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Lower Than Low: Kopechne a ‘footnote’ who may have thought her death ‘worth it’

By: Lori Ziganto (Diary)  |  August 27th, 2009 at 10:50 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Once again, sadly I’m not kidding.

I held my tongue when Ted Kennedy passed because he has children who love him. And because I find that while many just speak the truth, which is an ugly one, sometimes it instead turns into a pack mentality and a who can be the most offensive/ shocking thing. To me, that is easy and cheap and it cheapens everyone else whilst elevating the person who is the subject to a victim status, allowing the Hero worship yet another “in”. So, I only expressed my sincere condolences to his children and those who loved him. I meant it and I’d say it again.

However, the Left, despite all it’s sanctimonious, holier than thou grousing at the right for it’s perceived “insensitivity”, is now far more odious and I can no longer hold my tongue. Never mind the IMMEDIATE “we must pass Health Care Reform/Obamacare in Teddy’s Name. He’d Have Wanted It That Way” deal and the incessant and grossly inappropriate news coverage; That was bad enough. But this, this is lower than low:

The Footnote Speaks: What Would Mary Jo Kopechne Have Thought of Ted’s Career?

We’re comfortable with moral relativism in this country — or, at least, we love us a good “sinned and redeemed” narrative. And, for the most part, we realize that there are few lives on which we can slap a “Good” or “Evil” label and expect it to be accurate.

Which, let’s face it, is one of the reasons the Ted Kennedy story is so fascinating. The huge achievements, weighed against the huge sins. Forty-six years of history-book accomplishments on everything from Civil Rights to the Americans With Disabilities Act to gender equality. Disabled? Poor? A member of any minority group? Then chances are your life is at least somewhat better because of Ted Kennedy. And for anyone who started to lose faith in the Left’s seeming impotence over the past decade (cough cough) he provided a pretty strong reason not to throw in the towel.

HA. Many would beg to differ with you, dear, including Clarence Thomas.

Peeking out from the center of the story is the matter of his playing a major part in the death of a 28-year-old woman.

Mary Jo wasn’t a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan. She was a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future — granted, whenever someone dies young, people sermonize about how he had a “bright future” ahead of him — but she actually did. She wasn’t afraid to defy convention (28 and unmarried, oh the horror!) or create her own career path based on her talents. She lived in Georgetown (where I grew up) and loved the Red Sox (we’ll forgive her for that). Then she got in a car driven by a 36-year-old senator with an alcohol problem and a cauldron full of demons, and wound up a controversial footnote in a dynasty.

A footnote. A woman’s LIFE and manslaughter is A FOOTNOTE. And “controversial”? There is no controversy, only facts. She was left to die. The man who left her to die did no jail time and instead lived the good life while doing great harm, many, including I would argue, to this Country for decades more.

We don’t know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don’t know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Yes, we do know. NOT AT ALL. He had the audacity to serve in the senate for FOUR DECADES. He stopped windmills from being built that would ruin HIS quality of life – his view from his luxury boat as he was flitting and sailing around the Nantucket sound. He enjoyed a “good laugh” over Chappaquiddick jokes. He spent his last days not making amends or in any way repenting, but rather he spent them conniving, trying to change the laws to suit his own purposes and ends.

Still, ignorance doesn’t preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn’t automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.

First of all, nice snide little Palin reference with the aerial-wolf-hunting mention. Kind of takes the wind out of your feigned Ra-Ra Empowered Woman stuff you clearly just threw in without meaning it about Mary Jo Kopechne.

You see, we can’t know what she would have thought about the life and career of Ted Kennedy. Why? Because he LEFT HER TO DIE. Alone. In a sinking car. In the dark. For hours. She didn’t drown, you know. She suffocated… she was gasping her last breaths as the tiny air pocket left in the car was used up.

While Senator Kennedy chatted with buddies. And slept. Likely peacefully.

So, no. I don’t think she’d think it was “worth it”. I don’t believe her family and loved ones would either. I do not think it was “worth it”; to the contrary.

And the value, or rather the lack thereof, that YOU and many on the Left place on human life that is in any way inconvenient to you or to your narratives is disgusting. It’s appalling to me; I honestly can’t even comprehend it. I think you’d be more upset over the death of Obama’s DOG (a water dog given to him by Ted Kennedy, natch… at least this one wasn’t called Splash!) than you are over a young woman who had a whole and likely wonderful life ahead of her.

