Repost with Better Audio: Ted Kennedy Just Loved Himself a Good Chappaquiddick Joke

Well, then! Yesterday I thought maybe we were being mean spirited "haters." It turns out we were providing the ghost of Ted Kennedy with his favorite topic of lighthearted mirth!

The right-wing noise machine strikes again, peddling a myth posted here by DrewM, noted by The Corner, originally noted by Jules Crittendon, and, um... actually reported by (presumably arch-liberal) former Newsweek and Times reporter Ed Klein on the presumably arch liberal Diane Rehm show (guest hosted by the quite liberal Katie Kay).

Among the various questions I have: Apparently this is something he did with reporters, freely, openly.

And yet reporters hid this from us until Ed Klein accidentally left the cat out of the bag.

Fifty years later and reporters still act as if it's their sacred duty to lie on behalf of the Kennedys and hide their transgressions from the public.

I don't know if you know this or not, but one of his favorite topics of humor was indeed Chappaquiddick itself. And he would ask people, "have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?" That is just the most amazing thing. It's not that he didn't feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too.

Here's the full audio. The bite occurs at 30:15.

The claim is that he liked these jokes as they came "at his own expense." Really? At his expense? Would he guffaw at some of the rib-ticklers about manslaughter we were so enjoying yesterday?

YouTube clip via Ed Morrissey.

What's blue and white and wet all over?

Mary Jo Kopechne's cold, cyanotic corpse.

I got a million of 'em.

Dating Myself: Robert Chambers, the "Preppie Killer" who strangled Jennifer Levin in Central Park in 1986, also enjoyed "jokes" about the woman he murdered.

In the beginning of this clip, we see Robert Chambers strangling a Barbie doll in a "joking" fashion.

Note that no reporter found this lightheartedness about a slaughtered young girl to be charming or "at Robert Chambers' own expense," thus demonstrating what a swell, awesome guy he was.

Oddly enough, people seemed to take that as evidence that Robert Chambers was a sociopathic monster.

But I suppose if he had been in the Senate pushing liberal legislation and slandering Robert Bork, the media would see his frisky japing in a more charitable light.

posted by Ace at 11:55 AM

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