Sam, could I get some cites on your take of the Chappaquiddick event? The air bubble most specificly.
That’s pretty good]
I think most people believe that Kennedy was drunk. I think most people believe that Kennedy tried to save Mary Joe. It is certain that he went back to the party and got his cousin and his friend to come out and help him try to retrieve Mary Joe. It is also certain that he had talked to Mary Joe’s parents before they called the police ten hours after the accident. Its not like Mary Joe was some throwaway floozy that they were trying to sweep under the rug and say “WHAT? my car is in the river? How in the world did it get there?”
Frankly Bush’s military record never bothered me. If I was in his shoes and someone asked me to go to war in a country on the other side of the world where I ran the considerable risk of getting shot or blown up, I’d ask my dad if he knew any way to get me out of it.
Kennedy paid a political price for Chappaquiddick, I don’t see why Hastert (and anyone else involved) shouldn’t have to IF he knew about Foley and didn’t say anything (especially if it was for political reasons). He can maintain his innocence, but if he is lying even now then we should throw him to the wolves.
As opposed to looking around the room and saying “we’re all Democrats here, if we let this get out it will hrut us all politcally, lets pretend Mary Joe drove off alone” and Kennedy may have said something like that, except NOONE signed on. The allegations here are that there was a widespread coverup, some good ol boys solidarity.
It’s the person she didn’t kill that we can’t forgive her for.
It’s also true that the Democrats never had the opportunity to do that.
That is the biggest Democratic weakness, they have not gotten their message across to the general public. Sure the Democrats have a great progressive platform and some good ideas but right now the thing that is getting swing voters like me is George Bush, the Iraq war, Katrina, Estate tax repeal, trying to puill a fast one on social security, Foley/Hastert, etc. none of it is Vote For Us because we stand for blah blah blah, its Vote For Us because we couldn’t possibly be worse than these yahoos. It’ll work this election season and then they are going to have to come up with some results. I think as soon as we get rid of Bush, the ultra-liberal wing of the Democratic party is going to find themselves without an audience again, but for now people are listening.
I think the analogy is very apt, but only when discussing Menocchio’s argument against bringing up Chappaquiddick.
If CQ is off limits for discussion because it’s too old, it’s not been covered up, the authorities in charge consider the matter closed, he’s been hit with it ad-nauseum for years, it doesn’t deal directly with his political career, etc., then Bush’s NG issues should be off limits for the same reasons.
Nobody cry when Jaws die. But when Dennis Haysbert die, everybody cry.
The air bubble was reported by Diver John Farrar, the guy who went into the car to retrieve Mary Joe. When the car was moved, a large air bubble was released from it, and as I recall, the diver said that Mary Joe’s body was in a position that suggested she was tyring to breathe from it.
I just tried doing a Google search on this topic, and holy cow, what a wasteland of partisan crap. It’s tough finding objective material.
For instance, here’s a site that looks very thorough: ytdek.com. However, it also has a real whiff of nuttery about it, like those wacky JFK assassination sites. So I don’t vouch for anything on that page. However, from what I read nothing factually wrong jumped out at me, although whether there is ambiguity in the evidence the site seems to take the most anti-Kennedy spin on it that it can.
Suffice it to say that the Judge in the case is on the record as not believing Kennedy’s story, and I’ve read the court transcript and Kennedy himself states that he had been drinking (he had to - there were eyewitnesses), but he claims he wasn’t intoxicated. Of course, after waiting nine hours after the accident to call the police, that evidence would be gone.
I don’t buy for a second all the various theories about coverups and murder that the more nutbar Kennedy haters have floated around. To me, it all seems very mundane - a guy got drunk, accidentally killed a girl, and saved himself from jail by going home and waiting until he was sober before calling the cops, willingly accepting a much lesser crime of leaving the scene of an accident rather than risk being charged with felony manslaughter. This happens every day - I’d venture that half the hit-and-runs out there are the result of this kind of thinking. It worked for Kennedy.
this of course, is substantially different from suggesting, as you did, that by going back to the party and seeking assistance, that Mary Joe wouldnt’ have died.
iIf there wasa ‘two hour air bubble’ available and Kennedy delayed getting assitance to her for more thean two hours deliberately, that’s SUBSTANTIALLY different than some one driving while intoxicated,a passenger dying,and the driver delaying reporting the accident/
The sad truth is that we (Collectively) view these incidents differnetly now vs. then.
Laura Bush killed another driver when she went trhough a stop sign. now, she’d be (likely) proseuctued, then it was a tragic accident. Drunk driving now is serious, back then, when George and Dick did it, it was a mere traffic violation.
for republicans to suggest that Ted;s case should be seen with 2006 eyes but Laura’s, Dicks’s and George’s not is the hight of hypocricy.
any one surprised?
I heard Hillary Clinton knifed two sailors to death in a bar in Manila while Corey Aquiino blew Bill.
I remember the line about if it had been Bobby Kennedy, he would have swum to shore and reported his car stolen.
Hasert didnt kill anybody. He may have allowed the lives of some young men to be destroyed. A liittle therapy and self hate ? Not a small thing. They were young impressionable kids.No way he gets off free.
Sorry, I can’t parse this. I don’t know what it means. What I’m suggesting that if Kennedy had done what he should have, and gone to the house that was just a few hundred feet up the road and asked them to call the police and report an accident and an overturned car in the river with a girl in it, they might have had actual pros with equipment on the scene. It was a small place - they might have had a tow truck and a few men there within 15 minutes. Maybe it would have saved her, maybe it wouldn’t. But he should have done everything in his power to try and save her. Instead, by his own testimony, he walked back to the party, got in the back of a car and sat there for a while, then quietly asked someone to go fetch his lawyer and another friend. Some time later, they went back to the river, and the other two men tried to dive down to the car, but they couldn’t fight the current. They then got dressed and split up, with Kennedy saying he was going to go to the authorities and the other men should go back to the party. Kennedy then went home and sat there for 9 hours before phoning the police.
Frankly, I’d be more willing to forgive the drinking and driving. Like you say, it was a different time. If he had honestly tried to do right after having the accident, I’d cut him some slack for making a stupid mistake. But what he did was shrewd and calculating. He weighed his options and decided to save his fat ass by removing any possibility that Mary Joe Kopechne’s life could be saved. He was only willing to try and rescue her in a way that didn’t involve authorities, meaning no access to rescue gear or other help from trained pros, because he didn’t want to risk a criminal charge. That’s reprehensible.
Here’s the real difference between CQ and Bush’s AWOL:
Teddy never ran against a guy with an exemplarly driving record, and had his goons say that his opponent’s driving medals were undeserved, and that he in fact committed some moving violations.
Also, Teddy’s stuff has been under continual scrutiny since 1969. Bush didn’t even hit the national scene until the runup to the 2000 election. It’s just as old, sure, but it hadn’t been so thoroughly beaten over. Age alone isn’t the key, it’s the time it’s been rotting under the national spotlight.
Bush’s AWOL-during-wartime **has been **consistently covered up. Candidate Bush consistently refused to talk about it. Every time he appeared before a camera, it was in a tightly scripted Republicans-only event. He was not convicted. He never admitted his desertion. So, your “same reasons” just don’t exist.
Besides, ‘Things at Camp David Go Better with Coke…!’ 
I read the book about CQ written by the prosecutor at the time. The story was supposed to be about powerful lawyers and a coverup. I was surprised by the incompetence of the local police and lawyers. that to me was the theme. Small time prosecutors in fear of the Kennedy staff and screwing up over and over. Sorry iy just didnt come out like I expected or like so many want.