Justice for Teddy

As Massachusetts's most famous unindicted man slaughterer- let's be charitable and not allege 'murderer'- lies in a hospital with a malignant brain tumor, I find myself unable to muster a scintilla of pity or sorrow.

From Teddy's youth, he's been a disappointment. Consider these points from a web bio on the decidedly senior Senator,

Kennedy earned C grades at the private Milton Academy, but was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy" -- his father and older brothers had attended there, so the younger and dimmer Kennedy's admission was virtually assured. While attending, he was expelled twice, once for cheating on a test, and once for paying a classmate to cheat for him. While expelled, Kennedy enlisted in the Army, but mistakenly signed up for four years instead of two. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, former U.S. Ambassador to England, pulled the necessary strings to have his enlistment shortened to two years, and to ensure that he served in Europe, not Korea, where a war was raging. Kennedy was assigned to Paris, never advanced beyond the rank of Private, and returned to Harvard upon being discharged.

While attending law school at the University of Virginia, he was cited for reckless driving four times, including once when he was clocked driving 90 miles per hour in a residential neighborhood with his headlights off after dark. Yet his Virginia driver's license was never revoked.

On 19 July 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts. At about 11:00 PM, he borrowed his chauffeur's keys to his Oldsmobile limousine, and offered to give a ride home to Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. Leaving the island via an unlit bridge with no guard rail, Kennedy steered the car off the bridge, flipped, and into Poucha Pond. He swam to shore and walked back to the party -- passing several houses and a fire station -- and two friends returned with him to the scene of the accident. According to their later testimony, they told him what he already knew, that he was required by law to immediately report the accident to the authorities. Instead Kennedy made his way to his hotel, called his lawyer, and went to sleep.

Kennedy called the police the next morning. By then the wreck had already been discovered. Before dying, Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head in the upside-down car. The Kennedy family began pulling strings, ensuring that any inquiry would be contained. Her corpse was whisked out-of-state to her family, before an autopsy could be conducted. Further details are uncertain, but after the accident Kennedy says he repeatedly dove under the water trying to rescue Kopechne, and he didn't call police because he was in a state of shock. In versions not so kind, it is widely assumed Kennedy was drunk, that he was having an affair with Kopechne, and/or that he held off calling police in hopes that his family could fix the problem overnight.

Since the accident, Kennedy's political enemies have referred to him as the distinguished Senator from Chappaquiddick, or worse. He pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and was given a suspended sentence of two months. Kopechne's family received a small payout from the Kennedy's insurance policy, and never sued. There was later an effort to have her body exhumed and autopsied, but her family successfully fought against this in court, and Kennedy's family paid their attorney's bills.

In 1973, at the height of Nixon's Watergate scandal, Kennedy thundered from the Senate floor, "Do we operate under a system of equal justice under law? Or is there one system for the average citizen and another for the high and mighty?"

Kennedy has held his Senate seat for more than four decades, but considering his longevity, his accomplishments seem scant. He authored or argued for legislation that ensured a variety of civil rights, increased the minimum wage in 1981, made access to health care easier for the indigent, and funded Meals on Wheels for fixed-income seniors.

So, before you get all teary-eyed and sad over the imminent demise of this uber-liberal, slothful, womanizing, hard-drinking Senator, refresh your memory of his privileged life, the damage he has done to others, and his hypocritical nature.

I'm not a big fan of those who judge every character flaw in politicians. But there is a place for the evaluation of a candidate's and elected official's character in some capacity. To me, the Tedster's rank, open hypocrisy has always grated.

A drinker to excess, driving his poor first wife, Joan, to the bottle, sporting a grotesquely unhealthy and obese physique, Teddy always seemed to me to be a walking example of someone who needed to get his own life under control before purporting to fix the lives of everyone on whom he could manage to spend taxpayers' money.

My only regret today is that Teddy wasn't diagnosed some years ago, so that a rare Republican governor in his state could replace him with a Senator from the GOP.

Other than that, I can't help but feel that justice of the Greek variety is being visited upon the Senate's only unindicted, untried direct perpetrator of the death of another person.