Senator Ted Kennedy and Mrs. Alito’s Tears

Special to FreeRepublic ^ | 27 January 2006 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Congressman Billybob]

On 12 January, 2006, the New York Times ran an article entitled “Thrust into the Limelight, and for Some A Symbol of Washington’s Bite.” It was a mini-biography of Mrs. Martha-Ann Alito, and it purported to explain the reasons for Mrs. Alito’s tears during her husband Samuel’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It blamed them on a follow-up question by Senator Lindsay Graham, rather than on the verbal savaging of Judge Alito by the Democrats on the Committee, led by Senator Ted Kennedy.

The Times should have gotten the story right, because one of the three reporters on the story was in their New Jersey Bureau, and based in Caldwell. But they didn’t. Here are the operative paragraphs from that article on the cause of her tears:

She has sat behind him [her husband] all week, a pleasant-looking woman in sensible clothes, peering through rimless glasses as Democrats grilled Judge Alito about his investments and his affiliation with a conservative Princeton alumni group and Republicans tried to provide him some relief.

On Wednesday, one of those Republicans, Mr. Graham, tried to mock the Democrats with a question about the alumni group, which opposed affirmative action.

"Are you really a closet bigot?" Mr. Graham asked, at which point Mrs. Alito drew her hands to her face and left the hearing room weeping.

Source: http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F20C14FD3C5B0C708DDDA80894DE404482

As the article explained, Mrs. Alito is “fiercely protective” of her husband. And she was upset by the attacks on him as if he were dishonest, or a bigot, or a poor judge. But there was an additional reason, much older and much darker than what happened at that hearing. It concerns the fact that Senator Kennedy led the attack against Judge Alito.

Mrs, Alito was born Martha-Ann Bomgardner in Ft. Knox, Kentucky. The family moved with her father’s profession as an air traffic controller to New Jersey, where she attended Rancocas Valley Regional High School in Mount Holly. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Kentucky, she returned to New Jersey and became a librarian in the US Attorney’s office, where she met her husband.

Through her husband’s family, she learned of their personal friendship with another young woman who was also an only child. This other woman and her family were staunch Catholics. On occasion, they attended the same church in Roseland, New Jersey, as the Alitos, Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, one of only two churches in that town of 5,298. The Alitos live in Caldwell, population 7,584, where this other woman graduated from Caldwell College, probably as a commuter student from her home, rather than a resident student.

From the personal memories of this woman that Mrs. Alito got from her husband’s family, and from her own understanding of what it means to be an only child, Mrs. Alito knew of the worst thing that any human being could do to another. She also heard of its impact on the family.

That other woman’s name was Mary Jo Kopeckne. She was killed by Senator Ted Kennedy, in an auto accident on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, on 18 July, 1969. That was the other reason for Mrs. Alito’s tears.

[Author’s notes: The author did not bother any of the three families referred to here in writing this. All the information was gathered from reputable Internet sources. If the Times puts a competent reporter on the story, it can find the same information. It should also then apologize for its original article, in which the three reporters presented their personal assumptions as facts on the cause of Mrs. Alito’s upset at the hearing.]

John_Armor@aya.yale.edu

[RobbyS]

I went to high school with Van Cliburn. He was a friend of a friend and I only met him one time. But in a town of 6,000 one knows quite a bit about people.
As for the smart a$$ remark, it makes you sound like a cosmopolitan.

[decal]

"It's called Earth. Google it."

Did.

Got this.

http://www.springlake-earth.org/earth/earth.html

[LucyT]

The quote was not mine. The comment was written by freeper, "dead."

[Congressman Billybob]

I am not "exploiting Mrs. Alito for political purposes." Neither she or any of the Alitos has said a word in public about this. I am just reporting the facts that are known in public.

John / Billybob

[Mr Cobol]

This has probably been asked and answered many times but I've never seen it.

How did he get out of the car and she wasn't able to?

[ilovew]

I agree. It's completely ridiculous to imagine that Mrs. Alito was crying for Mary Jo. She didn't know the woman. I don't think there's any doubt that Kennedy didn't have any room to question someone else's morals but this article is completely absurd.

[Congressman Billybob]

No, this doesn't rise to the level of Buckhead's achievement. But it was worth the time I spent after I read the original "story" and decided to find out if it was true. It was, except for the detail that it was not Mrs. Alito and her birth family that knew the Kopechnes. It was her in-laws.

John / Billybob

[Congressman Billybob]

No, this doesn't rise to the level of Buckhead's achievement. But it was worth the time I spent after I read the original "story" and decided to find out if it was true. It was, except for the detail that it was not Mrs. Alito and her birth family that knew the Kopechnes. It was her in-laws.

John / Billybob

[Lancey Howard]

Like you, I don't see any problem with Congressman Billybob's writing. It's pretty clear that Mrs. Alito had (probably) long ago learned that the Kopechnes were from her husband's "hometown" community and that only-child Mary Jo's death was a tragedy which was felt communally. That kind of thing can transcend personal relationships. Think about it - - if a kid in your own neighborhood is killed, you feel it far more than would somebody in another state, even if you never met the kid or the family.

[paulat]

I went to high school with Van Cliburn.

Van Cliburn was born in 1934.

[ilovew]

But even the article doesn't claim that Mrs. Alito knew Kopechne. The article claims that Mrs. Alito was crying because of someone her husband had probably met. That doesn't seem like a stretch to you?

[STARWISE]

Judge Alito's parents were friends with Mary Jo's parents.

[Southack]

"I am not "exploiting Mrs. Alito for political purposes." Neither she or any of the Alitos has said a word in public about this. I am just reporting the facts that are known in public."

...And you do great work. I respect it...but...

...On a big ticket claim that could take down a sitting Senator (e.g. Sen. Kennedy), an internet forum must challenge every line, dot every i, and cross every t...lest the Old News Media discredit us too easily.

In particular, you've made one claim (above in quotes) that **every*** fact in your claim for this thread is in the public domain.

OK, but where do I find support of this claim in the public domain: "From the personal memories of this woman that Mrs. Alito got from her husband’s family, and from her own understanding of what it means to be an only child, Mrs. Alito knew of the worst thing that any human being could do to another. She also heard of its impact on the family."

[fatima]

Thank you Congressman Billybob.

[Congressman Billybob]

I'm a fairly adept researcher. As a lawyer, I have to be. It took me slightly more than a day to track these details down. I invite you, as I invited the reporters for the NYTimes, to duplicate my work. You, they, or anyone else, will find the same information that I did. It's called reporting.

John / Billybob

[Darkwolf377]

How do you know this?

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but how do you know?

I would also ask the same of the column's writer BUT, I think he could just make a few changes of the sort he thinks the other writers should have made--eliminating their opinions--and the article would still stand.

[paulat]

...On a big ticket claim that could take down a sitting Senator (e.g. Sen. Kennedy), an internet forum must challenge every line, dot every i, and cross every t...lest the Old News Media discredit us too easily.

You said it far more nicely than I did.

[axes_of_weezles]

I know they dont put Army/AF bases in the suburbs, which is what this part of NJ is now. Remember the 60's are 40 years ago.
May not have been rural as I know, kind of a long commute to NYC.

[Mojave]

I invite you, as I invited the reporters for the NYTimes, to duplicate my work.

But not to verify your unnamed sources.

[Congressman Billybob]

Precisely. That's exactly what I tried to make clear.

John / Billybob