Posted on 08/30/2010 2:43:40 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
For many, the name Chappaquiddick conjures images of a drunken Sen. Edward Kennedy hitting on Mary Jo Kopechne in his Oldsmobile, losing control, and plunging into the water of Poucha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island, adjacent to Martha's Vineyard where President Obama was vacationing. Kopechne, a family friend, drowned; and Teddy fumbled for excuses about what happened.
Now, a year after Kennedy died, his lifelong biographer Burton Hersh, armed with fresh interviews with Kennedy's mistress at the time, tells Whispers that the whole July 1969 episode should have been handled as a simple crash, leaving the senator's legacy untainted. "It was a car accident," he says. "Ted was a terrible driver. He never paid much attention to where he was going."
"He took a tremendous blow on the head," says Hersh. In interviews following the crash, Kennedy displayed confusion and amnesia, he says.
"If the thing had been handled properly, the first thing they would have done is put him in a hospital. Then they would have said he was a victim of an auto accident and didn't know what he was doing and couldn't be held responsible for anything that happened really after that, which would have been a fair explanation," says author-journalist Hersh, who knew Kennedy since they were classmates at Harvard. "But instead, he felt terribly guilty about the whole thing ... tried to take responsibility and ... just confused the issue."
In Edward Kennedy: An Intimate Biography, Hersh adds some new details about the episode from Helga Wagner, Kennedy's then-girlfriend and "the love of [his] life," at least until he married his second wife, Victoria.
(Excerpt) Read more at politics.usnews.com ...
And here it begins, the re-writing of the history to clear the name of one of the anointed ones from America’s Camelot.
I still think he was just a fat a$$ drunk that got away with killing the poor girl but money covered it. He went on to help tear America apart. That’s the real legacy.
Teddy drove our Congress as well as he drove that Oldsmobile!
Yes, enough so that he spent the next 12 hours with his handler/lawyer concocting his story. A sick piece of shit whose legacy need not be renovated, period, if you ask me.
By the way, Ted, congratulations on the year of sobriety!
The story reads like satire.
What’s this scribe’s excuse for Ted Kennedy communicating with the Soviets (including KGB) to undermine Ronald Reagan’s administration?
I'm sure that's what Ol' Burt meant to say. I was just helping him along.
That's about as phoney as a Chappaquiddick neck-brace.
Leaving the scene of an accident and not reporting it for 10 hours was no simple crash, the drunkard kennedy made sure of that.
Just another leftist who doesn’t value his own credibility.
When it mattered most, he ran, and left a woman to die.
Burn in Hell Senator Kennedy.
Take out Chappaquiddick and you still have his extreme left wing commie loving US Republic hating voting record, so take out Chappaquiddick who cares, let’s focus on his selling the Republic down the drain.
Kennedy did not even go to several houses that were a short walking distance away. There were people at home in those houses. He did not seek help for a woman in danger, which is something that everyone would do. And no he wasn’t hit on the head, he wasn’t taken to the hospital and there wasn’t a visible scratch on him. If had been hit on the head, the Kennedy people would have been shouting that all over the place as it would have been the perfect excuse for his bizarre behavior.
Kopechne was a “family friend?” Who knew!
I suppose that means Bobby...never mind.
As for a knock on the noggin leaving him senseless, Ted had the presence of mind to try to get someone else to take the blame; to build an alibi; to swim back to his hotel and pretend nothing had happened. His brain miraculously recovered when he learned that the cops had found the car.
But the testimony of a mistress should not be open to skeptical inquiry, eh? I’m sure she’s as authentic as Helga R. Hughes.
I have no doubt this was nothing but an accident. But his actions AFTERWARDS are what kills me.
He left the scene. He tried to get another lawyer to take the blame. He lied agbout it. HIs first reaction was to try to weasel his way out of it.
By some reports the woman was alive for 45 minuts, in less than 5 feet of water. He could have saved her and been a hero- instead he was a coward and slime ball, who is probably nice and toasty in his new home.
Burning in Hell Senator Kennedy.
The definitive story of Chappaquiddick has already been written by Leo Damore. “Senatorial Privilege” basically uncovers every detail simply because he was able to get one of the Kennedy family who was there to talk and tell what really happened.
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