‘Chappaquiddick’ Is A Brutally Honest Movie Laying Bare The Kennedys For Who

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How on earth could he “save” his reputation by what he did? He couldn’t! That’s the huge fly in your ointment. He did the worst possible thing for his reputation!

Your second assertion is just personal opinion.
 
And you seem to want to whitewash Teddy simply because he was a Kennedy. The idolatry surrounding the Kennedy name is just astounding.
How so, specifically? Please don’t go tossing around baseless accusations. Back them up!
 
If Kennedy hadn’t been catting around while he had a pregnant wife at home, none of it would have happened.
 
If Mary Jo hadn’t been a willing partner, it wouldn’t have happened. I’m glad my mom taught me to say “no.” If Kennedy was “catting around” she was his willing partner, which makes both of them guilty.
 
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All you’ve done in this thread is try to make excuses for Teddy or shift the blame to the victim. Your posts are all the back up needed.

Conversation over.
 
If Mary Jo hadn’t been a willing partner, it wouldn’t have happened. I’m glad my mom taught me to say “no.”
If that’s the only lesson you got out of this, then you should apply it to Kennedy too. Why give him a slide for not saying “No” himself? Why does she pay the ultimate price, while he gets lavished with worldly praise and riches?
 
So now it’s MJK’s mother’s fault? It’s eveyone’s fault but Teddy’s I guess.

He drove drunk
He turned off onto a gravel road
He drove off the side of the bridge
He got out of the car and didn’t report the accident until at least 9 hours later

You can have your own opinion, but you don’t get your own facts
 
All you’ve done in this thread is try to make excuses for Teddy or shift the blame to the victim. Your posts are all the back up needed.
I guess you have no evidence to present, but that’s okay. The only Kennedy I ever liked, by the way, was Jackie, and she was really a Bouvier.
 
[from Wikipedia]

tells you something about his character…

Like his father and brothers before him, Ted attended and graduated from Harvard College.[11] In his spring semester, he was assigned to the athlete-oriented Winthrop House, where his brothers had also lived.[11] He was an offensive and defensive end on the freshman football team; his play was characterized by his large size and fearless style.[2] In his first semester, Kennedy and his classmates arranged to copy answers from another student during the final examination for a science class.[12] At the end of his second semester in May 1951, Kennedy was anxious about maintaining his eligibility for athletics for the next year,[2] and he had a classmate take his place at a Spanish exam.[13][14] The ruse was immediately discovered and both students were expelled for cheating.[13][15] In a standard Harvard treatment for serious disciplinary cases, they were told they could apply for readmission within a year or two if they demonstrated good behavior during that time.[13][16]

In June 1951, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army and signed up for an optional four-year term that was shortened to the minimum of two years after his father intervened.[13] Following basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird in Maryland for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped without explanation after a few weeks.[13] He went to Camp Gordon in Georgia for training in the Military Police Corps.[13] In June 1952, Kennedy was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris, France.[2][13] His father’s political connections ensured that he was not deployed to the ongoing Korean War.[2][17] While stationed in Europe, he traveled extensively on weekends and climbed the Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps.[18] He was discharged after 21 months in March 1953 as a private first class.[13][18]

Kennedy re-entered Harvard in the summer of 1953 and improved his study habits.[2]
 
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His brother John was a U.S. Senator and the family was attracting more public attention.[19] Ted joined The Owl final club in 1954[20] and was also chosen for the Hasty Pudding Club and the Pi Eta fraternity.[21] Kennedy was on athletic probation during his sophomore year, and he returned as a second-string two-way end for the Crimson football team during his junior year and barely missed earning his varsity letter.[22] Nevertheless, he received a recruiting feeler from Green Bay Packers head coach Lisle Blackbourn, who asked him about his interest in playing professional football.[23] Kennedy demurred, saying he had plans to attend law school and to “go into another contact sport, politics.”[24] In his senior season of 1955, Kennedy started at end for the Harvard football team and worked hard to improve his blocking and tackling to complement his 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m), 200 lb (91 kg) size.[18] In the season-ending Harvard-Yale game in the snow at the Yale Bowl on November 19 (which Yale won 21–7), Kennedy caught a pass to score Harvard’s only touchdown;[25] the team finished the season with a 3–4–1 record.[26] Academically, Kennedy received mediocre grades for his first three years, improved to a B average for his senior year, and finished barely in the top half of his class.[27] Kennedy graduated from Harvard at age 24 in 1956 with an AB in history and government.[27][28]

Due to his low grades, Kennedy was not accepted by Harvard Law School.[16] He instead followed his brother Bobby and enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law in 1956.[2] That acceptance was controversial among faculty and alumni, who judged Kennedy’s past cheating episodes at Harvard to be incompatible with the University of Virginia’s honor code; it took a full faculty vote to admit him.[29] Kennedy also attended the Hague Academy of International Law during one summer.[30] At Virginia, Kennedy felt that he had to study “four times as hard and four times as long” as other students to keep up with them.[31] He received mostly C grades[31] and was in the middle of the class ranking, but was the winner of the prestigious William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition.[2][32] He was elected head of the Student Legal Forum and brought many prominent speakers to the campus via his family connections.[33] While there, his questionable automotive practices were curtailed when he was charged with reckless driving and driving without a license.[2] While attending law school, he was officially named as manager of his brother John’s 1958 Senate re-election campaign; Ted’s ability to connect with ordinary voters on the street helped bring a record-setting victory margin that gave credibility to John’s presidential aspirations.[34] Ted graduated from law school in 1959.[33]
 
Unbiased fact:

After the accident, according to testimony, Kennedy told no one what had happened. Other than Kennedys.
 
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You can have your own opinion, but you don’t get your own facts
Either do you. I admit he was negligent. Even he admitted he was negligent. You like to say he was “catting around,” but that requires a partner. Facts present Kopechne as a willing partner. She was planning on returning and not going far. She left her purse and car keys at the party, and that’s a fact. She told no one she was going back to the hotel. That’s another fact. Add the facts up and both are guilty. Both contributed to Kopechne’s tragic, but preventable, death. Yes, Kennedy was a Democrat, but that doesn’t automatically condemn him. Kopechne was one, too.
 
I do agree with that assessment, and I don’t think that’s victim blaming.
 
After the accident, according to testimony, Kennedy told no one what had happened. Other than Kennedys.
No, he talked to at least two other men at the party, who told him he had to call the police.
 
So I’ll change that: he did nothing.
Not until morning, and for that, I think he was negligent. Whether his waiting contributed to Kopechne’s death or not is unknown since no autopsy was performed. I think it should have been, but if her family was reluctant, I understand that.
 
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Had he tried to rescue her or told authorities immediately that there had been an accident, she possibly could have been saved. He chose to leave her in an underwater tomb. That is the bottom line.
 
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I have to say Thanks to @ConstantLearner for holding her/his? own against all of our retorts. Takes some stamina.

I still think they’re giving Kennedy somewhat of a slide though.
 
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Had he tried to rescue her or told authorities immediately that there had been an accident, she possibly could have been saved. He chose to leave her in an underwater tomb. That is the bottom line.
But Ted Kennedy always skated. And always avoided any responsibility for anything.
 
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