Mama said there’d be days like this. My herniated disc tried rather abruptly this morning to finally make good its escape from my spine, and a creditable effort it was. Meanwhile, as I was busy attempting to medicate my malfunctioning back into submission, I was visited by a cluster headache — which, if you’ve never had the pleasure, feels a bit like you’re trying to pass a fully inflated blowfish through your right eye, but it’s gotten stuck in the socket. And it’s wriggling. Fortunately, I have medication for that as well, which means that at present my bloodstream is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer.
As you can imagine, I haven’t felt inspired to compound the pain by reading any of the usual suspects today, but as I wandered somnolently past RenewAmerica, I did stub my toe on the reliably truculent Warner Todd Huston, who has dedicated today’s column to proving that Chappaquiddick was MURDER!
Over at the Chicago Tribute, writer Eric Zorn indulged in a “thought experiment,” wondering how different the outcome might have been had the tragedy played out in the era of 24-hour cable news. According to Huston, Zorn concludes that Teddy Kennedy’s subsequent accomplishments in the Senate were worth the life of one young woman, although that doesn’t seem to be the question he’s posing. Again, maybe it’s the drugs talking, but since Kennedy was never charged with a crime, the issue seems to be whether justice would have been better served if he’d been tried in the press. But let’s sit back and let Warner lay out his case in his usual magisterial fashion:
If this isn’t the perfect example that liberals don’t care who has to die in order to make sure that left wing policies win the day, then nothing does. We can see this prime example in Eric Zorn’s horrid August 28 editorial where he thanks … well, whatever deity leftists believe in, if any… that the country didn’t quickly find out about the homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne that was committed by Teddy Kennedy in July of 1969.
You know, given the circumstances, I think even Jack McCoy would have let Kennedy plead to Man II.
Zorn is happy that the news of Teddy’s crime was quashed for hours as the poor woman slowly drowned while Teddy boy sat around a plush hotel drinking with pals.
It was the perfect crime…until D.A. Warner Todd Huston took the case!
So, as far as Zorn is concerned, quashing the news of the homicide that Kennedy committed was a good thing. In Zorn’s opinion, allowing the woman to slowly drown wasn’t so bad after all.
You’ll notice Counsel is stressing the “quashing” and the “slowly drown” part. This was the crucial part of the murderer’s plan; he had to make sure he rolled his Oldsmobile off the bridge at just the precise speed and angle so that it would land upside down, creating an air pocket that would allow his victim to drown slowly enough that he could swim back to Edgartown and establish an alibi by drinking with buddies in a plush hotel.
It was a fiendishly diabolical plot. But the killer forgot just one thing! He was up against the World’s Greatest Detective, Warner Todd Huston!
There is no doubt whatever that Teddy Kennedy is guilty of homicide. There is little doubt that after that he was guilty of all sorts of moral outrages and violations of the law not to mention sins against his country. He was a terror supporter by helping the IRA during “the troubles,” he was a drunk and a sexual harasser, he tried to make side deals against his country with our enemies, and he supported some of the most un-American policies ever to disgrace Washington. That on top of his culpability in Kopechne’s death.
Teddy Kennedy was an odious, horrible American from a long line of criminals, abusers, drug addicts and murderers.
Actually, a lot of these details seem to assume facts not in evidence, or contradict the accepted chronology of events, and I have to admit I had some doubts about Warner’s assertions; that is, until I read his bio. “Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary [is] sometimes irreverent[,] often historically based.” I always thought his thoughtful commentaries were petroleum based, like caulking and pantyhose — so color me abashed.
Now I’m going to see if I can crawl gingerly enough into bed that I can keep my vertebrae from colliding like Clackers.