Cartoon caption: Charon tells Ted Kennedy she’s looking for him…at the river Styx. Charon: She’s waiting for you, Ted…Your sister, Eunice. For those who need a little nudge to their mythology trivia: I did my research on this, so the names check out!
UPDATE: After I did my own research here, I have noticed several other articles, and a book taking my research and ideas, without giving me any credit. I hope you get stuck in a car underwater, Donald Frederick Nelson.
There are about a billion books out now, 11 years later, not to mention the Chappaquiddick movie, which got good reviews. More info is always good, so let me add the new stuff at the end of my article.
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I’ve always been curious about the Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne drowning, so of course that’s where my mind went last night when I read about his death. (Aug 26, 2009.)
What? Is that bad, or is that normal!? I’ve only been following the news closely since I started working as a political cartoonist. Excuse me when I don’t know everything about every politician in the White House.
I did notice Ted Kennedy died, however.
Kennedy did a lot of good with health care, and did some other great things, too. CNN seems to have a balanced story about him here, including all his positives, which are legion; they are also honest enough to at least mention the Chappaquiddick drowning (unlike the spurious writeup the LA Times did on him last month, with not.one.mention of the drowning. HA HA HA!
And the Times website STILL totally sucks, after their new “updo”, as it won’t show me that link now. Anyway, back to the mystery.)
So last night I spent a couple of hours reading all the links I could find on what really happened with Teddy and the tragic story of Mary Jo. Briefly, there was a party of a bunch of married men and single women who had worked on the Robert Kennedy campaign. This isn’t necessarily scurrilous, as Wash DC has the highest number of single women – read the stats.
Edward Kennedy was going to drive Mary Jo to the ferry, so she could take it home to her hotel room across the channel. He drank too much, and the car tipped over, upside down, into the pond. He got out, presumably through the open window on the driver’s side, but poor Mary Jo drowned. He reported the incident the next morning, about 9 hours later. The obvious explanation is that he was drunk, didn’t want the police to test him, and so he delayed reporting it until after he had talked with his lawyer, etc. But there were a lot of questions raised in the many sites I read: Was she pregnant? Why did he delay? Why was he seen at this time in dry clothes? Did he really try to save her, as he claimed, and was he then able to swim the channel, as he claimed, back to town?
