"But in fact a dovish faction in the CIA sought to arrogate to itself the power to make foreign policy -- a power given by the Constitution to our elected President -- and so of course this cadre of contrarians is celebrated for their bravery and enlightenment."

Well. . . yeah? And your point is. . . ?

IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY? I DON'T GET IT.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

On July 18, 1969, a couple of nights before Armstrong took that "giant step for mankind," Ted Kennedy took a turn onto a narrow bridge in Chappaquiddick. The passenger in his car that night was Mary Jo Kopechne, a pretty, blond Capitol Hill secretary, just about to celebrate her 29th birthday. The two events are inextricably linked in my mind because my husband, who was a correspondent for a British newspaper, instead of reporting on our glorious odyssey into space, ended up at police headquarters on Martha's Vineyard covering that sordid story.

In case you have forgotten or never knew the details, Ted and five of his pals and six women known as the "Boiler Room Girls" who had worked in Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign, cut short by his assassination the year before, were weekending together. Afterward, the men claimed it was just a couple of days of innocent fun to thank the girls for their help, though the six guys were all married but partying without their wives, and the young women were all single. One of the "Boiler Room Girls" is now big-time New York literary agent Esther Newberg, who was Mary Jo's roommate for the weekend. Like everyone involved in the incident, Esther remains close-mouthed about what occurred.

What everyone testified at the time was that Kennedy and Mary Jo left the party before midnight. Kennedy said he was driving her back to the ferry to Edgartown, and took a wrong turn, though he was very familiar with the roads on the island. His car toppled off a narrow wooden-planked bridge, a bridge that is in the opposite direction to the road that led to the ferry but is on the way to the beach. The car landed upside-down in eight feet of water and, Kennedy claimed that after escaping, he tried unsuccessfully to rescue Mary Jo. He then staggered back to the party, called out his cousin Joe Gargan and his pal Paul Markham, to return to the scene. What he didn't do, inexplicably, was seek help in a lighted house only yards from the bridge or use the fire-alarm phone at a fire station he passed on the way back to the party.

Right from the start, the reporters who arrived at the scene were skeptical of his story, skeptical even of how he claimed he got back to Edgartown that night. Markham and Gargan said when they drove to the ferry landing — the ferry had stopped running by then — Kennedy took them by surprise by jumping in the water, and swimming across the channel towards Edgartown. They assumed, they said, he would report the accident that night to the police. Instead Kennedy went back to his hotel, ostensibly to change his clothes but instead, went downstairs to complain about a noisy party that was going on.

The next morning Markham and Gargan were waiting for Kennedy when he arrived at 9 A.M. on the first ferry. The ferry operator said Kennedy appeared to be in a jovial mood, but probably only until he was told that his car had been found. Only then did Kennedy return and report the accident.

Some reporters, primarily the foreign press, did ask tough questions. For example: Did Kennedy really swim back to Edgartown that night? No one saw him with wet clothes and my husband, for one, interviewed a young man who had tied up his rowboat at the Chappaquiddick dock on Saturday night. When he got there on Sunday morning, he said, it had been retied and with what he called a "land lubber's knot."

But the whole incident was overshadowed by the worldwide coverage of the moonwalk. Besides, all the people involved had, by midday, left Martha's Vineyard and headed home. When the police went to the cottage where the party had taken place, all they found were some washed Coca-Cola bottles. There was no one to interview and no one who would talk then — or ever. Besides, Kennedy was treated like Massachusetts royalty by the local police chief, Dominick Arena, who even gave up his office so that Kennedy could make telephone calls to advisers and lawyers in privacy.

It may have been the last time when a scandal was so under-investigated, so quickly dispatched — and the man involved seemed to get off so easily for what he had done. A week later, Kennedy, who arrived in court wearing a neck brace, pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended sentence and a year's probation.

Chris, that's a great story and all, definitely worth remembering...but shouldn't you get your own blog for postings like that? I'm just sayin'

Nice summary of the quisling msm's repeated lies about President Bush, with nadagate only being the latest:

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2005/07/bogus-bush-scandals-recap.html

Concerning the outing of Aero Contractors, we should probably respond to the NYT's explanation

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E2DC153BF93AA25755C0A9639C8B63

I'm out of gas too...I guess in this respect the MSM has won. I still don't think they will "get" Rove.

Got gas.

See http://bayosphere.com/node/812

"How to respond to the "Darth Rove" version of BDS, if one must..."

Hey, Chris? You might want to put the author's name on that article next time. Or maybe just post the link instead of pasting the full text here as though you wrote it.

How can you be out of gas ... when the whole thing is so damned laughable??

