Speaking Ill of the Ted

Steyn Online ^ | 28 August 2009 | Mark Steyn

[Rummyfan]

We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation – or, at any rate, its "mainstream" media culture – declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's passing, America's TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard used to write about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble Appalachian household where there's a baby buried in the backyard but everyone agreed years ago never to mention it.

In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne, 1940-1969. If you have to bring up the, ah, circumstances of that year of decease, keep it general, keep it vague. As Kennedy flack Ted Sorensen put it in Time magazine:

"Both a plane crash in Massachusetts in 1964 and the ugly automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 almost cost him his life."

That's the way to do it! An "accident," "ugly" in some unspecified way, just happened to happen – and only to him, nobody else. Ted's the star, and there's no room to namecheck the bit players...

[Darteaus94025]

[Uversabound]

Ted Kennedy caused great harm to America and individual Americans.

[Bonemaker]

No soul.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Heard Oldsmobile had a recall on that model because you couldn’t turn left with an erection.

[kearnyirish2]

I remember seeing T-shirts for sale: “Ted Kennedy’s car killed more people than my gun”...

[jmacusa]

Didn’t shoot enough of them.

[BatGuano]

I was in a hangar, in Toledo, Ohio, attending a monthly Air National Guard drill. We all listened on radio to the descent phase and touchdown that afternoon. Later at night we watched the first step etc.
The Hollywood myth, that the whole program was faked, is so false that when someone repeats it, RUN away as fast as you can. The sickness could be viral.
As to Ted Kennedy, he is rotting in hell, where he belongs.

[BatGuano]

“It’s been proven that Kennedy was never in that car.”

You have just proven that you are a fool.

[dfwgator]

Oh, and it was not a moonlight drive but a moonlight cruise.

[Mears]

Where has it been proven that Ted was NOT in the car?

.

[dfwgator]

Kennedy’s had a habit of making things sink in water, first PT-109, then an Oldsmobile.

[dfwgator]

I watched on TV the night before—and I was so exicted. We had reached the moon!

"No Way!"

[rktman]

LOL! Yup. I worked on the phony space shuttle for 36 years.

[rktman]

Airplanes. Think little john and spatial disorientation.

[HighSierra5]

Maybe he killed her or had her killed, placed her in the car and then rolled it into the drink. Although they say she was still alive in the sunken car.

[jobim]

The following 90 minute report Investigative Reports - Chappaquiddick with Bill Kurtis explains the following as posted on the youtube site:

The reason Teddy didn't try to save Mary Jo Kopechne was because she was by herself when she drowned. Teddy left her in the vehicle upon seeing a police vehicle approaching, got out to walk back to the party, having told Mary Jo to turn around and drive back. In addition to being inebriated, Mary Jo had no concept of what that part of the road was like, and when she drove at that late hour, she turned into the water and went down with the vehicle. We don't know what Teddy would have done were he close to her location and knew she had gone under with the vehicle, but it doesn't matter since that was not the case.

Chappaquidick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DI_IZ61Ulk

If, Mister Bat Guanno, after watching this you still wish to insult me with your statement: You have just proven that you are a fool, then at least you will know what I am referring to, although it won't resurrect the manners you evidently weren't raised with.

[BatGuano]

Hogwash. Explain to all Free Republic readers why Ted Kennedy wore a neck brace when he showed up? The brace and your story conflict. The story reeks with falsity. Shame on Bill Kurtis. (no, I did not waste my time watching)

She was by herself when she drowned for one reason only.

Kennedy had left her to die alone.

He was a reprobate like his father and brothers.

[jobim]

* they were parked at Lover's lane - the road leading to the bridge - and seen by a patrol car

* TK got out because he was drunk and didn't want gossip about MJ, and walked to the lodge

* TK went to bed - eye witness lodge owner says not wet, no troubled demeanor

* TK wakes up and bumps into a couple he knows, makes chit-chat, when a fellow comes up, pulls TK aside, and TK looks panicked and leaves immediately

* he now will try to make himself look the hero by concocting the story that he tried to save her - neck brace becomes part of his fabrication and a good visual to the press

* when MJ was told to go home after TK split, she also was drunk and disoriented, and proceeded to drive off the bridge

* front right wheel went 1st so that it rolled onto the passenger side and hit the water square on that side

* damage to that side proved anyone in passenger seat would have had massive injuries, and also that no one could have exited the vehicle underwater from that side

* no way there was a pocket of air - MJ drowned quickly

By the way, BG, you sound like someone from the Other Side, first insulting with
ad hominem the one you disagree with, then dismissing evidence they bring up.

For the record, as a Catholic myself, I have always held the Kennedy clan in utter
contempt: Joe, Jack, Bobby, Ted, and most of their kids & wives. I guess the only one I
had hope for was JFK Jr. As a native Chicagoan, I hold the added contempt of knowing
Daley put Jack in the White House through corruption.

[Albion Wilde]

Steyn at his rapier best:

Six years before Chappaquiddick, in the wake of Britain's comparatively very minor "Profumo scandal," the eponymous John Profumo, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for War, resigned from the House of Commons and the Queen's Privy Council and disappeared amid the tenements of the East End to do good works washing dishes and helping with children's playgroups, in anonymity, for the last 40 years of his life. With the exception of one newspaper article to mark the centenary of his charitable mission, he never uttered another word in public again.

Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the "Kennedy curse," a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim – and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn't, he made all of us complicit in what he'd done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation.

His defenders would argue that he redeemed himself with his "progressive" agenda, up to and including health care "reform."

[cgbg]

These days there is a bit more sophisticated “man did not land on the moon” claim out there.

Takeoff happened, orbit of the moon happened, return happened.

The only “fake” thing was the actual landing and video of the “moon walk”.

One other more “moderate” conspiracy claim is that the landing and walk actually happened but the video didn’t work so the live video had to be faked.