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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...

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...

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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.