Happy Belated Birthday Chappaquiddick

[Cicero]

There's plenty of innuendo about Chappaquiddick, but what, exactly is the evidence? From what I've read about it, the only crime Kennedy can be convicted of is leaving the scene of an accident; which is the crime he was, in fact, found guilty of. Was he drunk? You don't know and I don't know.

Mary Jo Kopechne would have been just as dead no matter whether Kennedy had called the cops as soon as he possibly could after the accident or not. Was his behavior after the accident what he would, in retrospect, wish it to be? Of course not. Is it plausible that it was the result of the shock of the accident itself? If you've ever been in a car accident, you'll know that that that is perfectly plausible. Lots of people find themselves in something of a fugue state when they've had a great shock--not really able to process information in normal ways.

So...that's about what you've got. The guy had a car accident in which a passenger died and he behaved weirdly for about 20 hours or so after the accident. He was duly punished by the state for his weird behavior.

The hilited portion suggests that your reading about Chappaquiddick seems to be restricted to Kennedy press releases.

"The diver, John Farrar, later testified at the inquest that Kopechne's body was pressed up in the car in the spot where an air bubble would have formed. He interpreted this to mean that Kopechne had survived for a while after the initial accident in the air bubble, and concluded that

“Had I received a call within five to ten minutes of the accident occurring, and was able, as I was the following morning, to be at the victim's side within twenty-five minutes of receiving the call, in such event there is a strong possibility that she would have been alive on removal from the submerged car."

 

[gnome]

The criminal side of the case has been resolved.

I think the remaining question was whether he had a moral responsibility to try to get help for his passenger... and whether his own mental capacity was diminished by shock.

What could have happened doesn't really have a bearing. It's his behavior and whether it was sufficiently accounted for that matters.

 

[SezMe]

This sort of blind devotion to a politician is not the hallmark of educated, or even moral, voters, but rather the embodiment of benighted sheep enthralled by siblings of JFK.

This sort of blind devotion to a politician is not the hallmark of educated, or even moral, voters, but rather the embodiment of benighted sheep enthralled by Strom Thurmond.

This sort of blind devotion to a politician is not the hallmark of educated, or even moral, voters, but rather the embodiment of benighted sheep enthralled by Robert Byrd.

Cicero, if you think the power of the incumbency is limited to MA, start again in, say, first grade.

 

[Cicero]

This sort of blind devotion to a politician is not the hallmark of educated, or even moral, voters, but rather the embodiment of benighted sheep enthralled by Strom Thurmond.

This sort of blind devotion to a politician is not the hallmark of educated, or even moral, voters, but rather the embodiment of benighted sheep enthralled by Robert Byrd.

Cicero, if you think the power of the incumbency is limited to MA, start again in, say, first grade.

I'm the one for term limits. Yes, that includes Republicans as well. But if you use Vic Vega's rationale for why Teddy remains a Massachusetts Senator since 1960, it is because Massachusetts has the most educated citizens. So you should be directing your comments to him.

 

[Cicero]

The criminal side of the case has been resolved.

I think the remaining question was whether he had a moral responsibility to try to get help for his passenger... and whether his own mental capacity was diminished by shock.

What could have happened doesn't really have a bearing. It's his behavior and whether it was sufficiently accounted for that matters.

Neither Kennedy, cousin Joe Gargan or Paul Markham, thought to call the police until 9 hours after the car went off the bridge. That shock must be contagious.

"Even if events had taken place in the manner in which Kennedy depicted them, the nine-hour delay in reporting the accident would have given them more than enough time to come up with a better story than the one that Kennedy and Markham concocted on the spot at the police station, and which was later revised for national television."

"We Can't Find Mary Jo" - Kennedy at Chappaquiddick
The accident which changed his life and ended hers

By Mary Wentworth

 

[SezMe]

I'm the one for term limits.

At the risk of too much of a derail, I, too, used to be a fan of term limits. When they were imposed in California, I voted for them.

A vote I now regret.

Term limits have not solved any of California's governance problems but have created others. Out state experiment with them is a demonstrable failure. I assume you do not live in California or you would have been seeing the disaster all along.

All that said, if you want to pursue the concept of term limits, we ought to start a new thread in order to keep this one on track.

 

[davefoc]

There's plenty of innuendo about Chappaquiddick, but what, exactly is the evidence? From what I've read about it, the only crime Kennedy can be convicted of is leaving the scene of an accident; which is the crime he was, in fact, found guilty of. Was he drunk? You don't know and I don't know.

Mary Jo Kopechne would have been just as dead no matter whether Kennedy had called the cops as soon as he possibly could after the accident or not. Was his behavior after the accident what he would, in retrospect, wish it to be? Of course not. Is it plausible that it was the result of the shock of the accident itself? If you've ever been in a car accident, you'll know that that that is perfectly plausible. Lots of people find themselves in something of a fugue state when they've had a great shock--not really able to process information in normal ways.

So...that's about what you've got. The guy had a car accident in which a passenger died and he behaved weirdly for about 20 hours or so after the accident. He was duly punished by the state for his weird behavior.

If he was driving drunk, then he did something much worse--but then, as I say, you don't know if he was and I don't know if he was. The fact that you hate him for political reasons is not evidence about his BAC on the night of the accident, any more than some other people's hatred of George Bush is evidence of his cocaine habit.

I agree with this, in the sense that based on what is publically known it is not possible to know on a beyond a reasonable doubt basis that Kennedy was impaired from alcohol consumption at the time of the accident.

But for many useful judgments in life, beyond a reasonable doubt certainty is impossible.

Based on just what is likely, the story is fairly straightforward. Kennedy had drunk enough alcohol at the party to significantly impair his driving. This may have been the cause of the accident or a contributing factor. Kennedy decided to hide out after the accident long enough to let the alcohol dissipate from his system and then called his lawyer and not the police to begin the process of reducing the political damage from this story. He used his own personal power to get the public barred from the inquest in a state where public inquests were the rule. Overall his efforts were successful given fact that he was able to revive his career.