WE GET THE LEADERS WE DESERVE

The loss of a child is unimaginable, and the pain incomprehensible. It certainly is nothing to joke about, which is what Kennedy used to ask -- heard any new Chappaquiddick jokes lately?

Dec.24, 2003: Joseph Kopechne, Mary Jo's father, dies alone on Christmas Eve 24 years after losing his only daughter

Dec.20, 2007: Gwen Kopechne, mother of Mary Jo, dies alone in a nursing home 38 years after living with her only child's death

This piece is from PajamasMedia:



We Get the Leaders We Deserve
The people deserve blame for giving Kennedy's homicide a pass.
By Andrew Klaven, August 26, 2009

At the age of 38, Senator Ted Kennedy drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge into a pond. He escaped the car, leaving 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne trapped inside under seven feet of water. I would guess he was drunk; I would guess she was his adulterous date for the day. He denied both accusations.

What was undeniable was that he waited ten hours to report the incident – all the long night. Even the next morning, he was seen chatting casually with an acquaintance at his hotel. There is evidence to suggest that Miss Kopechne was alive in the car for quite some time after the accident, breathing the last of the air caught inside.

Bad men can support good ideas. We can’t condemn liberalism itself on the strength of Kennedy’s character. It’s only a coincidence that the man who left Miss Kopechne to tap, tap, tap against the Oldsmobile window while he apparently tried to establish an alibi and otherwise cover his ass also spent a lifetime promoting policies that have endangered our freedoms, harmed our economy and damaged the lives of the poor people they were presumably intended to help.

What is no coincidence, however – what is criminal really – is that such a man spent nearly fifty years in the Senate of the United States. Fifty years in office – or 47 plus, I think it was – but in any case, longer than the longest-serving tyrant-for-life in the worst third world dirt puddle you can think of. Whose fault is that? Ours, of course. We the people allowed the courts to give his homicide a pass – he got a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident. We voted him back into office again and again, knowing what he was. Blame Massachusetts alone if you want to, but we, all of us, have failed to demand the term limits and the end to gerrymandering that would keep our representatives from devolving into entrenched toadies of special interests and unscrupulous slaves of their own ideologies. We have failed to demand the reforms that would keep our republic vital and true to its ideals. We get the leaders we deserve and God help us.

Ted Kennedy is dead at 77. Mary Jo Kopechne, rest in peace.

WHERE IS MARY JO KOPECHNE'S EULOGY?

It has been more than 40 years since the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne on July 18, 1969. She was only 28 years old, and was a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future.

An op-ed in VANITY FAIR:


WHERE IS MARY JO KOPECHNE'S EULOGY?
By Henry Rollins, August 27, 2009

Not Far Under The Surface. Let’s say I am driving myself and a passenger in my car at night. I accidentally drive off a bridge into the water below. I am able to get out of the submerged vehicle but for some reason, I am unable to free the passenger.

I gather two friends, a relative and my lawyer and return to the scene. We are unable to rescue the person trapped in the car. Several hours later, myself nor the two others I took to the site have called the authorities. In fact, it’s two fishermen who find the car the next morning as even then, no one has been called to the scene.

The car is removed from the water and it is determined that its occupant is dead. This tragic incident is made international news by my circumstances. I am very well known, a United States senator. My family is incredibly powerful. There are allegations that I had been drinking heavily hours up to the time I got into the vehicle with the passenger. I deny this for the rest of my life.

That at no point did I make an attempt to call for rescue would probably be considered by many people to be outrageous and horrible, perhaps a crime that would carry a prison sentence. Can you imagine what the parents of the deceased would be going through when they found out that their 28-year-old daughter died alone in total darkness?

I serve no time. Not inconvenienced by the burdensome obstacle of incarceration, I seek to maintain my elected position. I am successful and remain a senator for the next four decades. Would any deed I performed in that time, besides going to prison for the negligent homicide I committed all those years ago, be enough to wipe the slate clean?

After my passing, would you fail to mention the incident and the death of this innocent person in reviewing the events of my long and lauded life?

You wouldn't forget about her, would you? That would be negligent.


Boston.com has an excellent video: