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Sins of the
Father
I like the Kennedy clan. I really do. Without them, I’d have
little reason to write and even less reason to complain.
Take Representative Patrick Kennedy (D., R.I.), the eldest or youngest son
or whatever—does it really matter?—of political powerhouse Edward “Ted”
Kennedy, D., Mass. Young Kennedy, as you well know, recently crashed
his Mustang convertible into a D. C. barricade at 3:00 in the morning, his
second accident in two weeks.
Kennedy at first told Capitol Police investigating the incident that he was
on his way to cast a vote in the House of Representatives, even though the
House had been shut down for hours. When asked if he had been
drinking, he said he had not, even though a witness came forward the next
day and said that she had served him the previous evening. With his story
unraveling, Kennedy came clean. He got amnesia. He couldn’t
remember a single thing about the incident or why he had been driving around
aimlessly in the middle of the night.
In all fairness, Kennedy does not have it easy. Look at who his old
man is. Jack McConnell, a close Kennedy friend, said of young Patrick,
"He consistently talked about being in the spotlight and not being able to
just say, ‘I'm struggling, I have issues.’”
Must be tough to have issues.
"This is a test," said one of Kennedy's mentors, Senator Jack Reed, Democrat
of Rhode Island. "I think he has set a standard for himself of dealing
forthrightly."
That forthrightness, as Reed so eloquently labels it, includes declining
requests for an interview, lying to the police, and using his family name
and personal position to obtain special favors. (The investigating officers,
after smelling alcohol on Kennedy’s breath, were relieved of their duties by
two sergeants who violated the law and their own department’s code of ethics
by refusing to give Kennedy a sobriety test in favor of driving him home).
Kennedy said later that his confusion following the accident was the result
of taking two medicines, Ambien, a sleep aid, and Phenergan, for gastric
distress.
Must be tough, being wide awake and gassy.
Although awkward and cumbersome in public, the ill-suited heir to the
Camelot legacy is nonetheless still a Kennedy, and he has traded on his name
often in the past. Who named Kennedy wouldn’t?
He has also used his celebrity mystique to get himself out of other scrapes
over the years, such as the time he shoved a Los Angeles airport security
guard or when the Coast Guard retrieved a woman from the brink who reported
that she and Kennedy had been arguing while drinking on his yacht.
Kennedy's advisers say he views these incidents, as well as his addiction
and bouts of binge drinking, through the prism of bipolar disorder, a type
of depression marked by extreme highs and lows. Some wonder out loud
if this latest incident might be his last.
"I don't think anybody realized until now how serious his problems were,"
said M. Charles Bakst, a longtime political columnist for The Providence
Journal. "Now it all makes sense, and you realize that this kid is
on the brink. And I think if it happens again, you are going to see
people say, not necessarily angrily or bitterly, but sadly, maybe, that
public life isn't for him."
Maybe it’s not. Think of what would have happened if Kennedy had run
into a human being instead of a concrete abutment. Probably nothing.
Nothing, that is, if the youngest member of the political clan has learned
anything at all from his father.
It’s not surprising that Teddy’s boy lied in the face of scrutiny. It
is surprising that he couldn’t come up with a more creative
rationale. After all, his father has been doing so for the past 37
years.
Whereas the son had crashed his vehicle into a security barrier while
driving with darkened headlights at an “unreasonable speed” and “failing to
keep in the proper lane,” Papa Ted had driven his vehicle off the side of a
bridge, having been observed by a sheriff’s deputy in a “confused state”
while driving down a narrow dirt road "hurriedly.”
Whereas the son claimed to be en route to cast a Congressional vote at least
three hours after the House had adjourned for the evening, the father fled
the scene of a fatal “accident,” hid in the back seat of an empty car, and
then told the world that he had somehow miraculously mustered the superhuman
strength to swim across the channel separating Chappaquiddick from Martha’s
Vineyard--against the tide!
Whereas the son had stated, "I simply do not remember getting out of bed,
being pulled over by the police, or being cited for three driving
infractions,” the father, in a televised statement to the People of
Massachusetts delivered on July 25, 1969, seven days after killing Mary Jo
Kopechne, said, “My conduct and conversations during the next several hours
to the extent that I can remember them make no sense to me at all. Although
my doctors informed me that I suffered a cerebral concussion as well as
shock, I do not seek to escape responsibility for my actions by placing the
blame either on the physical, emotional trauma brought on by the accident or
on anyone else. I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not
report the accident to the police immediately.”
Both father and son were afforded the unique opportunity to “sleep off”
anything probative relating to their sobriety at the time of their
accidents, and, of course, both were aided and abetted by their accomplices
for life, the mainstream media. Both were able to dip into their
wallets, as they have done so often in the past, to produce the monarchy’s
unchallenged Get Out of Jail Free card.
The card not only assures its holders of not landing in the slammer, the way
you would or I, but also of not getting grilled by the press. Have you
noticed how little leg room the Patrick Kennedy story is getting only weeks
after the incident? In that respect, the card is better than gold.
Sure, there are still questions concerning the father’s ridiculous defense
of just what happened at Dike Bridge back in 1969. We will probably
never know the facts surrounding the amount of alcohol consumed, what caused
the car to plunge off the road, and why Kennedy put forth so dubious a
rescue attempt. We’ll also never know about his flight from the scene,
his confession to his cousin, his return to the bridge for a “second” rescue
attempt, and his Herculean efforts to keep the stench of guilt away from the
Kennedy clan in general and Ted’s House in particular.
In his 1988 book, Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up,
author Leo Damore interviewed Ted’s cousin and attorney, Joseph Gargan.
In the interview, Gargan admitted that Kennedy had asked him to tell police
that Kopechne had been the lone driver in the car. The attorney,
although lacking integrity, did not lack intelligence: he did as Kennedy
told him.
Now, nobody I know takes lightly a person’s public intoxication or his
victimization at the hands of substance abuse. But, this is a family
with a long history of irresponsible drinking and escapist activities that
would have made Harry Houdini proud.
Family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy, successfully imported gin into the country
during Prohibition, making a fortune along the way. His youngest son
has successfully imported it into his lifestyle. Unfortunately,
his youngest son’s youngest son seems similarly bent upon perpetrating the
Kennedy legacy of lies and deceit, of special privilege and immunity from
prosecution.
Both from the law and from the press.
And I...am D. J. Herda.
# # #
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D. J. Herda is President of the American Society of Authors and Writers (http://amsaw.org),
an organization made up of authors, writers, editors, publishers, agents,
directors, producers, and other media professionals who rely
upon the printed word in the creation of quality
literature and entertainment. He is
a member of the Author's Guild, a former member of the American
Society of
Journalists and Authors, and a former member of the National Press Club. He has
published more than
80 books and
several hundred thousand articles, short stories, columns, interviews, plays,
and scripts.
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