Incident at Chappaquiddick: 37 years on

[thatcrazycajun]

For some unfathomable reason, last night, as I was trying to get myself to sleep waaay past when I should have, I found myself thinking of Sen. Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (D-MA) and the now notorious automobile accident at Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard in 1969 that cost one of his campaign staffers her life and him his Presidential ambitions -- and also, in the eyes of a great many people, his credibility and his humanity. (For those unfamiliar with the details, the Wikipedia page here is a good place to start.)

We may never really know the full, actual events of that late July night decades ago, when poor, luckless Mary Josephine Kopechne died at the bottom of a Massachusetts salt marsh, drowning in a submerged Oldsmobile. The only one left today who does (unless he's said anything to his family and/or his priest that he didn't to the authorities and the media) is the Senator himself, and he ain't talkin'. And it should be said that many people's negative opinions of him, while crystallized by that incident, were as much generated by their own dislike of his (liberal) politics, or of his family's political dynasty, as by anything he actually may or may not have done on the night in question or since. And none of us can say with certainty what we ourselves might have done or failed to do, driven by fear or confusion or desperation or sheer mischance, had we been in the shoes of that young man alone in the island wilderness on that night.

I will readily admit to some bias on this subject; being a registered and proud Democrat, I don't like having to cast a critical eye on such a renowned lion of my party. And Sen. Kennedy has done much in his career that is well worth lauding: his fierce protection of a woman's right to choose abortion and sensible regulation of gun ownership,  his courageous stand with the precious few in high office in this land favoring state sanction of same-gender marriage, and his championing of environmental causes, opposition to torture of prisoners and a sane end to our current Iraq misadventure. He has also done much in his career that is less laudatory, such as his support for the egregious No Child Left Behind Act.

But still, I cannot help but wonder what more Ted Kennedy might have been, how much kinder history might have been to him—and how much more respect he might have garnered, on both sides of the aisle—had this sad chapter in the history of a family legendary in public service never happened. Other views are welcomed.

Comments

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

My only real regret is that the only Kennedy who survived was the least of them. John was a great President (I know there were flaws in his character; personally, I don't have a problem with womanizing, provided he was honest with Jacqueline about it) and Robert would have been even greater, I believe. Someday I hope to write the alternate history in which Robert Kennedy succeeded LBJ (yes, I'm certain it's been done -- I haven't done it) and the US actually accomplished worthwhile things over the past 35 years (like, say, permanent off-planet colonies, serious progress in developing alternate power sources, and major environmental cleanup).

Ted Kennedy's done some good things, but has become something of a cliche; a self-parody in some ways, to the extent that it's very hard for him to get taken seriously. I can't see his brothers ever getting to that point.

[(Anonymous)]

I think Denis Leary put it most succinctly -- "Ted Kennedy: A good senator but a bad date."

I share your disappointment that the Chappaquiddick incident has hung over Kennedy's political career all of this time. Granted, his behavior in the aftermath of the crash is pretty hard to defend. Certainly, the failure to call the authorities for help after returning to the Lawrence Cottage (where the party he had just left was held -- it's worth noting that _no one_ present called the authorities) and the fact that Kennedy consulted with his lawyer before calling the police, suggest someone who placed his political ambitions -- the desire to avoid a scandal -- at a higher priority than handling the immediate situation. This is reprehensible, but not, in the long view, unforgivable.

Remember that once he had given up trying to swim down to the car to retrieve Kopechne (at least he claims that he did so, and I've never heard anyone without a political ax to grind suggest that he was lying), he had no reason to think that she was still alive, or at least that she could have been by the time help arrived. (It was later discovered that rather than drowning, she had likely suffocated in a pocket of air that remained in the car, and therefore may have been alive longer than she would have in a simple drowning. Still, she couldn't have survived more than a few minutes, poor thing.)

On the one hand, it's hard to imagine someone thinking about anything other than the fate of his companion under the circumstances. But it's also hard to imagine living under the kind of scrutiny directed at the Kennedy clan.

I'm willing to imagine the whole thing from his perspective: "I've just had a terrible automobile accident that got my passenger killed. It may have even been my fault, but I certainly didn't intend for it to happen. I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I'm not a bad person. But my political adversaries will bury me if this gets out. They'll make me out to be a villain, say I didn't care if she lived or died. They will kill my career, prevent me from doing a sorts of good for the country. And letting them do it won't bring her back..."

Or something along those lines. Not a very noble sentiment, but understandable.

And let's face it, if he was thinking of his career at that moment, he was right: the incident would come to be regarded as the defining moment of his life, no matter how much good he had done or would do subsequently.

Ultimately, I think that Kennedy's punishment for the incident has been disproportionate to the crime. He has proven to be a great legislator, one of the last true liberals left standing in the Senate. Over the years, he's compromised with conservatives too many times for my taste -- strange bedfellows and all -- supporting a number of crypto-fascist bills out of political expediency. But his overall record is as positive as it gets in the world of latter-day American realpolitik.

At least the incident didn't completely end his political career. As a powerful Senator, he's been able to do a lot of good -- whatever one might think of him as a person.

I'll tell you this -- I wouldn't want to be babysitting that man's demons. Whatever bad acts he may be guilty of, I think that being Ted Kennedy is punishment enough.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

oops -- that last comment was me. I forgot to sign in.