For as long as Ted Kennedy’s name is remembered, it will be marred by Chappaquiddick. Up until today I never realized what a heinous story it is. I knew it involved a drunk Ted, a car crash and a girl dying. It sounded like a tragic and irresponsible accident to me. What I learned today is how callous and vile Ted behaved. Carl Cannon wrote a great narrative of the events on that night. I definitely recommend reading his post along with the Wikipedia entry, but I’ll summarize the key points in bullet form for the impatient.

Teddy Kennedy met up with friends and some girls at a party in a cottage on tiny Chappaquiddick Island, off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. It wasn’t a huge crowd. It was a small get-together for Ted’s friends and the “Boiler Room Girls”; some women who worked the phones for RFK’s presidential campaign the year before. Kennedy decided to leave the party and the following events become murky.

• Kennedy claims he left the party at 11:15 pm and Mary Jo requested he drive her back to town. A local cop saw Kennedy’s car at 12:40 am. No one at the party knew Mary Jo left with Teddy, and she also left her purse and hotel key at the party.
• Kennedy leaves his chauffeur at the cottage and ended up driving in the exact opposite direction from the ferry landing.
• Kennedy misses a turn in the road and drives into the water, flipping the car on to its roof. He manages to swim out of the car, but for some unknown reason Mary Jo cannot. Kennedy will later go on to say after he made it back to dry land, he jumped back into the water seven or eight times trying to find Mary Jo.
• Once Kennedy gives up on trying to locate Mary Jo underwater, he walks back to the cottage. He walks by four other cottages with working phones on his trip back.
• At the cottage, which also has a working phone, he told two of his friends about the accident. They returned to the scene and attempted to rescue Mary Jo. When that failed, they drove Teddy to the ferry landing where he swam back to town (ferry service ended at midnight). His friends would later claim they did not call the police because Teddy told them he would report this when he got back.
• Back in town, Kennedy returned to his hotel, which has a working phone, and went to sleep. During the night he would complain to the hotel owner about a noisy party that was keeping him up. In the morning he was seen chatting with a local about sailing.
• Kennedy’s two friends visit him at his hotel where they question why he didn’t report the incident. The three of them return to Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy is seen making several calls at a pay phone by the ferry dock, but none are to the police.

Here’s my guess on what really happened that night. Ted’s story was a cover for an extramarital affair. He couldn’t admit to that because it would ruin his career and humiliate his family. It also makes more sense to believe Mary Jo wasn’t going home for the night because she left her keys and purse at the party. Ted didn’t bring his chauffeur along to drive because who wants a third wheel around when you’re trying to have sex? Remember that if Ted was really trying to catch the last ferry back to Martha’s Vineyard (and the cop’s testimony makes this impossible too), his chauffeur would have been stranded at the cottage.

Ted Kennedy was a despicable human being for allowing a woman to die to preserve his privileged life. The police diver who was sent after two local fishermen reported the submerged car said Mary Jo’s body was pressed up against a part of the car where an air bubble would have formed. He estimated she lived for two hours down there. Two hours where Kennedy could have called for police from four houses in between the accident and the party cottage, or called from the cottage, or called from a pay phone at the ferry dock, or called from his hotel room. These lefty journalists I see on TV trying to wax poetic about the Liberal Lion are vermin. This man was scum and deserves no praise. If you think I’m exaggerating, check out this recording. “[O]ne of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself.” What a monster.

I’m pretty well disgusted with the health care debate we’re having in this country. Even though I totally disagree with the notion that health care is a right and the government should be providing it, I can understand the pro-side. We just have a difference of opinion about the shape society should take. What disgusts me is the elitism that is bubbling its way up to the surface thanks to common people voicing their opposition. Here are some choice bits.

1. Barbara Boxer says protesters are too well dressed to be legitimate.

This is the most obvious form of elitism. Sen. Boxer “knows” what a real protester looks like. If a person is neatly groomed and takes care to dress appropriately, clearly they cannot be one of the common folk. The senator knows commoners are a filthy lot, often wearing dirty rags and flip-flops. Anyone dressed decently must be a paid operative of those evil Republicans. Real people are probably too drunk to show up at a town hall meeting anyway.

2. Andrea Mitchell says we don’t know what’s good for us.

Mitchell has settled the debate. We regular people are just too retarded to know what’s good for us. If only we would shut up and let our social betters run things, everything would be glorious.

3. Barack Obama wants us to stop talking.

Shutting up, isn’t that what representative democracy is all about? What better way is there for an elected official to govern but for opposition to shut up and let you do whatever you want? I wish I had the Constitution better memorized because I’m having trouble remembering the clause where it says anyone who disagrees with the president should keep it to themselves. I know it must be in there since that’s what our president has told us to do.

Really though this all goes to the heart of Progressivism. That ideology treats common people as incapable of caring for themselves. Government, run by society’s best and brightest, must step in to care for them. Barbara Boxer, Andrea Mitchell and Barack Obama clearly feel they know how to run your life better than you do. Do you think they do?