In 1964, I was flying with several companions to the Massachusetts Democratic Convention when our small plane crashed and burned short of the runway. My friend and colleague in the Senate, Birch Bayh, risked his life to pull me from the wreckage. Our pilot, Edwin Zimny, and my administrative assistant, Ed Moss, didn't survive. With crushed vertebrae, broken ribs, and a collapsed lung, I spent months in New England Baptist Hospital in Boston...This is how Ted Kennedy opens his self-aggrandizing appeal for nationalized health care in last Saturday's (July 18th) article in Newsweek.
July 18th!
40 years ago on that very date, Kennedy had left Mary Jo Kopechne to drown in a submerged car which he had driven into a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts. Birch Bayh's example apparently didn't mean much to Kennedy that night for he certainly didn't emulate him. No, indeed; he left Miss Kopechne there to die so he could get on with his Senatorial career.
We are used to seeing Kennedy's hardened heart over Kopechne's traigic and unnecessary death. Nevertheless, his daring to bring up Bayh's action (such a striking and memorable contrast to his own cowardice and the subsequent self-serving coverup) is still a shock. True, Kennedy didn't know that Newsweek was going to publish the internet version of his article on July 18th (the magazine publication isn't until the 27th), but it remains a galling act of insensitivity.
It's hard to believe that at least one of the editors over at Newsweek didn't notice the infuriating irony of Kennedy's opening remarks. But then again...maybe somebody did and published the online version on July 18th for that very reason. Maybe Mary Jo Kopechne is, in fact, remembered by somebody at the magazine. Maybe even mourned.
It's a nice thought at least.
