Free Republic

In a draft chapter that failed to make the final editor’s cut, the late Senator Ted Kennedy boasted that he had slept with more than 1,000 women during his life. The Senator also recounted that he was quite pleased that it only cost him a total of $10 million in hush money. “In a way, the drowning of Mary Jo helped keep down the costs,” Kennedy wrote. “My ability to skate on that convinced many of my subsequent conquests to be reasonable in their demands lest a similar fate befall them.” The chapter also expressed some regret over the Kopechne...

ORALANDO, September 15, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In addition to his announcement that he is considering a run for President in 2012, former US Senator Rick Santorum gave his assessment of the controversy around the Ted Kennedy funeral during his speech to the Catholic Leadership Conference last week. Santorum's talk focused on rejuvenating the Catholic Church in the United States.During his speech Santorum lamented "what the Church allowed to happen" with the Kennedy funeral, referring to it as a "deification" of Kennedy.  "The damage done" to the Church, he said, "is profound.""We have Catholic politicians who have led this country astray, have led...

WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in a new book that he was not romantically involved with young Mary Jo Kopechne and that he never escaped the despair he felt after she died in the 1969 car crash that has been seared into the national consciousness as "Chappaquiddick." He acknowledged that he enjoyed women and drink — sometimes too much so — but said reports of wild Kennedy excesses were exaggerated. Yet it was the specter of Chappaquiddick that Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother, never could shake. "That night on Chappaquiddick Island ended in a horrible tragedy that haunts...

Watching the seemingly endless line of people parading past the flag-draped coffin of the late Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy, one wonders what it’s all about. Yes, liberals and Democrats are fond of conjecturing about “what might have been” had JFK and Bobby Kennedy not been assassinated, or “what might have been” if Kennedy had not driven his mother’s Oldsmobile off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island that fateful night in July 1969, killing Mary Jo Kopechne in the process. For most objective observers the attraction of Ted Kennedy will always remain a great mystery. Throughout history, those men and women whose...

If we'd had insatiable 24/7 cable news networks in July 1969, the accident on Chappaquiddick Island in which a passenger in a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy drowned would likely have dominated the national consciousness for months. Special programs every night devoted to nothing but pundits bickering over the depths of the 37-year-old Kennedy's responsibility for the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, 28. Town-hall-style chat shows every afternoon in which ordinary Americans issued their verdicts and sentences before the evidence was in.

The truth of what really happened on July 18, 1969, on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts will never be known. What is known is that at the end of the evening, Mary Jo Kopechne was found dead in a car that Edward (Ted) Kennedy had been driving. Was her death the result of a tragic accident or due to gross negligence on the part of Ted Kennedy? Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne attended the same party on the evening of July 18, 1969. Kennedy left the party with Kopechne as a passenger in his car and accidentally drove off the road...

Mark Steyn: Things only a Kennedy could get away with And by not calling his bluff on Chappaquiddick, Americans became complicit in it. We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation – or, at any rate, its "mainstream" media culture – declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's passing, America's TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard used to write about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble Appalachian household where there's a...

I've made a decision. After thoughtful reflection I've come to the conclusion that my life can have no greater purpose than to sacrifice it for the sake of another. But this sacrifice cannot be for some Jack Nobody. No, I am looking to lay my life down for a very specific type of person. If you are a young person of privilege, perhaps the black sheep of your family, and have an alarming drinking problem and been thrown out of an ivy league university, you might be the person I am looking for! Oh, quick question, were you a legacy...

Thursday afternoon, libertarian journalist David Weigel sent out a message on Twitter that struck me as profound: "The proliferation of liberal media watchdogs has led to much, much, much more repetition of what conservatives say." Watchdogging is perhaps the sincerest form of media flattery. If what was written and said by conservatives on the Internet, radio and TV had no influence on public discourse, liberals would not be constantly monitoring Mark Levin, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin. What is amusing, to anyone directly familiar with the haphazard operating environment of right-wing communications, is the liberal suspicion that everything conservatives do...

Maybe she phrased it wrong. Maybe liberal blogger Melissa Lafsky writing in Huffpo this morning had a brain cramp and wrote something she didn't want to. Maybe aliens made her do it.Somehow, some explanation must be given for this kind of incredible, tone deaf, idiocy:"We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don't know, as always, could fill a Metrodome. Still, ignorance doesn't preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn't automatically make someone (aka, me) a...

From Kennedy’s close friend Ed Klein: 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. Hear audio here

Sorry....Ted Kennedy is a monster, no other way to describe him. Here is one of his close friends, former editor of Newsweek and New York Times Magazine Ed Klein describing one of the favorite kind of jokes Mr. Kennedy enjoyed: [VIDEO AT SITE] 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...

Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy stood for sleaze. Bloated and drunken, he used his standing in the Kennedy clan to chase vulnerable women - which brought his dream of reaching the White House to a shameful end. He was the youngest of the four Kennedy brothers, and by far the longest lived. Incredibly, he was in line to inherit his brother John F. Kennedy's legendary presidency, but his chances were dashed following the drowning of the pretty, young campaign assistant Mary Jo Kopechne. Forever known as the Chappaquiddick Incident after the Massachusetts island where it took place, the scandal in 1969...

"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."

On this message board a poster started this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529543 and was threatened with being suspended from the message board for posting it. Then she went to discuss this in the section dedicated to discussing moderator actions and she was threatened with being banned. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529547 Then after that another poster defended her: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529549 and a bunch of posters complained they rescinded the warning violation order but said that her thread wouldn't be reopened and not allowed to be posted because it was posted in the wrong subcategory. So she posted it into a different subcategory: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=529558 and a bunch of...

The 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...

Vote on Lower left

How do you rate Sen. Edward Kennedy's political career?

This is my first vanity ever and likely my last but I have a question that some enterprising pajama journalist might investigate and answer. Why was there total silence from the Kopechne family after there daughters death?. There were no criminal charges against Teddy at the time , but there were never any civil procedings instigated either. Not a word from Mary Jo's family. Were they payed off? "Camelot" may have prevented it then but there is no reason it can't be investiagted now. Thoughts?

Senator Edward Kennedy makes a testament on the events that lead to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. She was a passenger in his car when he drove off Dyke Bridge into the channel between Chappaquiddick Island and Martha's Vineyard in 1969. The Senator swam to safety, but Kopechne drowned. He did not report the accident until the following day. He pleaded guilty to leaving a scene of crime and received a two-month suspended sentence.

Sen. Edward Moore Kennedy, the youngest Kennedy brother who was left to head the family's political dynasty after his brothers President John F. Kennedy and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, has died at age 77.

Senator Ted Kennedy has died.

Politics: Should the election law in Massachusetts be changed to keep Ted Kennedy's seat filled and get ObamaCare passed? As in Minnesota and Illinois, the voters might lose again.Recognizing his own mortality and waging a valiant battle against brain cancer, Kennedy has written a letter to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, state Senate President Theresa Murray and state House Speaker Robert DeLeo asking them to change the law so his seat might be filled immediately until a special election could be held. His letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Boston Globe, does not specially mention his illness or...

On the evening of July 18, 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne died while trying to free herself from Edward M. Kennedy’s submerged automobile in a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. The fortieth anniversary of Miss Kopechne’s death passed with scarcely a word’s being mentioned of it in the media. Perhaps it was not simply a matter of liberal bias. With Senator Kennedy now seriously ill, many journalists no doubt considered that it might be unseemly to bring up the subject. But however uncomfortable it may be to recall the circumstances of Mary Jo Kopechne’s death, Americans must not forget what happened...

Forty years ago Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy (D-MA) attended a funeral for a 28-year-old Pennsylvania woman. Her death is eerily unremarked, mostly unremembered today, at least in mainstream media. Yet the story left untold is the tragic stuff of a Joseph Conrad novel. As a date in history, July 18 is not particularly noteworthy. Not much happened on that date since the Brits and tempestuous storms decimated the Spanish Armada in 1588. On July 18, 1969, Mary Jo Kopechne drowned in an overturned, submerged Oldsmobile in a back channel off Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. The anniversary of her death is...

Saturday, July 18th, was the fortieth anniversary of the day that Mary Jo Kopechne drowned at Chappaquiddick (an island part of Edgartown,Massachusetts) in a car driven off a bridge by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D.-Mass.). And, still, questions linger. What did Kennedy do that night? Was he intoxicated? Why wasn’t he prosecuted? The one question still pondered by political observers on all sides: did what is known universally known as “the Chappadquiddick incident” keep Kennedy from being elected President? Clearly, it did. For younger readers who know Kennedy -- now 77 and battling cancer -- primarily as the premier voice...

Just past midnight on Saturday, July 19, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, just off Cape Cod. The Senator escaped a watery death, but a passenger in his car, twenty-eight-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not.

Sometime around midnight, on July 18, 1969 Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile 88 off of a small bridge on Chappaquiddick island, into eight feet of chilly water. The vehicle landed upside-down. While Kennedy managed to free himself from the wreck and swim to safety, his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne was left in the car to drown.

