Posted on 09/01/2005 5:46:13 PM PDT by wagglebee
Sen. Teddy Kennedy has demanded that the Bush administration waive attorney-client privilege and release internal memos John Roberts worked on while in the solicitor general's office 15 years ago, all of which were supposed to be held in the deepest confidence. Apparently, Kennedy thinks public officials have no right to keep even their attorney-client communications secret.
This surprised me because the senator is such a strong advocate of the (nonexistent) "right to privacy." And not just in the way most drunken, Spanish quiz-cheating, no-pants-wearing public reprobates generally cherish their own personal right to privacy. I mean privacy in the abstract.
I know as much about the "right to privacy" as I know about any other made-up, nonexistent right, but I would have thought that any "right to privacy" would protect confidential attorney-client conversations at least as much as, say, abortions in public buildings.
But I'll have to defer to the expert.
Consequently, applying the principle even-handedly to members of the executive branch as well as the legislative branch, I demand that Kennedy immediately waive all attorney-client privilege relating to his communications with his lawyer after he drove Mary Jo Kopechne off the bridge at Chappaquiddick. It's time to clear up, once and for all, the many questions that have swirled around Kennedy since Chappaquiddick.
Oops – "swirled" may have been a poor choice of words there. How about "floated"? Nope. "Surfaced"? Oooh – even worse, in terms of irony. "Come to light"? OK, now I'm just being obtuse. "Beset"? Yes, that's better.
Youth is no defense. John Roberts was 26 years old when he wrote the documents that Kennedy demands on behalf of the Senate. Kennedy was 36 when he drove Mary Jo Kopechne off a bridge.
If the Senate needs to know what Roberts thought about the law at age 26, then the Senate certainly needs to know what Kennedy thought about the law at age 36, when he drowned a girl and then spent the rest of the evening concocting an alibi instead of calling the police.
This isn't a "rehash" of Chappaquiddick; it's never been hashed. The Senate needs to know whether Kennedy was guilty of manslaughter. How else can the Senate be expected to carry out its constitutional duty to expel Kennedy unless Kennedy makes these key documents available?
We'll pick them up in the same van we send to collect John Kerry's military records and Bill Clinton's medical records.
While we wait, here's my guess as to what those attorney-client conversations sounded like, based on the facts in Leo Damore's book "Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up":
Interview with client Teddy Kennedy, July 19, 1969:
Teddy: May I approach the bench?
Lawyer: It's not a bench, Teddy. It's my desk. And no, you can't have another Chivas Regal.
Teddy: (Hiccup)
Lawyer: Let's start at the beginning.
Teddy: I'm going to say you were driving.
Lawyer: No, you are not saying I was driving.
Teddy: OK, someone in your family was driving.
Lawyer: They weren't even in Massachusetts that week. Can we move on? Why didn't you call the police after the accident, Teddy?
Teddy: I had to protect my political career, obviously. But this wasn't just about me! I was thinking about future drunk, philandering U.S. senators who may or may not have just drowned some chick they met at a party.
Lawyer: But what about Mary Jo --
Teddy: Yes, precisely! How would it look if I, a United States senator, were driving off to a secluded beach at midnight with a beautiful, nubile female after a private party? How would that look?
Lawyer: But Mary Jo was still alive for two hours --
Teddy: Did I mention my wife was pregnant? You think I should have reported the accident now, Mr. Smartypants?
Lawyer: She was trapped in that car, struggling to breathe!
Teddy: Do you know that two of my brothers were assassinated?
Lawyer: She was still alive! You could have saved her!
Teddy: Yeah, and say goodbye to my presidential ambitions. There was the future of the country to consider – as well as the future of the Chivas Regal company and all their employees. I am a Kennedy. I have a divine right to the presidency. I had to put that ahead of my lawyer's conscience. Anyway, Mary Jo was driving.
Lawyer: Teddy, we can't say Mary Jo was driving.
Teddy: What if some phony witness claimed that the driver stopped to ask for directions. Wouldn't that prove it was a woman driving?
Lawyer: But what about the witnesses?
Teddy: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hey, what's so funny? Did I just say something funny?
To be continued ...
The bridge was torn down however and a newer one put in its place!
Oh, she is priceless!
Come to think of it..have either Kerry or Kennedy cut short their 'vineyard vacations' to get back to work early?
Thought so.
Well I see she hasn't backed off as a result of that liberal Arizona newspaper pulling the plug on her.
Priceless.
Kerry isn't allowed to leave until Teeereeezaa is ready, and she probably thinks the people in New Orleans should just run around naked for a while.
Tubby is enjoying his last week of the summer recess and hasn't been sober enough to even know about Katrina.
One thing that I think the left hates about Coulter is that she throws bombs right at them. And on a topic like this- hell, on any topic- they have nowhere to go for cover
A recent article I saw lamented the rise of 'mouthy' Republicans as opposed to 'house' Republicans, you know, the kind who hang around the stoop waiting for a scrap to fall off a liberal's plate. Screw that.
It's time to put the left in their place
Damn, that chick can write. She never disappoints.
Has Democratic Mass. Senator Ted "Chappaquiddick" Kennedy offered any of those now-empty summer homes on Martha's Vinyard for the evacuees of Katrina? I think it's the least he could do. Maybe he will offer this when he goes back to "work" tomorrow.
Hell, the Kerry-Heinz's have at least five mansions. Tubby probably has one empty room with a bed and the others are just full of Scotch.
No just found it on a search,looks real though.
There are people inside Massachusetts that feel the same way. Of course, we're members of an oppressed, mistreated minority: Republicans.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
LOL. Hope your situation improves. You have a Republican Governor now, so maybe there's hope you'll be in a Republican majority before too long.
Well, he had to pretty much lie in order to get elected about his position on abortion and such.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people who vote for Kennedy feel that way about him, too. After all, a great many of them are only voting for him because he keeps the gravy train running to Mass.
(how he's able to do that with the Republicans controlling all three Houses, I'm not entirely sure, though...)
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