Senator Ted Kennedy and Mrs. Alito’s Tears

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

[Darkwolf377]

I have two daughters, both married with children. I was raised as an only child, both of my brothers being much older and away at school. Starting with those two facts, I conclude that an only child is uniquely close to his/her parents, and that if either of my daughters (who have normal human sensibilities) had been an only child, and heard such a story from their in-laws personally, that's the way they would react to the man who caused the death of that other daughter and only child. Logic as well as facts have their place in any article, as long as the logic is not skewed by bias.

Some folks here don't seem to have read that you wrote the OTHER reason--i.e. aside from the obvious.

And yet, reading your above explanation has moved me into the other camp, I'm afraid--please don't take this as another of the hysterical rants on this thread.

You have made a fatal error, as you explained above.

You have taken YOUR personal experience and decided "That's how MY family would react, so logic dictates that's how EVERY family like mine would react."

Your article is thus a theoretical one. You don't know that this is how things went in their family.

My brothers know, for years, people in our old town I have never once met. By most people's logic, if X knew my brother for twenty years, one would say "Oh, Darkwolf377 knows X, he's best friends with his brother!"

That is assumption. It is not a fact, because it wasn't verified.

Someone could also say "DW knows his mom's next door neighbor, they've lived next to her for ten years!" But...I've never met them.

I'm sorry, I respect your THEORY, but that is all it is.

You need to rework this piece. Maybe as a "what if?"

Unless you know, from the players involved--the Alitos or those they have directly told this to--that one of the reasons she was crying was because she was thinking of her husband's family's friends (as likely as it may SEEM), you are merely pushing a fiction.

[Darkwolf377]

It's generally assumed that she was crying over the Democrats' treatment of her husband. I don't know of any other reason she would be.

That's the exact same logic the article you are railing against uses.

[ilovew]

And I'm from a small town. But the point is that Mrs. Alito did not know Mary Jo Kopechne personally. She maybe, possibly, at some point heard about Mary Jo from her husband. And to imagine that Mrs. Alito burst into tears in the middle of her husband's confirmation hearings because of someone she had never met and may have possibly heard about is going too far.

[Darkwolf377]

What's not to understand??

Your hysteria over an article on an internet board. With the ??? and !?!?!?

Check out post 161 for the way it's done. Use calm logic, not "yelling".

[paulat]

I thought you said your wife left you to run a restaurant in Fiji?

Oh...THANK YOU!!! I am looking that up as we speak!!!

[Congressman Billybob]

I did not talk to any human beings in writing this. Those are called the infamous anonymous sources. I just plowed through the Internet, tracking down information, cross-verifying again and again. It took me several hours to get the first names of all the parents, for instance. But when I had that verified from multiple sources, I could narrow my search.

I did what any competent blogger is able to do, if he or she decides to invest the time out of interest, rather than for pay.

John / Billybob

[beyond the sea]

This information will work well in the new media with the suspected and still threatened filibuster.

And by the way, there is a large segment of younger voters who don't know a thing about the Dike bridge and Chappaquiddick. They should know about this hellish, loutish coward, the fraud Ted Kennedy.

Filibuster on, Dems.

[ilovew]

At the very least, it's far more sensible to assume that she was crying over the treatment of her husband by the Democrats. However, I did cite a quote and, as I recall, Sen. Hatch said both that she had been crying because of the attacks on her husband and because she had a migraine. It did not, however, say anything about her crying about Mary Jo Kopechne.

[beyond the sea]

ping

[RobbyS]

He was one year ahead of me. His mother taught piano lessons, and I would have taken lessons from her except that my family waqs short of money at the time. A friend of mine did and was a personal friend though intimidated because he had small hands and Van's are big enough to palm a basketball.
(Not that he ever played the game) Want to see the first property he ever owned, after he won is Russia. It is an apartment house across from the library.

[Congressman Billybob]

Exactly. Only you used language that I could not. I know what it is like to bury a child. I can imagine the heartache mixed with anger, in parents who know who caused the death of their child. (No, my son did mot die of any preventable cause.)

John / Billybob

[Darkwolf377]

At the very least, it's far more sensible to assume that she was crying over the treatment of her husband by the Democrats. However, I did cite a quote and, as I recall, Sen. Hatch said both that she had been crying because of the attacks on her husband and because she had a migraine. It did not, however, say anything about her crying about Mary Jo Kopechne.

In other words, you don't have a direct quote from Mrs. Alito, you have someone else (Hatch) making an assumption, and this is somehow superior to just making an assumption on your own and calling it fact?

You're doing precisely what you're accusing this writer of doing.

[Congressman Billybob]

I did name my source. It's called the Internet. It's all there, just buried in a mound of irrelevant information. I don't expect many people to believe this just because I wrote it. I do expect everyone to believe it after other reporters have searched for, found, and published the same things that I have.

John / Billybob

[ForGod'sSake]

Just excellent work BB. I agree with some others re the connection for Mrs. Alito's tears. Fact is, IMHO, I think it would add another dimension to the story to infer a possible connection rather than make the connection. You would give your reader(s) the chance to do some of their own work on the story, thereby "attaching" themselves to it.

FGS

[Mr Cobol]

Thanks for that.

[NonValueAdded]

If this is true, the next logical question would be "Did Sen. Kennedy know of this connection before the hearing was conducted?" If he did and did not recuse himself from the questioning is he not subject to disciplinary action by the Senate and also the bar association?

[Nam Vet]

Great job of tracking down the facts and reporting. Thanks from the Vet Mr. Congresscritter.

Nam Vet

[STARWISE]

Jeeze ... are your neck veins ready to burst?

[RobbyS]

But you are not even allowing for what many biographers get away with, which is drawing an implication from a likely fact: that her husband was be villified by a man whose character was known to her in a personal way. It is called empathy.