Lower Than Low: Kopechne a ‘footnote’ who may have thought her death ‘worth it’

Once again, sadly I’m not kidding.

I held my tongue when Ted Kennedy passed, because he has children who love him. And because I find that while many just speak the truth, which is an ugly one, sometimes it instead turns into a pack mentality and a who can be the most offensive/ shocking thing. To me, that is easy and cheap and it cheapens everyone else whilst elevating the person who is the subject to a victim status, allowing the Hero worship yet another “in”. So, I only expressed my sincere condolences to his children and those who loved him. I meant it and I’d say it again.

However, the Left, despite all it’s sanctimonious, holier than thou grousing at the right for it’s perceived “insensitivity”, is now far more odious and I can no longer hold my tongue. Never mind the IMMEDIATE “we must pass Health Care Reform/Obamacare in Teddy’s Name. He’d Have Wanted It That Way” deal and the incessant and grossly inappropriate news coverage; That was bad enough. But this, this is lower than low:

The Footnote Speaks: What Would Mary Jo Kopechne Have Thought of Ted’s Career?

We’re comfortable with moral relativism in this country — or, at least, we love us a good “sinned and redeemed” narrative. And, for the most part, we realize that there are few lives on which we can slap a “Good” or “Evil” label and expect it to be accurate.

Which, let’s face it, is one of the reasons the Ted Kennedy story is so fascinating. The huge achievements, weighed against the huge sins. Forty-six years of history-book accomplishments on everything from Civil Rights to the Americans With Disabilities Act to gender equality. Disabled? Poor? A member of any minority group? Then chances are your life is at least somewhat better because of Ted Kennedy. And for anyone who started to lose faith in the Left’s seeming impotence over the past decade (cough cough) he provided a pretty strong reason not to throw in the towel.

HA. Many would beg to differ with you, dear, including Clarence Thomas.

Peeking out from the center of the story is the matter of his playing a major part in the death of a 28-year-old woman.

Mary Jo wasn’t a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan. She was a dedicated civil rights activist and political talent with a bright future — granted, whenever someone dies young, people sermonize about how he had a “bright future” ahead of him — but she actually did. She wasn’t afraid to defy convention (28 and unmarried, oh the horror!) or create her own career path based on her talents. She lived in Georgetown (where I grew up) and loved the Red Sox (we’ll forgive her for that). Then she got in a car driven by a 36-year-old senator with an alcohol problem and a cauldron full of demons, and wound up a controversial footnote in a dynasty.

A footnote. A woman’s LIFE and manslaughter is A FOOTNOTE. And “controversial”? There is no controversy, only facts. She was left to die. The man who left her to die did no jail time and instead lived the good life while doing great harm, many, including I would argue,  to this Country for decades more.

We don’t know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history. What we don’t know, as always, could fill a Metrodome.

Yes, we do know. NOT AT ALL. He had the audacity to serve in the senate for FOUR DECADES. He stopped windmills from being built that would ruin HIS quality of life – his view from his luxury boat as he was flitting and sailing around the Nantucket sound.  He enjoyed a “good laugh” over Chappaquiddick jokes. He spent his last days not making amends or in any way repenting, but rather he spent them conniving, trying to change the laws to suit his own purposes and ends.

Still, ignorance doesn’t preclude a right to wonder. So it doesn’t automatically make someone (aka, me) a Limbaugh-loving, aerial-wolf-hunting NRA troll for asking what Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded.

Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.

First of all, nice snide little Palin reference with the aerial-wolf-hunting mention. Kind of takes the wind out of your feigned Ra-Ra Empowered Woman stuff you clearly just threw in without meaning it about Mary Jo Kopechne.

You see, we can’t know what she would have thought about the life and career of Ted Kennedy. Why? Because he LEFT HER TO DIE. Alone. In a sinking car. In the dark. For hours. She didn’t drown, you know. She suffocated… she was gasping her last breaths as the tiny air pocket left in the car was used up.

While Senator Kennedy chatted with buddies. And slept. Likely peacefully.

So, no. I don’t think she’d think it was “worth it”.  I don’t believe her family and loved ones would either. I do not think it was “worth it”; to the contrary.

And the value, or rather the lack thereof, that YOU and many on the Left place on human life that is in any way inconvenient to you or to your narratives is disgusting. It’s appalling to me; I honestly can’t even comprehend it. I think you’d be more upset over the death of Obama’s DOG (a water dog given to him by Ted Kennedy, natch… at least this one wasn’t called Splash!) than you are over a young woman who had a whole and likely wonderful life ahead of her.

You have reached a new low. You have sunk so far down that you are past rock bottom and are now scraping at the earth’s mantle.

(h/t AllahPundit)

Update August 29: Big Fur Hat has a great piece up over at American Thinker. Nails. It.

Update 2 (August 29): Eleanor Clift also thinks it was “worth it”. To her credit, if you can call it that,  at least she is *completely* and shamelessly honest about it.

But if you are sympathetic to Kennedy and his politics, as I am, you’re mindful that the accident at Chappaquiddick happened in 1969, the year after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. (Ted, just 36 and the last of the brothers, shouldered the burden of 11 more fatherless nieces and nephews.) You’re also willing to measure the benefits that Kennedy brought to countless people through his politics, and give them proper weight on the scales of the man’s record. Finally, if you measure his capacity to reform himself, you tip the scales further.