You have reached a new low. You have sunk so far down that you are past rock bottom and are now scraping at the earth’s mantle.

(cross-posted at snarkandboobs ) (h/t AllahPundit)

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COMMENTS

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  • Aaron Gardner
    • farstar99

      So the sick, callous bastard would probably have laughed at this, too.

  • JadedByPolitics
    • clowngirl

      I clicked on the link to see the comments – read the first couple dozen. Most were absolutely revolted.

      They need to take it down. It’s unbelievable that even the Huffington Post is promoting this woman.

      • ColdWarrior

        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-lafsky/settle-this-lori-gottlieb_b_96408.html

        Yuk.

        Thank you.

        ColdWarrior

  • Richard Mullins

    I held my tongue for 24 hours and after that I let him have it. I didn’t want to watch the spectacle err funeral. I don’t have any respect for the man at all.

  • Brian Hibbert

    What an evil thing to do.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    …the content, that is, not the authorship – when again faced with a moral calculus that destroyed the scales of justice in this world. This is the face of evil that threatens to eclipse the light to the nations that America has represented for over 200 years

    Excellent write-up despite the upset to my stomach. But that is nothing when weighed up against that Mary Jo paid a price that no one should have paid and deserves to be remembered, not consigned to a dispised footnote by the powerful of this world, who viewed her as an inconvenience truth even as so many unborn babies and condemned to death because they are inconvenient truths.

    I’m sure glad I don’t have to pass judgment in the world to come. There’s so much injustice in this world; it’s hard to see how it can be recompensed.

    Highly recommended

  • E Pluribus Unum

    [my apologies to skunks]

    What a disgusting little puta.

  • http://www.redstate.com/tnjim TNJim

    Leave it to Huffpoop to reduce a (at least) voluntary manslaughter by a senator to a “footnote”. I ventured over to DKos the night Kennedy died and amongst the people who said they were crying so hard they couldn’t type were some comments berating Fox’s report of the death because Bret Baird “insensitively” brought up Chappaquidick.

    Footnote? Pft! Despite no charges being filed against Kennedy it was a shadow that hung over the senator* for the rest of his life. I’ve heard some reports that said it could have been the biggest reason behind his failed presidential bid.

    *The title “senator” not capitalized on purpose.

  • Tomlinson Douthat

    Boeotian? Cretan? A subject of any Achaean kingdom? Then chances are your life is at least somewhat better because of the booty distributed by Agamemnon. And for anyone who started to lose faith in Greece’s seeming impotence over the past decade (cough cough) he provided a pretty strong reason not to throw in the towel…

    Iphigenia wasn’t a Trojan talking point or a negative campaign slogan. She was a dedicated daughter and regal talent with a bright future — granted, whenever someone dies young, people sermonize about how he had a “bright future” ahead of him — but she actually did. She wasn’t afraid to defy convention (16 and unmarried, oh the horror!) or create her own career path based on oracular pronouncements. Then Agamemnon killed a deer in a sacred grove causing the goddess Artemis to demand that he sacrifice his firstborn daughter in recompense before he could launch his ships for Troy. And Iphigenia wound up a controversial footnote in mythology.

    We don’t know how much Agamemnon was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful war in history. What we don’t know, as always, could fill the Aegean.

    Still, ignorance doesn’t preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn’t automatically make someone (aka, me) a Hector-loving, bride-stealing Trojan troll for asking what Iphigenia would have had to say about Agamemnon’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

    Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.

    • http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/blog/loren_heal Socrates

      Just hit me, out of the blue. “Hey, this is just like Agamemnon and Iphigenia!”

      Actually, my thought was this.

  • penguin2

    if it was Melissa who died in a car, at the bottom of a lake, gasping for air. Her entire first paragraph is outrageous, and you know it will be so when she writes “We’re comfortable with moral relativism in this country…few lives on which we slap a Good or Evil label on and expect it to be accurate.”

    It is precisely that warped view of the world, of personal responsibility and indifference to life, that makes the left the unprincipled and dangerous people they have always been. I have no problem slapping an evil label on them and in my universe it would be considered “accurate.”

    Thanks for writing this, Lori.

