The Legacy of Ted Kennedy
The death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy is a sad event. It should make us all reflect on the reality that no matter how far we go in life, no matter what we may accomplish, in the end we all face the same fate.
There can be no doubt that Ted Kennedy was a giant of the Senate, whether you agree or disagree with his politics. He worked harder than most and achieved more than most. Beyond that, he was a true gentleman who never failed to consider the feelings of others. The stories of his personal kindnesses are legion.
Like any other man, he had flaws. The elephant in the room was always Chappaquiddick, the single event that likely kept him from being president and certainly kept him out of the Senate Democratic leadership. It never went away, and it never should have. He left a young woman alone in a submerged car, possibly still alive and struggling to survive while he ran away to preserve himself and his career. It was nothing less than shameful and cowardly.
A mere mortal probably would have been charged under Massachusetts law with manslaughter, perjury, or driving to endanger — or all of those offenses — and probably would have been convicted and spent time in prison. Because he was a Kennedy, the last surviving of the most noble of the clan, he received special treatment.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court got involved in the handling of his case, ordering that the inquest be closed to the public. The judge at the inquest found probable cause that Kennedy had committed a crime and could have issued a warrant for his arrest but didn’t. The district attorney declined to prosecute him for manslaughter. A grand jury, which was not permitted to see relevant evidence including the inquest judge’s findings, did not issue an indictment.
The family of the victim had been paid off and didn’t pursue legal action. There was no autopsy, but when it was found that there had been blood in her mouth and on her clothes, which was inconsistent with the initial finding of accidental drowning, the family blocked the authorities from exhuming her body to perform an autopsy.
Kennedy pled guilty to one charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. After his lawyer and the prosecutor agreed that Kennedy should receive probation because of his age, character, and prior reputation, the judge sentenced him to the mandatory two-months incarceration and suspended the sentence.
Kennedy then made a carefully crafted speech, written with the assistance of such luminaries as Robert McNamara, Arthur Schlesinger, and Ted Sorensen. The speech saved him, and he went on to become the Lion of the Senate.
Whatever his other accomplishments, an enduring part of his legacy will be the fact that he walked away from a crime that should have resulted in prison time and the destruction of his career, proving that there are two kinds of justice in America, one for the political nobility and one for the rest of the people.
As we take time to remember Senator Ted Kennedy and his contributions to America, let’s also remember Mary Jo Kopechne, a bright young woman with a future of her own. What would she have accomplished professionally? What would her personal life have been like? How many children and grandchildren would she have had, and what would they have been like? The mistake of her young life was to have flown too close to the Kennedy flame, and she paid dearly for it.
Chappaquiddick: No Profile in Kennedy Courage by Susan Donaldson James, ABC News, provides a good review of the Chappaquiddick incident. More details can be found at Wikipedia.
(This article was also posted at Opinion Forum.)
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Great article.I thought you approached it well too- I guess the Chappaquiddick incident always remains in the front of my mind when Senator Kennedy’s name comes about, and I’m glad that you were able to review his life and this incident objectively.
I believe his first wife said something along the lines of she “didn’t know what she was getting into” when she married into the Kennedy clan, and it is interesting to look at the people who,like you said, flew too close to the Kennedy flame.