I personally could never stand Senator Edward Moore (Ted) Kennedy. That said, I think he and his family deserve our prayers and sympathy in their time of crisis.
However, it’s one thing to cite his long career in the Senate, cite his achievements, and even to gloss over his moral pecadillos and failures but to virtually ignore Chappaquiddick is to do a disservice to the dead, one Mary Jo Kopechne.
As the media rushes to canonize Ted–which considering just his pro-abortion stance would disqualify him for sainthood in the Catholic Church–to sluff off that night, to which Wikipedia devotes all of four lines and calls it an “incident,” is to demean the life and death of Mary Jo.
I don’t propose to detail that “incident” of July 19th, 1969, but for those out there who weren’t born by then or for those who have forgotten the details I would refer you to A Profile in Cowardice, a scrupulously detailed account of the “incident:” http://www.ytedk.com/intro.htm
It’s fine now, as Kennedy is seriously ill, to praise the man but let us never forget the young woman who needlessly drowned that night in his car.