Earlier this week, ABC, CBS and NBC all noted the tenth anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. That Kennedy was an “icon” according to CBS’s Harry Smith, and “the Prince of Camelot” to ABC’s Chris Cuomo, a former cousin-in-law. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, killed July 18, 1969 after leaving a party with Senator Edward Kennedy. That night, Kennedy drove his car off a bridge, and left the scene with Kopechne still in the submerged vehicle; he did not call the police until the following morning. Over the course of...

Senator Edward Kennedy is a murderer. He should not be celebrated as an elder statesmen who has done wonderful things for our country (Go back and see some of his landmark bills and what they have done to this country). July 18, 1969 should be remembered for the loss of life to Mary Jo Kopechne. Mary Jo was what was called a “Boiler Room Girl” for working in, well, boiler room conditions on Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. She was part speech writer, part secretary, but from all accounts a nice girl who believed in Robert Kennedy and his causes...

Here is video of the speech Sen. Ted Kennedy made to try and rehabilitate himself following the death of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island after he drove her off a bridge in his car, leaving her to drown on July 19, 1969. Tomorrow will be 40 years since it happened. In this video, he says he finds his own behavior "indefensible" in waiting for hours to call authorities after getting out of the car himself, but leaving Kopechne in the car. Obviously, the entire speech was his attempt to indirectly defend himself. Below is a summary of "The Chappaquiddick...

<p>British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in a formal address to Congress this morning, announced that Queen Elizabeth has conferred honorary knighthood on Sen. Edward Kennedy, the veteran Massachusetts Democrat who is battling brain cancer.</p> <p>Northern Ireland is today at peace, more Americans have healthcare, more children around the world are going to school, and for all those things we owe a great debt to the life and courage of Senator Edward Kennedy.</p>

The Kennedy family is seeking revenge against New York Gov. David Paterson for his treatment of Caroline Kennedy during her aborted bid for the senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, the New York Post reported "The governor's going to pay for this," a prominent Democrat told the New York Post. "Ted is furious. The family is furious. The Kennedys are now against the governor." -snip-

Saturday is the 39th anniversary of the death of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquidick Island. A day that Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy would rather forget.

November 28, 2007 -- THE publisher of Sen. Ted Kennedy's autobiography won't likely recoup his $8.5 million advance unless the 75-year-old Democrat finally tells what really happened in 1969 at Chappaquiddick, where Kennedy's car went off a bridge, drowning campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne. But Jonathan Karp, head of the Twelve imprint at Hachette Book Group USA, isn't worried. Karp told Page Six yesterday, "When we met with Sen. Kennedy, he assured us he would be candid." Kennedy, who didn't report the Martha's Vineyard crash to police for many hours, eventually pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident...

Could a description of Mary Jo Kopechne's death in a car accident possibly not mention Ted Kennedy till five paragraphs later? Yes. That's how the Times Leader, the Wilkes Barre, PA based newspaper reported the passing away at age 89 of Mary Kopechne's mother Gwen, a local resident. Here's the opening paragraph [emphasis added]: A mother who lost her daughter in a well-publicized automobile accident in Massachusetts nearly 39 years ago was remembered Saturday as a caring woman who loved talking, drinking coffee and making pancakes for breakfast.

Daughter Mary Jo killed in 1969 accident while riding in car of U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. PLYMOUTH – A mother who lost her daughter in a well-publicized automobile accident in Massachusetts nearly 39 years ago was remembered Saturday as a caring woman who loved talking, drinking coffee and making pancakes for breakfast. Gwen L. Kopechne, 89, died on Dec. 20 at the Valley Crest Nursing Home in Plains Township. A small gathering of family and friends attended a Memorial Mass in her honor at All Saints Church in Plymouth. Family photographs pasted on a board were placed near the...

To this day, only one person truly knows what happened on a lonely Massachusetts bridge on the night of July 18, 1969. Sometime that evening, a car driven by US senator Ted Kennedy plunged into the icy water below. While the politician survived, his passenger, a 28-year-old aide, was not so lucky. Mary Jo Kopechne died on the road from Chappaquiddick that Friday night. In the ensuing scandal, the presidential hopes of the last of the Kennedy brothers were destroyed. Now the senator has signed a £4million deal to write his memoirs, due out in 2010, raising hopes he is...

What happened to Mary Jo Kopechne has long been over but still ruffles my feathers when I think about it. It still has value to remember the incident as a symbol of ethos. Some things wane from the fore-front that need not be forgotten. So another short reminder of the incident. For the holidays, a message of Teddy Kennedy. A Christmas message of Ted Kennedy* * * * * I've also a made short Vlog of Hillary that I'm reluctant to post here, because it shows boobies (twice, not actually Hillary's). The music is 'The Beatles' - 'Lady Madonna' and...

