I don't dispute the "killed a young woman" part. But I have doubts about "the government covered it up." Ted Kennedy isn't the first wealthy and powerful man to get away with something that would put most of us behind bars, and he won't be the last.

Money and power buy a lot of freedom.

Kennedy was driving drunk and his negligence no doubt caused a young woman's death, but he didn't murder her in cold blood. He didn't need the government to cover for him; he was influential and had his own connections. It goes without saying that if Kennedy hadn't been a Kennedy he probably would have wound up behind bars.

Just missed the 38th anniversary of the Kennedy's version of the Titanic. Ususally I celebrate the event by rolling an Oldsmobile into the Mystic River, but unfortunately the old gal is so polluted now, the car just rolls on top of the crud. Ah well, there's always next year. Maybe DeVille Patrick can appoint a special (read friends and family) commission to clean up the waterway, that is assuming he can tear himself away from all his pressing duties, like granting an extra 12 days off under the guise of community service to the state unemployees...paid of course!

All politicians are complete crooks, so what's your point?

This is all true as far as it goes. Nobody was going to prosecute a Kennedy sibling in 1969 Massachusetts and even if so, the jury was not going to convict.

Even with this albatross around his neck, Teddy thought he could be President, and such was the lackluster Democratic candidates at that time, with Jimmy Carter, warming the President's chair in the Oval Office, it looked as if he might pull it off.

Then the world discovered that Teddy Kennedy was a dunce, not only that, but quite stupid. His interview with Roger Mudd went a long way to sinking his ship. He made some other bad gaffes and of all people, Jimmy Carter, put him away.

Wow. Drum. Nice sanitized account, wikipedia really outdid itself with the evidentiary disclaimers. No mention of Kopechne's pregnancy? No mention of the routine of such parties where the men (all married) and the women (all single) met and drank routinely? No mention of the sanitization of the crime (oops, I mean "accident") scene, which ceased to exist less than a year later? No mention of the audacious silence of Mary Jo's parents, substantial benefactors of Kennedy's (and many other democrats') campaigns? (How deep does loyalty run?) A silence never broken? No mention of the soft-ball handling of the story by the press, which was simultaneously beating the crap out of Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam war? No mention of Mary Jo's "strong swimmer" capabilities, she several years younger than Ted? Conspiracy "theory" indeed.

CS Law #39 - Never, ever get into any kind of motorized vehicle with a Kennedy. . .under any circumstances. . .

Well, the government didn't cover up for him. He was sentenced for leaving the scene. Here is Wikipedia's account:

"On July 18, 1969, Kennedy attended a party on Chappaquiddick, Martha's Vineyard, held in honor of the "Boiler Room Girls", the six young women who had worked on his brother Robert's 1968 presidential campaign[1]. Kennedy drove away with party guest Mary Jo Kopechne as a passenger in his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88.

Kennedy claims he made a wrong turn onto an unlit road that led to Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge), a dangerous unlit wooden bridge with no guardrail, angled sharply to the road. In the poor visibility, Kennedy drove over the side of the bridge. The car plunged into tide-swept Poucha Pond (at that location a channel) and came to rest upside down underwater. Kennedy was able to swim free of the vehicle, but passenger Kopechne was not.

Kennedy, a strong swimmer, says that he swam down trying to reach her several times but the strong tidal current prevented him from reaching the submerged vehicle. He finally made his way back to the house where the party had been held. Kennedy spent hours phoning a number of people to discuss the accident, including his lawyer and Kopechne's parents, before discussing with police 10 hours after the accident. The incident quickly became a scandal.

Kennedy was publicly criticized for allegedly driving drunk (although there was no direct evidence that he was drunk), for failing to save Kopechne, for failing to summon help immediately, and for contacting not the police but rather his lawyer first. In a closed trial, Kennedy reportedly entered a plea of guilty to a controversial charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a suspended sentence of two months in jail."


Rumor has it he was drunk, but there's no evidence.

Was he drunk? I'll bet he was!

The facts of the case are well documented and it did basically cost him the Democratic Nomination in 1980 when a television documentary examining the case aired during the Primaries. Most analyses of the event indicate that it was a case of numerous bad judgments, not going to the police immediately, leaving the scene of an accident, going for a late night intoxicated drive with a young woman after a party in the first place, but there was little evidence of anything like murder or cover-up. The main impact on Kennedy was that it destroyed his credibility as a potential presidential candidate. It doesn't appear that he learned much from the episode though since he continued to make similar bad judgments such as partying with William Kennedy Smith on Spring Break in Palm Beach.

Ted Kennedy probably should have gone to trial for leaving that girl in his submerged car. That he managed to stay in public office and even be considered a candidate for president after that tells you a lot about the Kennedy political machine.