What About Chappaquiddick??

I'm convinced that the death of Ted Kennedy is more of a cultural event than a political one.

As the last link to the "Camelot" days of the 1960s, his death means a great deal more to people (at least people from my parent's generation) for that symbolism than for anything he has accomplished politically. In a way, that makes him a lot like his brothers John and Robert. Neither of them were responsible for anything spectacular during their political careers (unless you count JFK's spectacular failure with Bay of Pigs....or that time he almost started a nuclear war and then managed to avoid it at the last possible second....). Still, I can acknowledge that the Kennedy's meant something important to America nearly fifty years ago.

And so, as with the passing of any great cultural symbol, I can understand and accept a certain level of grandiose tributes and laudatory epitaphs. However, in the coverage of his death that I have watched (admittedly in limited amounts) today, I have noticed an odd occurrence: there has been practically no mention of Mary Jo Kopechne, the woman who died when Kennedy drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969.

Kopechne's death turned into a major controversy in the months that followed, and it is certainly one of the first things that many people think of when they head the name Ted Kennedy.

The event was significant politically too; it likely cost Kennedy the Presidential nomination in 1972. He later ran for President in 1980, but was defeated by Jimmy Carter in the primaries.

It's not that surprising to see the cable news happily glossing over that moment in the life of one of their heroes (since most people reporting the news today are both liberal and grew up during the 1960s, I suppose this is to be expected), but I was curious to see what kind of attention the New York Times gave to the "Chappaquiddick incident".

Here's "all the news fit to print" on the issue:

"For much of his adult life, he veered from victory to catastrophe, winning every Senate election he entered but failing in his only try for the presidency; living through the sudden deaths of his brothers and three of his nephews; being responsible for the drowning death on Chappaquiddick Island of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to his brother Robert." (bolding mine)

Yes, they dedicated an entire clause to one of the defining events in Senator Kennedy's life. Apparently, it did not even deserve a full sentence of its own. And that clause was more than two-thirds of the way down the first page of the obituary. That would be like writing an obituary for Bill Clinton and only mentioning Monica Lewinsky once, in a clause buried at the bottom of the page.