Getting Mean and Distinctly Ugly (Free Republic Dissed as 'Chappaquiddick-Type people')

The Ottawa Citizen ^ | Friday, August 28, 2009 | Janice Kennedy

[kristinn]

Two kinds of people reacted to news of Ted Kennedy’s death last week. The first — not all liberals, either — spoke of Kennedy’s hard work in the United States Senate, his dream of universal healthcare, his commitment to working people, civil rights and equality.

This “most imperfect man,” wrote analyst William Bradley, was also a powerful advocate for progressive principles. Barack Obama predictably (though accurately) observed that “for America, he was a defender of a dream.” In another variation on the visionary theme, Joe Biden said of his old friend, “He was never small.”

The other kind of reaction to Kennedy’s death could be summed up in one word: “Chappaquiddick.”

Not “vision” or “health-care reform,” not “peacemaking” or even “Camelot.” Just the controversial 40-year-old event, the ugliest single moment from the late senator’s 77 years on Earth, nearly 47 of them in public service. The small souls who spend their days hanging out in discussion forums at Free Republic, one of the U.S ultra-right’s more popular online homes, greeted news of Kennedy’s death characteristically, flinging around words like “traitor,” “coward,” “disgrace”— and, yes, references to the 1969 event. Chappaquiddick minds in a narrow, ungenerous world.

But the Chappaquiddick faction is not limited to either the United States or the senior senator from Massachusetts. It’s a state of mind, a summation of everything that is small and cribbed and contemptible — not unlike the sour (and embarrassing) one-line statement of perfunctory condolence on Wednesday from our own prime minister.

Chappaquiddick-type people possess a meanness of spirit that goes beyond simple politics. They’re responsible for a creeping diminution of vision and values. In Canada, which used to appreciate largeness of soul, they even have a government platform, thanks to Stephen Harper and company.

Consider the dramatic case of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, picked up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan at 15, or child-soldier age. When Harper’s government announced last week it would appeal — again — a ruling that it demand the Canadian-born Khadr’s repatriation, lawyer Dennis Edney said he wasn’t surprised. “We are used to this mean-spirited approach.”

But this government’s disgraceful stand on Khadr — the only Western detainee still in Guantanamo — is just part of it. The limited worldview, the impulse toward whatever is most ungenerous, is how it operates.

SNIP

[Lazamataz]

Typical strawman. The reason *I* celebrate Ted Kennedy's death is because he worked with the Soviet Union to undermine Reagan -- and America

Because he was a fierce advocate for socialism.

Because he was a vicious partisan who placed party before country.

Oh, yeah: Chappaquiddick.

[Ole Okie]

I remember Chappaquidick well. I couldn’t see how he was going to squirm out of that one, but money conquers all.

No, the things that I remember most about Teddy were the hateful lies that he spewed about Judge Bork and Judge Thomas. Those were two of the most disgraceful exhibitions ever seen in the US Senate.

After his performance at Chappaquidick, I was surprised he had the guts or stupidity to continue his political career.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Birthers and Bridgers! That’s the ticket!

[Canedawg]

Ahh yes, she is also a victim of Palin Derangement Syndrome. It all fits together.

[central_va]

Kennedy got drunk and was taking Mary Jo for a back seat trist and on the way his car ran off a bridge so he went home to sleep it off. She died. End of story.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, he WAS much pudgier than Mr. Biden.

[Canedawg]

“Bridgers?”

Well played.

[Yaelle]

Charles Manson only did TWO deliberate nights of murder. By this author's logic, he should be the Lion of the Penetentiary.

Remember that Kennedy could have been forgiven his drunken lust-fueled ride off the bridge and into the water. It's ghastly to cause someone to die due to negligence, which that would have been, had Mary Jo drowned or been killed by the crash, but a lifetime of good deeds may have enabled forgiveness by the general public. She did not drown or die in the crash, however.

Unforgivable is leaving an innocent woman to axphyxiate while he slept off the booze and hoped that the call to his family lawyer would have "cleaned up the mess" while leaving him out of it, to preserve his political career.