  • Ausonius

    is that DESPITE his obvious cowardice, DESPITE his obvious immorality, and DESPITE the obvious probability that he committed manslaughter…

    …he was elected again and again and again – and was a serious candidate for the presidency!

    What kind of people vote for such a diseased blighted character to represent them?! This has been the main mystery nagging at me for decades!

    Are people in Massachusetts all amoral leftists? Are they forgiving to a blind fault?

    • Warrior

      completely with your main points. However, I have a small quibble with that last statement.

      I don’t think the problem is too much forgiveness, just too little judgement, as in discernment. Of course, in this oh-so-non-judgemental era, far be it from me to pass “judgement” on anyone’s morality. I’ll let the good Lord do that. But Teddy could be completely forgiven without EVER being elected or re-elected to ANYTHING.

      BTW, I believe Boston is the tail wagging the dog in that it is a densely populated area practically bursting with the usual leftie suspects. They undoubtedly played a very large part in returning Ted to the Senate again and again…

      • Ausonius

        Most of New York state with its small towns is much more sensible than either the NYC elites or the Lumpenproletariat expecting hand-outs to stay quiet.

        It is a case for mass psychologists to determine why many (not all) large cities become leftist hang-outs: Boston and NYC, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, D.C., L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, etc.

        Detroit: living proof of the failure of every liberal program and every redistributionist ideology!

        • Warrior

          my very first diary written over four years ago. I actually have years of training and experience as a psychologist and I wrote what I believe was quite an insightful analysis of why large population centers turn blue politically.

          Let’s see, I think I said something like people are forced to live in close proximity to others of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds and so believe no one culture is better than another, for example, forgetting that all of their fellows ALREADY live in the American culture, and mistake the belief that American culture is superior to others as intolerance of their fellow city-dwellers.

          Also, the social psychology concept of “learned helplessness” was a theme of my theory, the idea that one has no personal power to influence events, such as politics or major political movements. Residents of large cities become so because of their constant dealings with and dependence on a huge, mindless, uncaring and largely inefficient municiple bureaucracy. They simply learn to depend on what the powers-that-be hand down to them.

          Finally, using the street slaying of a woman whose screams were ignored by nearby residents (I forget her name) until she died as an example, I suggested that another idea from social psychology, diffusion of responsibility, allowed people further reason to believe they need not personally take any kind of action because so many others were around who would “probably” take the needed action. Thus, another kind of dependence is created and nurtured in areas of dense population.

          All these postulates added up to a population that was woefully dependent on a large, centrally planned gubmint entity for their well being. In addition, they became behaviorally impotent to a dgree, in the belief that someone else would be responsible. When elections and philosophies came around presenting choices other than centrally planned gubmint power, they naturally believed a top down solution obtained at the federal level as well.

          (One might argue that New Yorkers came together during 9/11 and after and that is true. However, it is also true that such a profound and devastating event was hard, if not impossible to ignore and the need to take definite, personal action was quite obvious. I’m not saying city dwellers are bad people by any means, just that their manner of living creates a kind of artificial and limited mental world which they believe occurs everywhere. For instance, someone living in a “concrete jungle” as it were, would far more readily believe that the world, not to mention the country, is becoming denuded of trees and open space, when indeed, almost 80% of land in the U.S. has not even been developed. It’s plain to see how such a fact would be difficult to believe by someone who rarely sees a tree.)

          Of course, my original post was a lot more entertaining, but it was probably lost when RS upgraded the site. Such a shame. Good times…

          • Ausonius

            “Finally, using the street slaying of a woman whose screams were ignored by nearby residents (I forget her name) until she died as an example, I suggested that another idea from social psychology, diffusion of responsibility, allowed people further reason to believe they need not personally take any kind of action because so many others were around who would

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    Including those who are shilling for the elites now. The people the ruling class governs no longer think we’re important enough to consider.

    Once their useful idiocy is no longer useful, they’ll become footnotes just like the rest of us.

  • cars

    is ill considered and offensive on several levels. None of us can know what Mary Jo Kopechne might have thought of Kennedy’s long life and career.

    Just as none of us can know what dark nights of the soul Kennedy may have struggled with after that event.

    • janis

      Did you somehow miss that little detail? Don’t know about you, but if I were to take some kind of action that resulted in the unnecessary death of another human being, I don’t believe I’d be willing to yuk it up if someone made a joke about it. Some “struggle.”

