Senator Ted Kennedy and Mrs. Alito’s Tears

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

[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

[paulat]

You are not my little thing.

Not ME, silly...your little thing! G'nite!

[Keith in Iowa]

You really should look up the word. Then you'd know what a fool you are making of yourself.

[hershey]

It really is a small world.

[MEG33]

# 56 Ping to article and this post.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

Wow...
What a small world it is!

I have skimmed through the thread and FWIW, IMHO, if you have put your name on it, count me among the believers.

[snugs]

I would say she may not have been crying for someone she never met but the hypocrisy of the criticism from Ted Kennedy and his party knowing full well the type of man Kennedy is.

In a small town regardless if you went to church with a family you would know a friend of friend of the family and that is enough to hear details that probably never reached the press of other incidents involving Ted and Mary Jo. Details probably the family do not want public but illustrate the moral lows of this man.

[snugs]

I would not go as far to say she was crying because of it but it was just another thing she had knowlege of the devastation that Ted Kennedy has caused one family and now was trying to do to her own family.

[snugs]

I agree may not have caused the tears but would certainly have been part of it especially when Lindsay Graham laid the stark facts clearly and simply of what the DemoRATS were actually saying about her husband.

[snugs]

I agree not crying for but the whole situation of where her husband's integrity is being bought into question by someone who has no integrity.

[DocRock]

Bookmark

[Carolinamom]

You've sum it up perfectly, snugs, in one sentence.

[Carolinamom]

sum = summed (Only excuse: It's early.)

[freeangel]

bttt for ANOTHER kennedy hypocrisy breaking new item. Thank you Congressman Billybob.

[MarkL]

It was pretty apparant to me that the tears were from a sense of relief, that FINALLY someone said something accurate about her husband, and while she had steeled herself against the abuse that she knew was going to be spewed by those reprehensible POS on the far left, something as simple as Lindsay Grahm saying that her husband was a good man, sort of pushed her over the edge. But to hear the media's spin, it was Grahm that made her cry.

Mark

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[steveyp]

Swimmer Ping

[Carolinamom]

I can well understand how Mrs. Alito's love for her husband and knowledge of his rock solid integrity's being assaulted by the likes of Kennedy et al for days on end would lead to tears at the first sign of any kindness.

Thank you for tracking down the particulars you found and the time you spent doing so.

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

The hypocrisy of Ted Kennedy is what struck me about this article.

Knowing my husband's family and the Kopechne's knew each other (and maybe considered each other friends) would have been too much for me if I was Mrs. Alito.

I would have to be escorted out of the room after I stood up to say "You filthy peice of hypocritical garbage! Who are you to question my husband's committment to protecting the rights of ______________ (fill in the blank...........)."

[MEG33]

As I read the article there is no mention of a friendship of Martha with Mary Jo..only a friendship between the elder Alito's family and Mary Jo and her family.

Outrage over Kennedy's unfair, untrue and hypocritical attacks had been handled up until the time that Graham extended a hand of kindness ..then the dam broke.

If killing Mary Jo by leaving her behind as he escaped after driving off the bridge and covering it up did not do Kennedy in..this will not cause a blip on the media screen.

He is the martyred President's brother, he is a Kennedy, and the only thing he lost was the ability to run for President.

(Age differences?..my mother had "church friends" of all ages. It is certainly possible that the Judge's mother and Mary Jo's mother had a friendship.)

If I was angered by Kennedy's outrageous, untrue, hypocritical posturing , I can only imagine how I would feel if I were the wife of the man being accused by such a man as Kennedy.

[beyond the sea]

I agree may not have caused the tears but would certainly have been part of it especially when Lindsay Graham laid the stark facts clearly and simply of what the DemoRATS were actually saying about her husband.

...............EXACTLY

I agree may not have caused the tears but would certainly have been part of it especially when Lindsay Graham laid the stark facts clearly and simply of what the DemoRATS (and Kennedy as the ringleader/slimemaster) were actually saying about her husband.