Shut my RW mother up about Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick

We don't talk politics much these days, but whenever Kennedy's name comes up she goes on and on about Chappaquiddick. Today I called her up and said, "You know, mom, you always throw what happened to Kennedy up to me no matter what he says or does these days."

"No, I don't."

I don't argue about that even though she does. "Mom, when Laura Bush was 17 years old she ran a stop sign and accidentally killed a friend of hers from school who was in the other car."

"I didn't know that."

"It was a stupid accident and even though she was at fault, it was an accident. Nobody wants to be in an accident especially if it kills someone." She doesn't say anything. I know she's thinking. "I would bet Ted Kennedy has as much regret. Sure, he could have handled it a little better, but since when are we smart at our worst?"

We move on to a different subject and that conversation guaranteed I'll never have to put up with her ranting about what happened again.

arguments...

Laura was a teenager
TK was a married congressman ...out with a younger woman...at a rather "wild" party..

He was drunk, out of bounds, and a woman ended up dead because he tried to spare his own reputation/marriage etc..

There is way more to the story than we ahve ever been told..

He has tried to live a good life since, but we all have to admit that if he was not named kennedy, he would have done time..

The party took place about a year after RFK was assassinated. The women at the party were affectionately known as the "Boiler Room Girls". They were former RFK aides.

He showed exquisitely poor judgement but there's no proof it was more than a tragic accident.

There's no proof that Ted Kennedy was drunk. Prove he was drunk or I call bullshit on your idle speculation.

Not sure what Laura did.

We didn't go into too much detail on either one, but I got tired of her going on about that every time his name is mentioned. The point I wanted to make to her that shit happens and people do dumb things. It doesn't mean they need to be punished over and over for it...especially since these things all happened so long ago.

Let's see if I understand Chris Shay's logic...

Because Ted Kennedy was involved in a tragic accident over thirty seven years ago it's ok for the Republican leadership to look the other way while Mark Foley tries to fuck underage male pages who are in his charge.

so screw them and screw the facts. Know your enemy, fight fire with fire.

what any of the circumstances were. From what I understand, there was very good visibility at the intersection and no problem with traffic. How she managed to kill her ex-boyfriend there is very strange.

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?isbn=0743265262&sid=33&agid=2

SNIP

"She was seventeen, a few days past her birthday in her senior year, a girl with her daddy's car keys. There was a party, on a weeknight."

SNIP

"Laura, they learned, had been speeding blithely out of town about 8 P.M., east on Farm Road 868, her high school friend Judy Dykes in the passenger seat. She never saw the stop sign. She never saw the other car. She plowed right through that stop sign and slammed hard into the 1962 Corvair coming south and with the right-of-way, on State Road 349, the La Mesa Highway. She was fine, really, the officer assured her parents, but bruised and banged up, and awfully upset. Judy was shaking but unharmed as well. But the boy in the other car, well, the force of the broadside impact was so severe that, well...He never had a chance. Michael Douglas, golden boy of Midland, high school track star, was dead on arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. The two girls were taken there, too, in another ambulance. Mike Douglas's father had been driving another car behind his son. He saw the entire horrific scene, the explosive beginning of a nightmare that haunted him his whole life."

SNIP

"The police accident report notes that the pavement was dry and the visibility excellent on the night Laura flew through the stop sign at 50 miles per hour. The photos in the police file show an intersection bisecting the flat Texas landscape, a stop sign unobscured by buildings or shrubs, nothing but utility poles marching toward the horizon. They show the violence of the impact: Mike Douglas's '62 Corvair looks like one of those carcasses police departments put by the side of the road to scare people off drinking and driving. Its metal hood and right front side panel are crumpled like a ball of paper, its entire chassis wrenched out of shape. The report by the officer on the scene notes that the investigation was not complete, but if there was any follow-up investigation, those results have long since disappeared from the files at the Midland County Attorney's Office. An air of mystery still surrounds the crash. Folks in Midland were eager to ask questions: What was Laura doing way out of town that night? Where was she going? Who was she going to meet? But in any event, she was not charged, not even ticketed for running through the stop sign, although Douglas's death was the second fatality at that same intersection that year. The police reportedly found no evidence of drinking or excessive speed, although the report is inconclusive as to whether she was tested for alcohol."

SNIP

She knew full well what she was doing. At that time, drunk driving accidents happened all the time and nothing was ever done about it. They were just accidents. His only failure was not handling the aftermath correctly.

Is if he was driving a Volkswagon, hew would have been president.....

I'm sure it will come in handy for me, too.

http://www.childbutcher.com/

Maybe she'll start dissing Laura.

Robin Bush never got a funeral.

Today is the anniversary of her death.

Her parents went out to play golf instead.

Or, we could hold The Robin Bush Memorial Golf Tournament.


Robin Bush
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pauline Robinson Bush (December 20, 1949 Compton, California – October 11, 1953 New York City) (known as Robin Bush) was the second child of George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. Named after her maternal grandmother, she died of leukemia at the age of three. She was initially buried in Connecticut, but was reburied in 2000 at the Texas A&M University site which is intended for her parents.

One writer has argued that her death left a profound impact on her older brother, the future president George W. Bush.

<snip>

Effect of death on George W. Bush according to Justin Frank

Main article: Bush on the Couch

In his book Bush on the Couch, Justin Frank argues that Robin's death, and the way it was handled by the family, had a strong impact on her brother's later personal development. Despite her short life, Frank believes that she had a major impact on the world through her older brother, George W. Bush, who later followed in their father's footsteps and became President of the United States.

