Truth Surfaces from Chappaquiddick

I feel so badly. I was once mislead to believe that Ted Kennedy killed a young woman in 1969 by driving his car with her off of a bridge and let her drown, while he saved himself and took time to create a cover-up story. Well, now, someone who fits the profile of the Reality Based Community, has shared the real story of Chappaquiddick--as told by an eye-witness! There's a lesson here.

...I guess it's time to tell the version I heard, supposedly from a horse's mouth, of what really happened there almost 37 years ago.

.

First a recap. Ted Kennedy's car went off a bridge and into a pond after a party for Bobby Kennedy's campaign staff on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard. A passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne (Ko-peck-nee) was subsequently found drowned in the car.

Kennedy claimed he dove repeatedly into the dark water but couldn't find her. Then, disoriented and hurt, he gave up. On it's face, a routine if terrible tragedy. But Kennedy and his handlers inexplicably waited 9 hours before reporting the accident.

...I met a woman who was, to say the least, in the thick of things at Chappaquiddick. She told me her story -- one that makes the most sense of the 9-hour lag in reporting the accident, the most critical and damning factor in the whole mess.

It comes down to this. The party was filled with young girls star struck by the older power brokers with whom they were atypically socializing. Mary Jo in particular had a crush on Ted Kennedy. Everybody was drinking heavily.

At some point in the evening, feeling more than a little under the weather, Mary Jo wandered outside, saw Kennedy's car and crawled into the back seat to sleep it off.

At some later point, Kennedy and the woman who told me this story got in his car and headed for a more private party a deux. They were both, shall we say, plastered.

After the car went off the bridge, Kennedy's primary goal was to get his female companion the hell out of the picture. His wife was at home, after all, and pregnant to boot.

Here's the punch line: they didn't know Mary Jo was in the car.

Which provides the most locigal (sic) explanation for Kennedy's seemingly evil callousness in not trying to save her. And the troubling time lag as aides scrambled for damage control, not realizing that something far worse than casual infidelity would hit the fan.

...There are dozens of theories, reams of material, reports, hypotheses and even websites on what really happened at Chappaquiddick.

I didn't make this one up. I wasn't there. So I don't claim this is the Emmes. I'm just reporting the story I was told.

posted by Sally Swift on 01/19/2006 at 2:49 PM

Poor Teddy. Don't laugh. This is serious.

I guess this is a lesson to not jump to rash conclusions about crimes of Democrats and that we should not question the reality based community. Or, maybe the lesson is that the Left can lie to itself and actually believe it--like when they say that they deal in reality.