Posted on 01/26/2006 10:22:20 PM PST by 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
I checked Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Roseland, NJ.
The church does exist, but Roseland is nowhere near Mt. Holly or McGuire AFB.
I think that this story needs further vetting.
On Jan. 20, 2006, dead posted this thread: freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1561685/posts. The piece was brief, so I'll repeat it here verbatim:
Small world, isn't it Splash? (background information on Mrs. Alito's tears in the hearings)
Posted on 01/20/2006 9:54:55 AM PST by deadI have an interesting tidbit of information to share.
My old college roommate's mother is friends with Judge Alito's mother. They go to the same church in Roseland, New Jersey.
Well, the judge's mother shared something with her that hasn't been in the papers and may bring a different perspective to those tears Alito's wife shed in the hearing.
It seems Judge Alito's wife (the former Martha-Ann Bomgardner) has had personal reasons to dislike Senator Kennedy since long before Splash's shameful treatment of her husband.
Long ago, the Senator was also less than kind to girl whose family was friends with the Bombgardner family. A girl that Martha-Ann knew fairly well before her untimely demise.
A girl named Mary Jo Kopechne.
Very quickly, in post #22 on that thread, another FReeper, icwhatudo, provided links to two blogs that had versions of the story posted by dead. I initially did not read the two linked blogs, but came quickly to dead's defense. Later, after icwhatudo urged me to read the blogs, I did some quick research to see if Mary Jo's mom is still alive -- in other words, is the story posted by dead and those blogs even possible.
The answer is that Mrs. Kopechne is, indeed, still alive. Having no way to prove or disprove the claims of dead and those blogs, I accepted it as at least possible.
However, now with Congressman Billybob's piece telling the story in an entirely different way, I'm forced to conclude this is nothing but an internet hoax -- an attempt to create an instant urban legend. A rather cruel one, in my opinion.
Credibility does matter, even on the internet. Neither version of this story has any credibility any longer.
Sorry, Congressman and dead. Nobody despises Ted Kennedy more than I, because I hold the opinion that he is guilty of first degree murder. Nobody would love for the story as told by dead to be true -- that Mary Jo's mother called Mrs. Alito to comfort her. But the two different versions of the story told by you both can lead to no conclusion other than this: Neither version is true.
Did you know Mary Jo Kopechne was a secretary to George Smathers in 1963 and that she shared an apartment with Nancy Carole Tyler, Bobby Baker's secretary, and that Tyler died in a plane crash in 1965?
According to accounts, they were both involved in leaking information about JFK’s plan to drop LBJ for the next election. It is probably no coincidence that Kopechne became Robert Kennedy’s secretary after the assassination.
Remember, it was Smathers who leaked stories that the Kennedy brothers were involved with Marilyn Monroe only days before she was found murdered.
Pardon. I guess that implication of money may be correct. I guess it was kept out of the gossip tree.
I found this:
- Shortly after Senator Ted Kennedy and Paul Markham had left the Edgartown police station, Chief Arena was joined by Walter Steele, the Special Prosecutor for Dukes County, Martha's Vinyard.
- Arena's only source of information about the accident was Senator Kennedy's report, which in Steele's opinion "didn't add up at all."
- The "wrong turn" was particularly contradictory. Kennedy was familiar enough with the geography of Chappaquiddick to know to bear left instead of turning right on Dike Road - properly identified in his report - if he were going to the ferry.Yet he'd made the turn anyway. [ Kennedy's statement: http://www.ytedk.com/statement.htm ]
- The Senator's approximation of the distance from the Main Street (Chappaquiddick Rd) intersection to Dike Bridge was right on the money.
- Questionable too, was the "shock and exhaustion" Kennedy said he'd suffered after the accident. The Senator had not sought medical attention after the accident, nor did he appear to be injured at the police station - factors which combined to suggest that the Senator may have tried to avoid responsibility by delaying his report. As it was, Kennedy hadn't done so until after the accident was discovered and a body had been removed from his car.
- Steele told the chief that unless there were mitigating circumstances to account for the ten-hour delay, Arena had no choice but to seek a complaint against Ted Kennedy for leaving the scene of an accident. "That's all you can do," Steele said. "The statement is in clear violation of the statute."
- Steele asked Arena if he had notified the district attorney's office about the fatal accident, and Arena said that he hadn't. "The statute says that you have to notify the district attorney," Steele said. "Let's not take any chances."
- Arena called the district attorney's office in New Bedford, and spoke to George Killen, the State Police Detective Lieutenant in charge of the Cape Cod office of the district attorney.
- Killen said, "This is just a motor vehicle case. You don't need our help." He offered the "assistance" of the district attorney's office, but he made it clear, "It's your case."
- Because he had failed to interrogate Ted Kennedy, Arena was left with only a single piece of evidence: the Senator's own statement.
- Arena started drawing up a traffic violation complaint charging Edward M. Kennedy with a violation of Chapter 90, Section 24:
"Any operator of a vehicle who, without stopping and making known his name, residence, and the registration number of his motor vehicle, goes away after knowingly colliding with, or otherwise causing injury to any person, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than twenty days or more than two years."
2) Senator Kennedy's Expired License is "Fixed"
- To complete the citation, Arena needed to know Ted Kennedy's driver's license number and expiration date. Since the Senator had been unable to produce a license at the police station, Arena called the Registry office in Oak Bluffs, and was told, "we'll get back to you."
- Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy's Administrative Assistant, David Burke, telephoned Registry Inspector George Kennedy to report that he couldn't find the Senator's license in his Washington car.
- Inspector Kennedy then called Registry headquarters in Boston to request a license check for:
"D.O.B. 2/22/32 - Edward M. Kennedy."
- Registry Inspector Joseph Mellino recieved the call, and went into the Registry's file room where license cards are kept in alphabetical order. He discovered that Senator Kennedy's license had expired on February 22, 1969 and had not been renewed. Inspector Kennedy instructed Mellino to pull the license card from the file and put it together with the car's registration in an envelope on Registrar Richard McLaughlin's desk. It was, Mellino reflected, an unusual request.
- Inspector Kennedy was disturbed to learn that Ted Kennedy, in addition to leaving the scene of a fatal accident, had been driving on an expired license at the time. The Senator's growing list of motor vehicle violations were evidence of "some negligence" that supported a charge of manslaughter in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne.
- Inspector Kennedy called Joe Greelish, the Regional Head of Motor Vehicles for southeastern Massachusetts. Greelish ordered the inspector to give no information about the expired license to anyone, including Edgartown Police Chief Arena. To conceal important information from investigating authorities was highly irregular, Kennedy thought. Nevertheless, he agreed to stall Arena about the license information.
- Greelish called Registrar McLaughlin to inform him that Senator Kennedy was driving on an expired license at the time of the fatal accident. Mclaughlin told Greelish he would take over the case personally, "So it doesn't get screwed up."
- Joseph Mellino had been alone in the radio room when he'd checked on Kennedy's license. He hadn't seen anyone in the building, "but a while later, I heard talk going around that McLaughlin was there on Saturday night," he said. It wouldn't take much for someone to keypunch a new license, to spare the Senator the embarrassment of not having one, he said.
- The fact that Kennedy's license had expired, and that it had been concealed by the Registry, was confirmed when Joe Greelish telephoned assistant district attorney Jimmy Smith. Greelish wanted Smith to know the "problem" with the Senator's license, "had been taken care of."
- On Sunday, July 20, Greelish delivered Senator Kennedy's driver's license information to Chief Arena. The records now showed that Kennedy's license was valid until February 22, 1971.
- Arena used this information to complete his citation. Arena charged Kennedy only with leaving the scene of an accident after causing personal injury. Unaware that Kennedy's license had expired, and lacking evidence that the Senator had been operating under the influence of alcohol, Arena said, "We don't and probably will not have a case of negligent driving in the criminal sense."
- Massachusetts law required a minimum mandatory 20-day jail term in all cases of leaving the scene of an accident where personal injury had occurred.
- Six days later, when Senator Ted Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, he was able to produce a valid driver's license, which he surrendered to the court. Tests later performed on the Senator's license showed absolutely no traces of salt water.
3) The Failure to Perform an Autopsy on Mary Jo Kopechne
- State Police Detective George Killen was the senior officer responsible for the investigation and prosecution of all criminal matters on Cape Cod and the islands. When Medical Examiner Donald Mills called to ask whether or not an autopsy should be performed on Mary Jo Kopechne, Killen told him that if he was satisfied with his diagnosis and there was no evidence of foul play, no autopsy was necessary.
- Mills called undertaker Eugene Frieh and instructed him to go ahead with the embalming. Mills then put the accident at Chappaquiddick out of his mind. He had a baby to deliver at Oak Bluffs Hospital.
- Frieh was surprised no autopsy had been ordered in the case. "I figured there should have been one for three reasons: the type of accident it was; the important people involved; and the fact that insurance companies would be hounding officials over double indemnity claims."
- Frieh began preparing the body for the embalming process. As was customary in drowning cases, a body block was affixed under the diaphragm to provide abdominal compression and thereby remove any water from the lungs and stomach. He observed "a very slight bit of moisture," which he estimated to be less than a tea-cup. "I did raise an eyebrow in the sense that I was expecting much more moisture."
- Because the car had gone over a bridge, Frieh wondered if there might be some injury Dr. Mills had missed during his brief on-scene examination. After a thorough examination, he discovered no bruises or marks on the body, except for a slight abrasion on the left hand knuckle.