Like Charles Manson, it doesn't really matter what else he did for the rest of his life. Murder is murder.

[elizabethgrace]

Okay! :)

We be the birthers and bridgers! LOL

[ColdWater]

“Chappaquiddick-type people possess a meanness of spirit that goes beyond simple politics.”

Chappaquiddick-type people expose the evil in TK. They will not let history be re-written.

[ETL]

Gee, I would have assumed that a "Chappaquiddick-type" would be the type that would leave a young girl to drown in their car after they drove it off a bridge, likely while drunk...

Ted "Water Dog" Kennedy...

______________________________________________

Chappaquiddick:

"On Friday night July 18, 1969 around midnight a married man, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, was driving his oldsmobile on the island of Chappaquiddick with a single woman named Mary Jo Kopechne aboard when he, allegedly drunk, drove the car off a bridge and into a pond. He was leaving a party attended only by five married men and six unmarried women. Kennedy escaped the car and swam to shore. Mary Jo Kopechne was not quite so lucky. She died in the car, in the water.

Kennedy failed to even contact the police for a full nine hours, after he was told the car and body had been found.

The Kennedy family chartered a plane to immediately fly the victim's body to her hometown, Wilkes-Barre. No autopsy was conducted.

http://www.politicaldogs.org/2005/09/moral-compass.htm
_____________________________________________________

Kennedy 'joked about Chappaquiddick'
Biographer reveals deadly incident was a 'favorite topic of humor'

August 28, 2009

"Edward Klein, speaking to WAMU guest host Katty Kay, said one of Kennedy's 'favorite topics of humor was, indeed, Chappaquiddick.'

"He would ask people, 'Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?' said Klein, a former Newsweek foreign editor and former editor in chief of the New York Times Magazine."

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=108256
_____________________________________________________

YouTube video: Kennedy liked to joke about Chappaquiddick?

"This isn't an accusation from Ted Kennedy's political opponents, but a nostalgic remembrance by one of his friends. Ed Klein, former Newsweek editor, tells the Diane Rehm Show:

"I dont 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. Its not that he didnt 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."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaiTipTtbak

[hyperconservative]

4janicekennedy@gmail.com

from the website

[freedumb2003]

>>“public service” again. what a joke.<<

“Lust for power” is the proper term.

[timetostand]

Personaly I won’t judge the man. Just not my place. God will judge. There will be justice!

[Mad Dawgg]

"Chappaquiddick-type people possess a meanness of spirit that goes beyond simple politics."

Yes, exactly... How dare the peons question the praise heaped on a man who did not notify any authorities until the next day after he drunkenly drove his car off a bridge and swam away to safety, assuring Mary Jo would never see the light of day again.

If any of us little people had did such a thing we would have been slapped in irons and tried for Murder but because Teddy was one of the chosen people, he gets away with it!

[Signalman]

I just sent Ms. Kennedy a link to this thread.

[fanfan]

Janice Kennedy is a flaming Socialist who once wrote an article about how shocked she was to see neighbours she otherwise thought were good people, putting signs for Stephen Harper's Conservatives on their lawn during the last election.

The publisher, Jim Orban, is a flaming liberal, who is closely tied to the Liberal Party.

[Darnright]

>Not “vision” or “health-care reform,” not “peacemaking” or even “Camelot.” Just the controversial 40-year-old event, the ugliest single moment from the late senator’s 77 years on Earth, nearly 47 of them in public service. The small souls who spend their days hanging out in discussion forums at Free Republic, one of the U.S ultra-right’s more popular online homes, greeted news of Kennedy’s death characteristically, flinging around words like “traitor,” “coward,” “disgrace”— and, yes, references to the 1969 event. Chappaquiddick minds in a narrow, ungenerous world.<

And yet, a man’s whole career can be tainted permanently because he put an extra vowel on the end of “Potato”. Another man’s career has been trashed because of one word, “macacca”.

[Antoninus]

To put the phony media outrage in perspective, just imagine if Sarah Palin had had a “Chappaquiddick” type incident in her past...

[HiTech RedNeck]

We need to look at ourselves and see what we could do differently in the future to head off more Ted Kennedys.