      • http://twitter.com/snarkandboobs Lori_Z

        so much, Janis. To me, the fact that he did that, on a regular basis, paired with the fact that in his last days, he spent his time conniving to change a law that HE had changed to begin with in a sneaky political trick, proves to me that he had NO remorse.

        • janis

          kind and compassionate toward the memory of this man, I point to the amount of kindness and compassion he displayed to the memory of his victim. As to the laudatory things said about him as the “Lion of the Senate”, the detail you mentioned about him trying to have the law changed yet AGAIN to guarantee the voters of Massachusetts had no choice is, I think, the final “tell” in his political career.

          If he had been anyone other than a Kennedy all these years, he’d have been a forgotten disgrace serving time for manslaughter. Yet the Dem Party celebrates him and his life as the absolute paragon of public service and professional dignity. Highly indicative of their devotion to strong character and integrity in the service of the people.

          • aesthete

            That the same liberals who were so incensed by Nixon’s questionable actions in the White House are the ones who are lionizing Kennedy even as we speak. To paraphrase one of their heroes, have they no shame, at long last, have they no shame?

          • janis

            Whatever nod they may have made toward the notion in the past, they threw it overboard as unnecessary baggage a long time ago and never looked back.

            They should perhaps read “Faust” to see how that one ends.

      • cars

        It was reported by a third party and we have no knowledge of the context or content of those jokes. That the person repeating that anecdote has placed Kennedy’s response in a deeply unpleasant light there can be no doubt.

        My point is that since none of us were Kennedy’s confessor we can have no knowledge of his private remorse or lack thereof.

        It certainly would have been easier for him to retire into private life after that. Instead he chose not to and remained in the public eye – where every one of his actions was measured against his brothers’ and Mary Jo Kopechne’s death. He also was inevitably subject to constant approbation for that tragic event.

        Some interpret that choice as a lack of remorse. IMHO the same people would interpret a choice to leave public life as a cowardly retreat.

        • janis

          a choice to leave public life as the only decent thing to do. Instead, he stayed on and continued to enrich himself and his friends while helping to push America ever further into socialism’s loving arms. His public behavior during his looooonnnnngggg years of drinking was that of a completely conscienceless reprobate with not a whit of respect or honor toward women. If he had had any crisis of conscience after Mary Jo’s death, why didn’t he use his power, abilities and money to help women in some way? He could have funded any number of programs, used his family’s influence and connections to do a lot of good. But he didn’t.

          He used his abilities to further his own quest for power, and, by his last political act, attempted to continue that from beyond the grave.

        • aesthete

          or your ability to empathize on a man such as Ted Kennedy. The man committed manslaughter, got off scot-free, didn’t care enough about it to at least not joke about the incident, and didn’t show a scrap of remorse for the incident on his deathbed. He lived a life of privilege and excess while far better people live in squalor, and his cancer wasn’t close to what would have been deserving punishment for his many, many wrongs. both personally and in the Senate. Speculation on Ted’s remorse in the dark reaches of the night doesn’t hold a candle to the actions that he took both on that night and later in life with regards to this incident, and implying that action-less remorse makes up for those actions smacks of moral relativism.

          • cars

            empathy to be wasted.

            If, in the end, it is bestowed on a subject not worthy that neither hurts nor diminishes me.

          • Warrior

            To empathize means to feel with. Since every public utterance and display this sot has made since the very instant Mary Jo Kopeakne went under water reveals a studied remorselessness, you would have to either feel maniacally hubristic unconcern or nothing. Either of which might not be a waste of your energy, but they would be a colossal waste of mine. Grow up whydoncha?

            Besides, hasn’t the the entire male line of this elitist crowd treated women to the worst and then expected special dispensation from on high because of their own wealth and expectations of privilege?? Let’s see, JFK ran women through the White house like flour through a sifter with the complete knowledge of his long-suffering wife. Next , Michal Kennedy was caught by his wife en flagrante with their teen-aged babysitter, 17 year old daughter of one To empathize means to feel with. Since every public utterance and display this sot has made since the very instant Mary Jo Kopeakne went under water reveals a studied remorselessness, you would have to either feel maniacally hubristic unconcern or nothing. Either of which might not be a waste of your energy, but they would be a colossal waste of mine. Grow up whydoncha?