Nadagate indeed!
/TJ

I don't know...I think frustrated mostly. The massive POWER of the MSM is so overwhelming...I also feel like we're always fighting their attacks almost 24/7.

In the Aero Contractors outing defense that I linked above, the NYT says that they ran the story by the CIA, and the CIA cleared it.

I recall that when Novak first caught flak for his story, he said that he had run his story by the CIA and they were very wishy-washy about revealing Plame's name, so he took that as a go-ahead.

So from the NYT's point of view, one would think that the Plame story was okey-dokey.

"I don't know...I think frustrated mostly. The massive POWER of the MSM is so overwhelming...I also feel like we're always fighting their attacks almost 24/7."

1. It's no longer power; it's noise. And frankly it has the smell of desperation about it.

2. It's great that we're able to fight at all - remember when you (or your dad) could only scream at the television.

3. And yes, the quisling msm's attacks are becoming more frequent, but I honestly believe that their attacks are proving counterproductive as more and more people who are paying attention are just a mouse click away from proof of the quislings' dishonesty.

Finally, imo there's no hope for reform of the quislings - we have to keep fighting them until they have been torn down and replaced.

Just dropping in and responding to this post's title alone....

Indeed the Karl Rove thing is getting old. I wish the Democrats would pull their heads out of their butts and start trying to win the upcoming elections agaun instead of focusing on hacking the hell out of the "Republican bad guy of the month" (month after month) and making that their sole talking points memos focus.

The freaking DNC are such idiots...!

"How can you be out of gas ... when the whole thing is so damned laughable??"

Brian Williams of NBC News took it very seriously tonight. The MSM spin now is that Bush "retreated" to a "breakin da law" vs. leak standard for firing Rove. When one thinks about what the MSM ignored in Bubba's case, it makes one want to vomit.

I think Rove will survive, but the whole incident points out how hoplessly partisan the MSM is, and makes me furious. I really think the Whiite House should start openly equating the MSM with the Democrats, so that the public clearly understands that, for Republicans, there IS no difference between the two.

It's great that we're able to fight at all - remember when you (or your dad) could only scream at the television.

My Dad doesn't read blogs (no matter how hard I push them) so he still pretty much just yells at the teevee. I do it once in a while, too. It can be theraputic.

(Certainly moreso than typing angrily.)

quisling

Hahah... max, you're funny.

It's so cute when you guys learn a new word or phrase and then use it over and over. You're on fucking fire, guy :-)

Ace, give the guy a shirt!

Anonymous,

FYI the preferred phrase is "Big Media Quislings" In the outer boroughs, they say "MSM Fifth Column". You may use either or both whenever you like.

In either case, remember that the Quisling Fifth Column's motto is "Patriotism stops at the (Democratic) party's edge".

We now return to our regularly scheduled 'Ace of Spades' program.

I am so going to have to get blogging again.

I mean, in October, 2003, I wrote:

Here is the problem in a nutshell: given a very serious charge, that Saddam Hussein had purchased (that is what the false documents alleged) uranium, the CIA, to follow up, sends not a CIA operative, but the husband of one, a former ambassador, to make, in Wilson's words, a "discreet but not secret" inquiry into it.

Perhaps the number one security issue of the day, and that is the CIA response. Let's send a guy to spend "eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people." That's it. As Joe Katzman writes: "Feeling safe yet? Sleep well."

Man, that was a good post. I don't know that many big blogs are as independent and non-partisan as mine. I've got start up again.

You say non-partisan like that's a good thing.....

;-)

RWS,
He needs to stay non-partisan and independent to keep the tipjar donations flowing in. After all, bandwith costs are gob-smackingly vile these days.

And by the way, guess who is #1 for a Google search of "gob-smackingly vile"?

You know who.

Spot one on google?
That's gob-smackingly vile
Congratulations

Slublog

Do you only write
in a 5-7-5 form?
You're on freakin' fire.

Sometimes it's more fun
to write haiku, not in prose
Plus it just looks cool

Completely off topic. But, interesting:

China rattles its saber

Like I said before
Limericks sound much better
Haiku is teh gay

:)
/TJ

Oh, fine

There once was a man named Joe
Whose wife told him to go
To Niger and find
Information of a kind
That would justify, to war, saying 'NO!'

Chris

Thank you so much for the reminder of the events. No Republican born of woman could ever have gotten away with that kind of a thing. But it still surprises me to think that, just like the Hero of the White House Cigar, the Hero of Chappaquidick got clean away with it.

Slublog

What does slublog stand for?

Weird. You're the second person to ask that today.

See here. for the answer.