What is your overall feeling about Kennedy? (Poll Question)

Aol News ^ | 8/27/09 | AOL

[OneVike]

Here are two poll questions about Ted Kennedy the swimmer.

What is your overall feeling about Kennedy?

How important is Chappaquiddick to Kennedy's legacy?

(Aug. 26)

He looks bad already, but I sure would like to see him look a lot worse still. The guy deserves as much respect as he gave Mary Jo on that late night in 69 when he allowed her to die instead of trying to rescue her.
If obituaries were written based on Google Trends results, Chappaquiddick would be in the first paragraph of Sen. Ted Kennedy's obituary.

"Chappaquiddick" and other search terms related to the car accident on Martha's Vineyard that killed Mary Jo Kopechne account for four of the top 10 on the list as this is being written.

Sen. Ted Kennedy's car is pulled from the water at Chappaquiddick July 19, 1969. Mary Jo Kopechne's body was found in the back seat

Whenever AOL News runs any story about Kennedy, readers quickly fill the comments area with references to the scandal. Here's a sampling of the vitriol from our article on the senator's death.

Mary Jo, It's finally over. Your killer is now before God and you will receive justice. Ted is now before the righteous Judge, may He have mercy upon Ted's soul. (my words edited in)

Clearly, some have never forgiven Kennedy. And so, as unpleasant as it may be, no review of Kennedy's life is complete without a mention of Chappaquiddick's part in his legacy.

[roses of sharon]

[celtic gal]

You are quite wrong. Arlington is not reserved for only those who have received the Purple Heart of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Here are the rules:
FOR GROUND BURIAL
1. Any member of the armed forces who dies on Active Duty may be buried in Arlington.
2. Members retired from active military service.
3. Members retired from the Reserves who meet the following criteria: reached the age of 60, drawing military retired pay, and served a period of active duty ( other than for training).
4. Former prisoners of war, who while prisoners of war, served honorably, whose last period of active military service terminated honorably, and who died on or after 30 Nov 1993.
5. Honorably discharged veterans, not otherwise qualified, who also have held high positions in the federal government.
6. Former members of the armed force, not entitled to retired pay, separated from active duty for a physical disability of 30% or more on the day of discharge before 1 Oct 1949,
7. Former members of the armed forces, not entitled to retired pay, separated from active duty( other than for training) and terminated honorably, who have been awarded one of the following decorations, MOH, DSC,DSM, Silver Star, or Purple Heart.
8. Spouses, unmarried minor children younger than 21 ( or age 23 if attending college) of persons listed above and persons already buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
9. Unmarried adult children of an eligible person if they become permanently incapable of self support because of a mental or physical disability incurred before the age of 21.
10. Surviving spouse of a previously interred sponsoring person.

FOR COLUMBARIUM:
1 Any member of the armed forces who dies on active duty.
2. Members retired from active military service.
3. Any former member of the armed forces who served on active duty (other than for training) and whose last service ended honorably.
4. A member on authorized inactive duty training, including training performed as a member of the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard (23USC,502).
5.Certain Reserve and ROTC members who die while on active duty, while training or on authorized travel, or while hospitalized as the result of active duty, training, or authorized travel.
6. American members of allied forces whose last service ended honorably.
7. Certain commissioned officers of NOAA or USPHS.
8. A former member of a group that has been certified as active military service for the purpose of receiving VA benefits under the provisions of Section 401, P>I>95-202.
9. The spouse, unmarried minor or dependent adult child of any of the above.
10. the surviving spouse of a previously interred person. Taken from the MOAA Guide to Military Burials. I hope this answers the question of who is eligible for Arlington National Cemetery.

[Fred Nerks]

Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick statement

Edward Kennedy presents his side of the Chappaquiddick incident in this address.Photograph by: Screen grab, YouTubeThe following is an edited and abbreviated transcript of Edward Kennedy’s statement following the Chappaquiddick controversy:

There is no truth, no truth whatever, to the widely circulated suspicions of immoral conduct that have been leveled at my behavior and hers regarding that evening. There has never been a private relationship between us of any kind. I know of nothing in Mary Jo’s conduct on that or any other occasion — and the same is true of the other girls at that party — that would lend any substance to such ugly speculation about their character.

Nor was I driving under the influence of liquor.

Little over one mile away, the car that I was driving on an unlit road went off a narrow bridge which had no guard rails and was built on a left angle to the road. The car overturned in a deep pond and immediately filled with water. I remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head that I was for certain drowning. Then water entered my lungs and I actual felt the sensation of drowning. But somehow I struggled to the surface alive.

I made immediate and repeated efforts to save Mary Jo by diving into the strong and murky current, but succeeded only in increasing my state of utter exhaustion and alarm. My conduct and conversations during the next several hours, to the extent that I can remember them, make no sense to me at all.

