By David in TN
In commemoration I again watched the 2018 film, Chappaquiddick, which I reviewed for NSU/WEJB three years ago. A good thing about the movie is you get more out of it with repeated viewings.
The Boiler Room Girl Ted Kennedy is shown repeatedly talking to is a semi-fictional character named “Rachel Schiff,” played by Olivia Thirlby, who is a composite of Esther Newberg and Susan Tannenbaum. She is more concerned with helping “The Senator” than what happened to her colleague.
In 2020 a writer named William C. Kashatus wrote a biography of Mary Jo Kopechne. It was mostly reminiscinces of friends and relatives. We know what jobs she had, but little else.
No letters by Mary Jo have survived. She never wrote an article or column, nor was she ever interviewed by the press. She wouldn’t have been permitted to, working for the Kennedys.
Her first job in politics was as secretary for Florida Senator George Smathers, a good friend of John F. Kennedy. The two shared the avocation of enjoying female company. Mary Jo got the job with Bobby Kennedy after he was elected New York Senator in 1964. Smathers recommended her to Bobby. Mary Jo would have learned to be discrete.
By the Way, Senator George Smathers voted against Civil Rights bills.
Kashatus put out a podcast after the book in which he said Mary Jo wasn’t especially close to the other Boiler Room Girls. She had worked for Bobby the longest and was slightly older than the rest. Also, their families were more well to do than Mary Jo’s. Kashatus didn’t say it directly, but is this why the others cared more about Ted Kennedy’s political career than Mary Jo Kopechne’s life?
For over 50 years the surviving Boiler Room girls have refused to talk about what happened at, and right after the party on Chappaquiddick island.
A thing to do this week is to watch Chappaquiddick (2018).
Ted ever do the black chicks--or did he only believe in integration outside of the boudoir?
ReplyDelete--GRA
Four middle aged married men on an island with four unmarried much younger women. What can go wrong? We know.
ReplyDeleteAs far as we know, he didn't.
ReplyDeleteAt the very least Ted was guilty of manslaughter--his drunk driving resulting in a death. But the reality is worse--it appears that she was probably alive for a long time in an air bubble in the car. If, instead of cowardly fleeing, he had stopped at the nearest house and called for help, she might have been saved. It is an indication of the lack of morality of the Democrat voters that they kept electing this cowardly murderer--a man who should have been in prison. And we see the same quality among todays's Democrats--they voted for the lying, sniffing, traitorous Biden with his Crime Family, and don't care that the election was stolen.
ReplyDelete