saying that the city's ''sexual license" and ''sexual freedom" nurtured an environment where sexual abuse would occur." - The Boston Globe, July 13, 2005
I think Senator Santorum is onto something here, something obvious to even the most casual observer. All that's required is an honest review of the facts.
These same liberals aka Dummycrats nuture an environment where sexual misconduct & abuse is allowed to run rampant in Massachusetts Democratic circles & to fester nationwide. Gary, aka "Gerry" Studds' (D-MA) 1983 rape of a teenage Congressional page of the same sex and the homosexual whore house conducted out of Barney Frank's (D) Washington DC apartment come quickly to mind. Studds was censured for the homosexual rape & Frank reprimanded for abusing his office by fixing tickets for prostitute & lover Steve Gobey. Both Studds & Frank refused to resign their seats however. At the same time of Studd's misconduct, Illinois Rep Daniel Crane (R) was caught with a female page and likewise censured, he however lost his re-election bid by voters in Illinois ousting him. When Newt Gingrich (R -GA) was later reprimanded for "intentional or ... reckless" disregard of House rules by using tax-exempt foundations for political purposes he resigned unlike the corrupt Frank. There's simply no moral standards here in Massachusetts to compel crooked politicians to do the right thing nor the political leadership to force them to do so when required.
"Whatevah" is the Dummycrat mantra when one of their own is caught with their pants down or worst. "Forgetaboutit" & "Getoverit" they scream but that didn't stop them from going after Senator Robert Packwood who was accused of simply kissing women (on a serial basis) or at worst groping them dating back to 1969, the same period of time when Kennedy killed Kopechne. Again during that same period of time, the infamous Kennedy-Dodd sandwich incident was committed where both US Senators publically assaulted waitress Carla Gaviglio. Packwood resigned from the Senate after the Senate Ethics Committee recommended that he be expelled from the Senate for ethical misconduct. Both Kennedy (D) & Dodd (D) still serve though under less than honorably by most people's standards. Even the IRA called Kennedy's conduct into question recently.
Time elapsed didn't stop Dummycrat operatives from going after Clarence Thomas claiming he sexually harassed Anita Hill almost a decade earlier on nothing but her say so. Though Barbara Boxer jumped on that bandwagon she was noticebly silent when Gary Condit was embroiled in the Chandra Levy affair. No Whatevah for Thomas but a boatlaod of Forgetaboutit for Condit & other liberals hacks.
There's nothing for Santorum to apologize for. Perhaps if Teddy asks Roberts whether or not Roe vs Wade is settled law, Santorum or others might ask him if Chappaquiddick is?
NO! He has not had enough pain.
Do you really believe he would have treated Mary Joe as more
than "Quickie"? He has never been anything but a spoiled rich
brat.
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