On This Day In History July 18, 1969: Incident on Chappaquiddick Island Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. On the evening of July 18, 1969, while most Americans were home watching television reports on the progress of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission, Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan were hosting a cookout and party...

In a recent speech to a Mississippi civic group, Sen. Trent Lott brought up Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's role on important domestic legislation, including Kennedy's latest push to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. When Lott was finished, a man in the audience came up to him and said: "You did real good. But that part about Kennedy -- don't say that no more." "He is the number one boogeyman for conservative Republicans," Lott said later of the longtime Democratic senator from Massachusetts. But, Lott added, "he is a good legislator, and you can't take that away from him." That Lott...

Don't listen to Teddy Kennedy. If you belong to the small band of conservative brothers inclined to support immigration reform, the Massachusetts senator is on your side. But what he says is likely to make you anxious, vexed, or even crazed. At times, Kennedy makes the compromise immigration bill sound like the latest loopy liberal legislation to provide welfare to the world.It's not. Indeed, much of the organized left opposes it. The AFL-CIO is especially upset about the provision to bring foreign workers here temporarily. But when you hear Kennedy on the subject, you have to wonder what they're so...

WASHINGTON – Alcohol-related deaths on U.S. roads rose to their highest level in 14 years in 2006, while the overall number of people killed in traffic crashes declined slightly but still topped 43,000, according to preliminary government estimates Friday. The Transportation Department said that drunken driving deaths rose 2.4 percent to 17,941 after a slight decline in 2005. It was the highest level since 1992 when 18,290 deaths were reported. Alcohol-related fatalities accounted for 41 percent of all traffic deaths, which dropped less than 1 percent last year to 43,300. Annual auto deaths have hovered around 43,000 for the past...

WASHINGTON -- Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John McCain are set to introduce a revised version of their sweeping plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, in a bill that's likely to restart a tense debate in Congress. The measure, which is being drafted in consultation with the White House, will largely mirror the immigration bill that stalled last year, according to lawmakers and aides involved in the process. That measure was blocked primarily because House Republican leaders were adamantly opposed to provisions that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to become US citizens.

SHOULD have brought a life vest and snorkel, Teddy. Sen. Ted Kennedy was having a ball reading to a captive roomful of New York City third-graders yesterday when suddenly a dangerous question spewed out of the mouths of babes. "When was your most embarrassing moment with Splash?" a pint-sized jokester from PS 11 in Chelsea asked Ted. The kid was asking about Splash - Teddy's black Portuguese water dog who, at that very moment, sat quietly at Ted's feet, along with another pooch named Sunny. But the adults in the room could not help but think about "splash." As in...

On July 18, 1969, a couple of nights before Neil Armstrong took that "giant step for mankind," Ted Kennedy took a turn onto a narrow bridge in Chappaquiddick. The passenger in his car that night was Mary Jo Kopechne, a pretty, blond Capitol Hill secretary, just about to celebrate her 29th birthday. The two events are inextricably linked in my mind because my husband, who was a correspondent for a British newspaper, instead of reporting on our glorious odyssey into space, ended up at police headquarters on Martha's Vineyard covering that sordid story. In case you have forgotten or never...

Here's a look at some of the signs Kennedy saw during his tequila enhanced speech. Enjoy.

Once upon a time, no one whipped up conservative rage like Ted Kennedy. Back in the day, the senator from Massachusetts wasn’t just a misguided Democrat — he was the Liberal Great Satan, a genuine menace to all things good and holy. Consider Teddy Bare: The Last of the Kennedy Clan, a 1971 screed by Zad Rust dedicated to the accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne two years earlier. The circumstances of the case were ugly: after driving his car off a bridge and into the waters of Poucha Pond, Kennedy swam to safety and fled, instead of immediately notifying...

WASHINGTON--Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Ted Kennedy publicly mocked Vice President Cheney's hunting accident, the same day that the shooting victim suffered a mild heart attack brought on by the incident.According to New York Newsday: Clinton stopped by the Senate Armed Services Committee ...to listen to ...Kennedy...ask questions about Humvee safety. During the session, both shared a public chuckle at Cheney's expense. When one general used the expression "shooting ourselves in the gut," Kennedy interrupted to say, "I'm not sure that's a good analogy today." Clinton threw back her head and laughed so heartily it echoed through the cavernous committee...

Ever since reporters took up Gary Hart's challenge to put a tail on him, then sunk his 1988 presidential candidacy with details of a tryst with an attractive model, the private sex lives of prominent politicians have been considered fair game for the press. The journalistic rationale is that character counts and voters have a right to know about questionable personal conduct because it may tell something about how an individual will perform in office or serve the public interest without fear or favor. Yet most mainstream news outlets continue to grant a reasonable right of privacy to public officials,...