- Frieh was beginning to doubt the validity of the medical examiner's diagnosis. The lack of water evacuated from the body was "unusual" in a drowning case. Frieh suspected that instead, the accident victim may have suffocated to death. His observations strongly supported scuba diver John Farrar's theory that Mary Jo Kopechne had survived in the submerged automobile by breathing a pocket of trapped air, and had died by suffocation only after the oxygen had been depleted.
- When Frieh contacted Dr. Mills to suggest he change his finding, the medical examiner told him he "didn't want to cause any problem," and refused to make an independant decision about ordering an autopsy.
- Dun Gifford, an aid to Senator Kennedy, was sent to Edgartown with instructions to do whatever he could to expedite the paperwork required to get Mary Jo Kopechne's body off the island as quickly as possible.
- Gifford appeared in Frieh's office and announced he was available "to help in any way that makes sense," in making the funeral arrangements.
- At the police station, he told Chief Arena, "I've come up here to help things along."
- Gifford also made the arrangements to have the body of Mary Jo Kopechne flown to her home in Pennsylvania the next morning.
- Thus, the body was removed from the island before the authorities investigating the accident had gathered enough information to realize that an autopsy was in order.
- The failure to perform an autopsy on the body of Mary Jo Kopechne caused a "public clamor", and drew harsh criticism from both prosecutors and the press. Prior to the inquest, a motion to have the body exhumed in order to perform a belated autopsy was challanged by the Kopechne family. The request to exhume the body was successfully blocked by the Kopechne's lawyer Joseph Flanagan, who was hired and paid for by Ted Kennedy.
I have to agree with you, Wolfstar. These different versions have reminded me about how the Oliver North internet hoax got started - that he built an expensive fence around his home to keep his family safe from OBL.
Sigh. There are far too many such hoaxes out there, some of which do serious harm to the individuals involved. In this case, any harm done to Ted Kennedy doesn't bother me a bit, because he should have Mary Jo's death haunt him forever. But what about the heartbreak to Mary Jo's mom and to the Alitos should they learn of this hoax? This is not a kind way to support and defend them.
Can you be a little more clear about what specifically you are questioning on this story? I may be able to provide links of my own to help with confusion.
Thanks for the ping!
Exactly so, Wolfstar.
Calpernia, read the two entirely different versions of the story as posted by dead and Congressman Billybob. Read the links provided in post #22 of dead's story, and check out the false links they provide to a WaPo story that doesn't exist.
It's not a matter of questioning specifics. Although both stories attempt to forge some distant connection between Mary Jo and the reason for Mrs. Alito's tears, that's the only thing they have in common.
Thank you, Wolfstar. I guess time might tell.
Teddy probably knows about this Alito connection with Mary Jo, and that is why the Boston papers are reporting that the two senators here are desperately wanting a filibuster. Alito will do Kennedy no good deed down the road.
Good!
I'm very familiar in how the story developed here at FR. Dead wasn't posting facts then. Dead posted facts to be looked into. Congressman BB did look into it.
Here is Dead's follow up:
To: Congressman Billybob
BTW, thanks for looking further into this story. I posted every single thing I knew about it, but it wasn't much. Just the word of Judge Alito's mother, run through two people I trust, before it reached me.
I posted it in the hope that somebody would be able to nail down the connection and I appreciate your work. Despite the fact that some people disagree, I think it could be a significant story if only that it could dampen the Senator's desire to continue down the slander road against Judge Alito.
I know this position is assuming some tiny capacity for shame somewhere in that mass of whisky and fat Ted calls a brain, but it might be under there somewhere.
346 posted on 01/27/2006 10:13:37 AM EST by dead
bttt!
Those were the days....my friend.
You're welcome, STARWISE. Unfortunately, time might never tell in this situation unless the principals involved come out and confirm or deny the story. In any case, we are capable of doing our own analysis. In one version of the story, it's Mrs. Alito whose family, the Baumgardners, who were acquainted with Mary Jo's family. In the other, it's some vague connection through Judge Alito's family.
Personally, I think time has already told.
We women are like that...stoic when attacked...and then breaking down with kindness.
I think this article is disgraceful. Sorry...Mrs. Alito was NOT sitting there thinking of Mary Jo...she was thinking of her husband!!
The bold part of your post I agree with completely.
But I do find this article of interest, in that there is a connection between the woman Ted Kennedy murdered and the Alito family. No way, IMO, was it the reason for Mrs. Alito's tears....
What I wonder..........does Teddy know about it? Could it be, in part, why he was so savage and brutal to this fine man?
(I know, I know, he's a despicable creep, but he was particularly awful at these hearings........)
I read dead's follow up long before you posted it to me. Sorry, Calpernia, but at this point the only way I could be convinced any part of these two stories is true would be of the principals involved gave a statement to the media confirming it. So you may as well give up trying to convince me. Ain't gonna happen.
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