Bush's next-eldest sibling, Robin, died of leukemia at the age of three, when he was seven years old himself. Frank argues that this loss, and the way his parents handled it, has had a lasting impact on Bush's psyche.

At the time she became ill, Robin was the future president's only sibling (although Jeb Bush was born before she died) and a favorite playmate. His parents never told him that she was sick, although he was asked to stop playing with her. Only after her death did they disclose to him her illness, which had lasted longer than doctors expected it to and had led the Bushes on a frantic quest back East to find a specialist who could treat her. These efforts kept them away from their son for long stretches of time, and he was not present when Robin died, nor at her burial. In fact, George H.W. and Barbara Bush apparently played golf on the day of Robin's funeral.

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Bush

is pretty much irrelevant to whatever they are charged with.

Ask your mother if she is defending child-sex predators.

I think she's staying home next month. She wants whoever knew out of office. But she still loves bush.

The fact is that all of the other Democrats brought up in defense of those covering up Foley had their day in court, or being vetted.

The problem HERE is they covered it up, let it continue, lied about it when confronted about it, and now are shifting blame rather than take responsiblity.

I sometimes think that most people discussing politics just want to play "gotcha." You introduced a point of discussion that you imply could be used as a "gotcha," but you showed deference and respect, and you probably gained some rational foothold by taking that road.

it FINALLY shut him up

Thus Edward Kennedy is an CONVICTED FELON. Edward Kennedy took responsibility for his actions AND SERVED THE PUNISHMENT ACCESSED ON HIM BY THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. To this day Kennedy can NOT own or even touch a firearm.

What about Foley? He resigned, but has he accepted any other form of punishment? Furthermore no one has ever Accused Kennedy of using his influence to DENY responsibility. No one covered up the Crime, it was reported AND RESOLVED within months. Thus unlike Foley, who was left to troll for pages since his election in 1994, Kennedy was PUNISHED within a year of his crime. Foley kept on doing his crime (i.e. using his power as a Congressmen to get pages to have sex with him).

Remember the women who died in Kennedy's car was NOT a person on his staff, she knew what she was getting into when she entered that car (And they is NO evidence of ANY sex between Kopenek and Kennedy, they may or may not have had sex but that sex, if it occurred, had NOTHING to do with the accident).

Foley, on the other hand, went after Pages who were UNDER THE CONTROL OF THE CONGRESS AS A WHOLE. The Pages are to "assist" any Congressman (or Congresswoman). If a member of the Majority party of Congress objects to a page, that page is GONE (Except for the 1/3 of the pages reserved for the minority party, but those pages are NOT part of this scandal). This is the Scandal, Foley trolled for Pages and the leadership of the GOP LEFT HIM DO SO. Unlike Kennedy who was left to the dogs by his fellow Democrats after the accident and only admitted back into the party good graces when he won re-election AFTER he had been sentenced.

Most folks walked away from drunk driving accidents. This was before MADD and I think even before breathalyzers. Proving drunk driving or recklessnes wasn't as taken for granted as it is today. He might could have been acquitted if he'd taken it to trial, but accepted the manslaughter plea to get it done with.

And the Drunk Driver did not even lose his license (and since my Grandfather was 86 years old widower, did not have to pay any Judgment or any other costs related to the death of my Grandfather).

Another Drunk Driver hit my Father's car when it was parked along the side of a Highway and then had the gaul to blame my sister for parking it on the road (The car was in Park and the Parking brakes were on and the driver still pushed it almost 50 feet, pushing the trunk up and under the back axle and this was a 1966 Chevrolet Bel Air not some modern car with thin steel, that thing was built like a tank.

What did this second drunk driver get? Not even a suspended license for no one was hurt, his insurance paid only about $200 for my Father's car (And the Police refused to write it up as a drunk driver for most insurance at that time excluded drunk driving from coverage).

MADD has changed the environment we live in when it comes to DUI, in many ways to the worse (i.e. tickets for merely being DUI are extremely high), but when you consider what was occurring BEFORE MADD, it is a vast improvement, forcing people to take responsibility for their own behavior

I mean, there is no question but that DUI was once upon a time treated way too leniently in many states, and I support the toughening of the laws. But you have to apply some god damn common sense to this issue too. They've gone too far the other way now. You can get a DUI and not even be intoxicated, I've seen and heard of people being stopped after one beer or even after drinking nothing and hauled in, and that's ridiculous. My son was pulled over by a State Trooper and arrested, even after passing an on-site breathalyzer, and a blood test. It was eventually dismissed by a judge, but still...I even know a lawyer who was given a DUI after taking a breath mint, the man doesn't even drink. I've known him for years, and I know that for a fact. (We used to dog him in high school, for refusing to drink beer at parties). DUIs have gotten to be a money making racket for a lot of States. There has to be a "happy medium" some where.

It's irrelevant how a person got there.

Most people can NOT use some other means of transportation to get home other then driving. The distances are to far and the options, other than driving, often non-existing.

Kennedy entered a plea of guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury. He received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident

Sentence, so I was wrong on that, but while he did not seem to have taken responsibility immediately after the accident, within a day he had reported the accident and within six months being tried for the crimes the local DA believe they could bring against him. Unlike Foley who was permitted to troll for teens for the last 12 years.

A less far-right site on Kennedy and his accident:
http://www.crimemagazine.com/05/tedkennedy,1017-5.htm

I think you're supposed to report an accident when it happens; especially when there's a person with you that's drowning in a sunken car. But it was a long time ago.

Whatever happened... It was a long time ago and whatever Ted Kennedy did or didn't do it doesn't give a "get out of jail free" card to every Republican miscreant.