The "Good" Senator.

(originally mailed Sunday, August 30th. 2009)

I would like to add my condolences to the Kennedy family as they mourn the passing of one of their own.

For anyone under the age of 40, I'm certain that none of you ever knew or heard the actual "history" of Senator Ted Kennedy. I am certain none of your schools taught you the full truth about the man's history - or answered any questions about the incidents I'm going to describe. So after you read this posting, do a little research on your own, and then answer one simple question for yourselves.....

What would have happened to your mom or dad, your brothers and sisters, or yourself, had you been involved in any of the incidents I'm about to tell you?

In honesty, growing up in the 50's & 60's, learning about these incidents as they happened, and seeing how Ted Kennedy was treated, was the main reason I came to detest the Kennedy name & legacy so vehemently. As time has passed, there have been examples of other Kennedy family members, who have garnered "special treatment" only because their last name was Kennedy. It continues today - all you have to do is minimal "homework" to see the disparate treatment between how you would be treated and how Kennedy's ARE treated.

Suffice it to say that politically I did not agree with one thing Ted Kennedy stood for, or believed in. His politics were of ultra-liberalism, big government taxation and spending, and social welfare programs designed to enslave recipients for the sole purpose of garnering votes. (Perhaps this was his way to assuage some guilt he may have felt - but I doubt it!)

Ted Kennedy simply lived his life believing that there were "rules for Kennedy's" and "rules for everyone else."

Perhaps it wasn't entirely his fault - his father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy Sr. certainly instilled that belief early on in his son's life. When Ted was caught cheating twice while at Harvard - once for cheating on a test himself, and once by having another student take his exam for him - the other student was immediately expelled, never to return. Teddy was quietly re-admitted after serving two year in the Army. But while 90% of all enlisted Army personnel and certainly most "privates" saw active duty in the bloody Korean war zone, Ted's daddy made sure his son served in that "hotbed of combat"...Paris, France!

While attending law school at the University of Virginia - Ted was sighted for reckless driving four times - yet never had his license revoked or suspended. In 1961, two years after passing the Massachusetts bar exam he was appointed Assistant to the District Attorney of Suffolk County, Mass. In 1962 as a 30 year old, he was elected to "the Kennedy seat" in the U.S. Senate, when his brother John gave up the seat to run for the Presidency. Ted has held and been re-elected to that seat ever since!

In July 1969, while attending a "reunion party" of his brother Robert's campaign workers on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, Ted (now 37), "borrowed" his chauffeur's keys "to offer a ride home" to Mary Jo Kopechne, a 28 year old campaign worker . Sometime between 11:15 PM and 1 AM the Oldsmobile registered to Kennedy drove off a bridge and landed up-side-down in a tidal pool. Kennedy, who admitted to driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, escaped the fully submerged vehicle and looked around for Ms. Kopechne. When she didn't answer his calls, he says he dove repeatedly to the vehicle but was unable to assist her, or even determine whether she was still in the vehicle.

Instead of calling for help at one

of four homes along the road to the bridge - (at least one of which was within 150 yards of the bridge, and according to the inquest had left their exterior lights on ), Ted walked back to the party and returned with two friends. They again dove on the vehicle but were unable to determine the state of Ms. Kopechne. Kennedy - claiming he was in shock and distraught - then says he swam across Edgartown channel and went back to his hotel room. He did not report the accident to authorities until the following morning. In fact, two fisherman reported the overturned car to the owners of the nearest house to the bridge and the inhabitants of the house called the police at 8:20 AM. A diver was immediately sent down and discovered Ms. Kopechne's body at 8:45AM. When the car was removed from the channel it was discovered that Ms. Kopechne had scratched at the upholstered floor above her head before she perished. Can you simply imagine the terror and loneliness that poor woman felt before she drowned in Teddy's overturned car?

Ms. Kopechne's body was rushed out of Massachusetts and returned to her family. No autopsy was conducted. Ted Kennedy was never given a sobriety test. Seven days later at a hearing, Kennedy was allowed to plead guilty to "leaving the scene of an accident." He received a two month suspended sentence!! 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.

This week as Senator Kennedy was remembered as someone who "never practiced petty politics" I nearly gagged!

How convenient it is for Liberals and the Press to forget that during the summer of 1987 while Judge Robert Bork was being considered for a position as a Supreme Court Justice, Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor and delivered a tirade against the Judge - fashioned and calculated not only to end the Judge's nomination to the Supreme Court, but in large part to end the Judge's entire judicial career! Kennedy defamed Judge Bork by saying, "

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit down at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of democracy." NONE OF WHICH WAS TRUE! But of course Ted got away with those lies because of Kennedy & senatorial privilege. And this was nothing new, Kennedy had maligned other Senators and opponents his career - whenever his cause was threatened, Kennedy reverted to character assassination & slander.

Sort of makes you wonder upon hearing other Senator's call Ted the "Lion of the Senate," whether that word is better spelled "Lyin'" instead?

In later years "the good Senator" was implicated in the rape case of his nephew in Palm Beach Florida. But don't believe me...Look up the William Kennedy Smith rape case.

So, young readers it is now up to you to decide whether Ted Kennedy should garner all the flag waving and tears you've seen in recent days? Make sure your research is complete and then decide. Perhaps for you, the fact that he is gone and part of an earlier generation will be enough for you to close his page of history.

But be careful, because it won't be that easy. In the coming week you are going to hear more Senators calling for Ted Kennedy's name to be used as part of the new government healthcare bill President Obama is trying to push through Congress! Wonderful! Another banner day for American myopia! The name of a man who caused the death of an innocent young woman is going to be memorialized on a bill that could alter this countries healthcare forever!!! My God America what are you doing????

Personally, I pray that Senator Kennedy - on the last day of his life - felt a little of the terror, pain and loneliness that Mary Jo Kopechne felt all those years ago as her life slipped away in that cold dark water off Chappaquiddick Island.

Dum Spiro Spero!!!
Sic Semper Tyrannis!