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?
I've flown out of McGuire many times, and driven through Mt.Holly. It is a big deal for someone as famous as Kopechne to have been from so small a place. There is a personal connection with that person. It intensifies what people hear about Kennedy. Add to that the Air Force connection. Service people and people with military connections are much more aware than ordinary small town people about the "outside world."
I can't speak for Congressman Billybob, but when I first posted the information I had, I did not mean to imply that Mrs. Alito's tears were for Mary Jo.
I have no doubt that Mrs. Alito's tears were from frustration, rage, and disappointment with the way her husband was treated. But all of those emotions had to be compounded further by the fact that man who was treating her husband with such disgraceful venom and slander was somebody whom she knew, for better than forty years, to be a particularly dispicable human being through a personal family connection.
I would think that that personal and emotional background probably raised the level of frustration and rage by a considerable degree.