In memoir, Kennedy talks of guilt, Kopechne

Source: Boston Globe

NEW YORK - In a memoir being published this month, Senator Edward M. Kennedy called his behavior after the 1969 car accident that killed Mary Jo Kopechne “inexcusable’’ and said the events may have shortened the life of his ailing father, Joseph P. Kennedy.

In that book, “True Compass,’’ Kennedy said he was dazed, afraid, and panicked in the minutes and hours after he drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island with Kopechne as his passenger.

He admitted that he had “made terrible decisions’’ but said that he had hardly known Kopechne, a young woman who had been an aide to his late brother Robert and that he had had no romantic relationship with her.

The account by Kennedy, who died on Aug. 25 at age 77, adds little to what is known about the accident and its aftermath but recounts how they weighed on him and his family. The book does not shy from the accident, or from some other less savory aspects of the senator’s life, including a notorious 1991 drinking episode in Palm Beach, Fla., or the years of heavy drinking and women-chasing that followed his 1982 divorce from his wife, Joan.


Read more: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/03/in_memoir_kennedy_talks_of_guilt_kopechne/

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snip

But it also offers rich detail on his relationships with his father, siblings, and children that round out a portrait of a man who lived the most public of lives and yet remained something of a mystery. Among other things, it says that in 1984 he decided against seeking the presidency after hearing the emotional objections of his children, who, it says, feared for his life.

snip

‘Atonement is a process that never ends,’ Senator Edward M. Kennedy wrote in ‘True Compass.’

:puke:

the idiot repubs who are very forgiving when it comes to their mistakes will never ever stop from making an issue out of Kopechne' death .... shows their lack of moral compass ...

to the repubs ...

* you adore a president who sold arms to your enemy and sent the money to a government that killed it's citizens
* you admire a president who lied to send 4,000 US citizens to death for a war without a just cause
* you hate a president because he had extramarital sex and killed his healthcare plan because it would benefit the common US citizen and harm healthcare industrial complex
* you hate the current president because he is a self-made man not a pappa's boy or someone associated to the evil nixon or dumb reagan presidency

How much more pathetic can you folks get?

If they get Ted Kennedy then we get Laura Bush.

i personally don't consider the 2 cases to be the same for various reasons. Primarily, Laura Bush was never ran for public office and was a private citizen while Ted Kennedy was a senator when the accident occured. Even being Charitable to Kennedy, he didn't display a cool head when required most (something that he acknowledged till the very end!). Also, i think Laura was still in her teens while Ted was mid-30s at the time of accident. Alcohol (?) (i don't remember the exact involvement in either cases & too lazy to look it up!)

So, i think we should leave Laura out of this. This doesn't make me one of those repub plugging away at Ted. I think Ted made a mistake (grave one at that!) and spent a life time living/reconciling with it. That will be a part of his legacy but NOT THE DEFINING PART of his legacy!

I hate Reagan for the reasons you gave, plus more.

I hate Bush for the reasons you gave, plus more.

I don't hate Clinton for the affair. Who cares? Only Hillary had a right to care. And his health care plan had no chance with the Republicans in charge.

I hate the current president for continuing several rights-violating Bush practices and even going further than Bush on at least one of them.

I don't hate Kennedy for thinking more about damage control for his political career than about the life of the girl trapped in his car, especially given the extreme circumstances. It only lessened my opinion of him as a person.

I do hate Kennedy for the creation of the despised HMO. Everything he had done for health care recently was basically fixing his own mistake.

"As the author of the first HMO bill ever to pass the Senate, I find this spreading support for HMOs truly gratifying. ... HMOs have proven themselves again and again to be effective and efficient mechanisms for delivering health care of the highest quality." -- Ted Kennedy, 1978

that Ted Kennedy turned out to be a much better man than his critics.


Come on, Vitter wears diapers.

That could explain his bad decision-making in the hours after the accident.........

to what he did.

I was once in an auto accident. I was wearing seatbelts, older car so no airbag. Even though my head didn't hit anything, it was still shaken around, and I was mildly dazed for a few hours following the accident and had difficulty thinking straight.

Teddy's car was going 30mph (Determined by distance from marks on bridge to where car impacted.), turned upside down and hit the water. In 1969 it is doubtful that he was wearing a seatbelt. His head had to get slammed around some in all of that, and it is entirely probable that he was more than somewhat dazed.

Whatever his relationship with Mary Jo was is none of our business.

named Lee Harvey Oswald.