Not that the media will tell you but, Mary Jo Kopechne probably didn't drown in Ted's car, instead she died a tortured, agonizing death from suffocation, trapped in his car, as he ran to his bungalow to concoct an alibi with his lawyers. Had he made a simple, timely phone call, she likely would have lived.
You'll read eulogies of Kennedy for days but, one particularly stood out to me. Novelist Joyce Carol Oats wrote this about Kennedy and Chappaquiddick in The Guardian on Thursday...
Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?
The poet John Berryman once wondered: "Is wickedness soluble in art?". One might rephrase, in a vocabulary more suitable for our politicized era: "Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?"
This paradox lies at the heart of so much of public life: individuals of dubious character and cruel deeds may redeem themselves in selfless actions. Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.
You'll read eulogies of Kennedy for days but, one particularly stood out to me. Novelist Joyce Carol Oats wrote this about Kennedy and Chappaquiddick in The Guardian on Thursday...
Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?
The poet John Berryman once wondered: "Is wickedness soluble in art?". One might rephrase, in a vocabulary more suitable for our politicized era: "Is wickedness soluble in good deeds?"
This paradox lies at the heart of so much of public life: individuals of dubious character and cruel deeds may redeem themselves in selfless actions. Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.
How dare liberals write off the life of a young girl as an acceptable loss, given Kennedy's tireless advancement of liberal causes! Would Ms. Oats tell Mary Jo's mother to her face that her daughter's life was worth less than Teddy's career accomplishments in the Senate? How depraved must one be to publicly announce that you think an innocent life is worth less than a political career?
The media will gloss over this issue because they adore the idea of the Kennedy's and Camelot but, don't you forget that an innocent girl needlessly died at Ted's hands. I for one, am glad that the era of Kennedy-Camelot is over and done. I never thought I'd see the media get the vapors and swoon over a politician like they always have the Kennedy's but then along came Barack Obama and the idea of Camelot was resurrected....great!!!
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