And it was mostly covered up by Apollo 11.
We'll drive off that bridge when we get to it. {hic!}
On July 26th Mary Jo Kopechne would have turned 65 years old.
Who am I kidding?
Had she survived, Mary Jo would probably have told the story of that night, revealing details that would have caused the instant disintegration of the Senator's career, and, perhaps, of the entire Kennedy image.
There is no evidence that this eventuality was on the Senator's mind as he swam, and then ran, away from the sunken car and it's still-living occupant. There is no evidence that an awareness of this probable chain of events had anything to do with his not reporting the accident to law enforcement or rescue personnel until the following morning.
(steely)
So as all birthdays....lets send Kennedy birthday cards to Mary Jo....I know he'll love them....a few thousand should remind him of what he did....don't email them, they have to go snail mail don't they to get to him...and not his lackeys???
But for intense idiocy, it doesn't get any better than Charles Pierce, who won the "Quote of the Year" [2003] hands down with this achingly perverse Chappaquiddick sentence in the Boston Globe Magazine: "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." Please go away, Mr. Pierce. Kennedy couldn't even bring her a life jacket.
I have to weigh in on this one. Please see my tag line.
I hate that she died, but let's be honest here, Mary Jo Kopechne was the Monica Lewinsky of her day, just another Washington party girl. The reason her family never pursued legal action against Teddy-boy is because they knew her sleazy life would have been published for all the world to see. It was better for them to let her die as a victim than for her fagile reputation to be dragged throught the muck a trial would have brought forth.
Happy anniversary, you bilious bagpipe full of squid guts. Raise a glass or twenty. Scotch. Straight up.
It was Seventeen July, Another sleepy, humid Hyannis day,
I was out shuckin' clams And my brother was slicin’ brie,
And at supper time we stopped and walked back to the compound to dine
And Rose hollered at the back door, "You savages remember to act refined."
Then she said, "I got some news this morning from Cambridge
Today Mary Jo and Teddy went off the Chappaquiddick Bridge ."
Joe said to Rose, as he passed around the Roquefort cheese
"Well, Teddy never had an ounce of sense, pass the lobster please
There's five more states in the lower forty-eight I got to screw."
And Rose said it was a shame about Mary Jo, she knew
Seems like no good news ever comes out of Cambridge
And now Teddy and Mary Jo went off the Chappaquiddick Bridge.
Brother said he remembered when he and Jack and Teddy K
Wrecked a yacht on a cove on Cape Cod Bay
And wasn't I talking to him after Mass last Sunday night
I'll have another couple escargot, you know, it don't seem right
I saw her at the gin mill yesterday in Falmouth with some kids
And now you tell me Mary Jo and Teddy went off the Chappaquiddick Bridge.
Mama said to me, "Child, what's happened to your appetite?
Bridget’s cooked all morning and you haven't touched a single bite
That nice Police Chief Arena dropped by today
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, Oh, by the way
He said he saw a girl that looked like you on the OnTime-Two at nine
And she and Teddy K. were throwing something into Pocha Pond"
A year has come and gone since we heard the news 'bout Mary Jo
Brother married Vicky Gifford, they bought a place in Truro
There was a virus going 'round, Joe caught it and died last spring
And now Rose doesn't seem to want to do much of anything
And me I spend a lot of time snorting coke up in Cambridge
And dropping tabs over on the Chappaquiddick Bridge.
Classic case of liberal "do as I say, not as I do". And millions are willing to go along with (i.e., vote for) it because the ends justify the means.
