After 50 Years, the Press Is Still Whitewashing Chappaquiddick

Fifty years ago this week, two major events in American history occurred within 48 hours of each other. The second one, an American astronaut walking on the Moon, drew focus away from the first one: Chappaquiddick. On the night of July 18, 1969, Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and left Mary Jo Kopechne to die. And he got away with it, in part because just two days later, the whole world was looking up at the sky and not at Ted’s fake neck brace.

Of course, Ted was a good liberal and a member of a fervently worshipped political dynasty, and he said all the things Democrats wanted to hear. So for half a century, our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the media have done everything they can to diminish and dismiss his actions. Sure, a woman was killed, but Ted never got to fulfill his destiny as president of the United States. And besides, he’d already suffered the horror of his two brothers being assassinated. Wasn’t that punishment enough? Do we really need to keep rehashing minor little details about the distant past?

Which is why we still see things like this:

50 years ago today, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard with Mary Jo Kopechne, 28; some time later, Kennedy’s car went off a bridge into the water. Kennedy was able to escape, but Kopechne drowned. pic.twitter.com/X7jCFJcyJw

— AP Images (@AP_Images) July 18, 2019

Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.

This makes it sound like it was the car’s fault. Hey, that Delmont 88 went off the bridge all by itself. Fortunately, Kennedy was able to save his own skin. Too bad ol’ whatsername happened to die, but at least the Lion of the Senate* was okay.

If you want to know more about what happened that night, I highly recommend the film Chappaquiddick. It took almost 50 years for somebody to make a movie about what Ted Kennedy did and how he got away with it, and they waited until a decade after his death. And libs still threw a fit about it.

Here’s the trailer:

How about this for a double feature this weekend: Watch First Man, premiering on HBO Saturday night, to see how America made it to the Moon. And then watch Chappaquiddick on Netflix to see how an evil man took advantage of that stunning human achievement to get away with murder.

The more they want you to forget, the louder you should remember.

*That was Kennedy’s nickname. He was like a lion, in the sense that he mated without limit and killed without remorse.