            Besides, hasn’t the the entire male line of this elitist crowd treated women to the worst and then expected special dispensation from on high because of their own wealth and expectations of privilege?? Let’s see, JFK ran women through the White house like flour through a sifter with the complete knowledge of his long-suffering wife. Next, 39 year old Micael Kennedy was caught en flagrante by his wife Victoria with the 17 year baby-sitter, daughter of millionaire Paul Verrochi. Of course, Kennedy blamed it on alcohol, but continued to see the girl even after rehab. Hump. Some remorse.

          • Warrior

            To empathize means to feel with. Since every public utterance and display this sot has made since the very instant Mary Jo Kopekne went under water reveals a studied remorselessness, you would have to either feel maniacally hubristic unconcern or nothing. Either of which might not be a waste of your energy, but they would be a colossal waste of mine. Grow up whydoncha?

            Besides, hasn

  • http://www.cityonahillpolitics.blogspot.com/ Bill@cityonahillpolitics

    I have no words for this.

  • clowngirl

    is that this writer seems to think that causing Mary Jo Kopechne’s death makes Ted Kennedy more interesting, a fascinating character study who would be less extraordinary if he’d had the human decency to call the police so they could save a woman’s life.

    Ted Kennedy faced what (to him seemed) a clear choice between protecting his career and saving Mary Jo Kopechne – apparently this writer thinks his choice was brilliant.

  • drealoth

    The author of the article states that “Then she got in a car driven by a 36-year-old senator with an alcohol problem and a cauldron full of demons, and wound up a controversial footnote in a dynasty.”

    The paragraph that this sentence ends is saying she was quite a promising young woman. The author is quite right, she did end up a footnote. Kennedy lost his license for two months. She died. Kennedy had a very successful career. She died. And I feel that is what the author is saying that to most of us, the death of someone close, even through no fault of our own – a friend killed by a drunk driver – would be completely devastating and life changing, and yet Kennedy, who was very much instrumental in this woman’s death, seemed to just move on. And in that sense, she was very much a footnote in his life.

    • clowngirl

      I like your outside-the-box thinking and would actually like to think that’s what Ms. Lafsky meant but look at the neutralizing language she chooses.

      “playing a major part in the death of” is about as non-blaming as you can get. Ted Kennedy CAUSED Mary Jo’s death – both by the criminally irresponsible behavior which caused him to run his car off the bridge and by callously leaving her to die. He’s guilty of manslaughter in the least.

      Actually his crime is so unheard of, I’m not even sure there’s a word for it (unless the word is murder) but Ms. Lafsky lumps it in with human imperfection in general. “for the most part we realize there are few lives we can slap a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ label on and expect it to be accurate” as if to suggest anyone who is outraged by Chappaquidick is indulging in simplistic, or even childish notions of morality. None of are perfect, but most of us don’t have anything like this on our conscious.

      Note also the way she misrepresents the concept of moral relativism. She says most Americans are “comfortable” with it “at any rate we like a good sinned and redeemed story” but the two are not equivalent. Forgiving a sinner or being glad to see someone redeem their conduct does not make a person a relativist. The very notion of sin requires a belief in moral absolutes. Moral relativism promotes the idea that there is no right and wrong, She links “moral relatvism” with things like compassion, a desire for redemption, and a recognition that we’re all sinners as if to suggest those believe otherwise are hard hearted, unforgiving and self righteous,

  • ColdWarrior

    Enjoy:

    The annoying thing is why couldn’t they just play his entire rambling answer. I remember watching it as it happened, and it was just awful and I knew that he had just guaranteed his defeat.

    Here’s the entire answer:

    About twenty seconds before the end of fit, the thought hit me: Gee, this guy sounds like someone else who aspired to the presidency who does not handle unscripted questions very well.

    Thank you.

    ColdWarrior

  • http://www.jeannie-ology.com jeannieology

    the same thing

  • DonPMitchell

    Where did you read that Kopechne suffocated? The doctor who examined her said cause of death was drowning, and no autopsy was ever performed.

    Also, is there evidence that Kennedy did not dive to try to save her, as he reported?

  • Paul_In_Houston

    …to which one can sink, something like Ms. Lafsky scuttles out from under a rock and proves me wrong.

    -