Although my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion, as well as shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the blame either on the physical and emotional trauma brought on by the accident, or on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately.

Instead of looking directly for a telephone after lying exhausted in the grass for an undetermined time, I walked back to the cottage where the party was being held and requested the help of two friends, my cousin, Joseph Gargan and Phil Markham, and directed them to return immediately to the scene with me — this was sometime after midnight — in order to undertake a new effort to dive down and locate Miss Kopechne. Their strenuous efforts, undertaken at some risk to their own lives, also proved futile.

All kinds of scrambled thoughts — all of them confused, some of them irrational, many of them which I cannot recall, and some of which I would not have seriously entertained under normal circumstances — went through my mind during this period. They were reflected in the various inexplicable, inconsistent, and inconclusive things I said and did, including such questions as whether the girl might still be alive somewhere out of that immediate area, whether some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys, whether there was some justifiable reason for me to doubt what had happened and to delay my report, whether somehow the awful weight of this incredible incident might in some way pass from my shoulders. I was overcome, I’m frank to say, by a jumble of emotions: grief, fear, doubt, exhaustion, panic, confusion, and shock.

Instructing Gargan and Markham not to alarm Mary Jo’s friends that night, I had them take me to the ferry crossing. The ferry having shut down for the night, I suddenly jumped into the water and impulsively swam across, nearly drowning once again in the effort, and returned to my hotel about 2 a.m. and collapsed in my room.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Kennedy+Chappaquiddick+statement/1932129/story.html

[celtic gal]

I agree. President Reagan, while not everyone agreed with his policies, at least seems to have had respect for this great man and his optimism for this nation. What a loss when he died.

[eyedigress]

He was never prosecuted for a DUI Homicide and had to bury his family. He lived a hard life.

[pankot]

How about “he was a pig’s crooked penis with ears”?

[dervish]

done

[blondee123]

From the looks of the poll results, he isn’t thought of well at all. The RATS are losing favor with the people, would imagine O’s numbers will be that bad very soon!

[Outlaw Woman]

Well they will continue to try but already reports are out that TV viewership is very low and FOX, I read, is taking the hint and not doing wall-to-wall coverage (I’m without TV at the present time). I hope they keep trying with all their might....just another example of the marxists ramming something down our throats only we are not buying it! People are slowly but surely catching on to their tactics!

[pankot]

They will need help and 12 strong men to carry that fat pig to his appointment with Satan.

[roses of sharon]

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/chappaquiddick.htm

See two 2.5 mb and 3mb pdf FBI file:
http://foia.fbi.gov/chappaquiddick/chappaquiddick_pt01.pdf
http://foia.fbi.gov/chappaquiddick/chappaquiddick_pt02.pdf

[metalurgist]

After everyone takes the poll at the top of the page, scroll down to about the middle on the right side and take all 14 of the hot seat polls.

[Vendome]

Wow! I am co-opting that.

[ADemocratNoMore]

“One of His favorite topics of humor was Chappaquiddick” [Mark Hemingway]

OMG, that is just so incredibly sick. I will say no more so as not to incur the wrath of an Administrator.

[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

BTTT

[Roberts]

bump

[AndyTheBear]

I have no respect for the man, and agree he was pig.

But I could not bring myself to celebrate the idea of anyone going to hell.

[AmericanInTokyo]

The only objection I have with that graphic is #3.

Where it should say "Where Mary Jo and the Baby Died".

I would'nt have put it past him to have actually held her under in the water, what with the secret she must have had that would have ruining him politically. Odd that fathering a child out of wedlock or extramaritally would be enough to finish him politically, but not manslaughter or at the very worst, MURDER.

[budwiesest]

Kennedy's death has provided is the sheer number of people that either have never heard of Chappaquiddick or realized how the whole story was sanitized by a pro-Dem media and pro-Dem educational system.

I've been amazed at the ignorance displayed by younger generations. What opinions they have seem served-up by the popular media- they've zero understanding of the origion of our rights and why they exist.

The drunken, liberal, born into wealth, frat-boy failed his country as a sentry might his post- by letting the next 19 terrorists into the White House. That's right. He left his post, left the door wide open and now we have an anti-American administration taking advantage of his and other's disdain (guilt based) for freedom.

What he did to Mary Jo he did ten times to America. I only hope that when America renturns to it's senses and becomes the Republic it once was (and we will) we'll have the guts to exhume these traitors, place them on barges headed for Cuba, China, or Venezuela where their compatriots may intern them in a style befitting a socialist (say good-bye to the eternal flame).

The cemetary at Arlington needs to be cleasned of anti-Americans. Anything less desecrates the graves of those who gave their all in the name of freedom and liberty.

[WVKayaker]

What is your overall feeling about Kennedy?
Negative 70%
Positive 16%
Neutral 14%
Total Votes: 40,388