EppsNet

He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done.

— Mark Steyn

One of the things Ted Kennedy and I have in common is that we both love Chappaquiddick jokes. Ed Klein, a Kennedy friend and biographer, was on the radio the other day and said:

I don’t know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, “Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?” That is just the most amazing thing. It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.

HAAAHAHAHA! I hope you like heat, Teddy! I look forward to swapping jokes with you in Hell. Have you heard this one?

Q. What do you call 200 Kennedy sycophants at the bottom of a Chappaquiddick pond?
A. A great start, but bad news for NPR guest-bookers!

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!

The most fitting eulogy I’ve read for Senator Kennedy . . .

A Senator from Massachusetts has left office in the only manner possible for an incumbent Democrat, i.e., in a coffin. The New York Times leads off their story on Ted Kennedy’s death with “his sometimes-stormy personal life.” When I think of Ted Kennedy, though, my first thought is always sadness at the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a promising young woman killed by Kennedy, who waited more than eight hours before seeking help for her rescue. One expects politicians to impoverish constituents with reckless spending; one does not expect them to kill constituents. . . .

[Some friends asked today how I would have summarized Ted Kennedy's biography, if not the way the New York Times did. I observed that he had spent his entire life either as the child of a wealthy family or as a government employee. Never having held a job in the private sector and never having been exposed to the risk of losing a job or a paycheck (either as a child or an adult), he created many new laws and regulations on private businesses (most of the laws that apply to private employers do not apply to Senators themselves in their relations with staff). In his personal life, rather than donating to charity (source) or working directly with the unfortunate, he enjoyed drinking and partying. He drove a car off a bridge, trapping a young woman inside, managed to save his own skin, left her to die, and did not attempt to summon help that could have saved her.]

Update: I just noticed that Barack Obama gave a televised speech from Martha’s Vineyard in praise of Ted Kennedy. Though he was speaking just a few miles from where Mary Jo Kopechne died, President Obama did not mention her. Barack Obama did note that there was nobody in the Senate who had earned more “respect” and that he was one of “the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.” I guess if all of our government workers were similarly accomplished we would no longer have to worry about overpopulation.

— Philip Greenspun

I’ve never understood what was so great about this guy. He was immature, a drunk and a womanizer. In 1979, he couldn’t answer a softball question about why he wanted to be president and didn’t even make it out of the primaries.

The best thing I can say about him is that he got things done. He had an undeniably impressive track record of passing legislation — most of it disastrous, of course — but he did get it passed.

And he killed that poor girl, Mary Jo Kopechne. Don’t forget that. Put her in a lake, then went back to his hotel room and fell asleep. Never even reported it. Far from ending his political career though, the whole Chappaquidick “incident” was written off as just Ted being Ted.

As a deceased person myself, I know that death is like following a light into the next world. If you’re lucky, that light won’t be the moon shining through the window of a submerged Olds 88 . . .