Forty years ago today, the world fixated upon Apollo 11’s lunar
landing. But in Massachusetts, an incident highlighting
humanity’s depths rather than its heights relegated one of the
biggest stories of the 20th century to below the fold. “Sen.
Edward M. Kennedy, the only surviving brother in a family pursued
by tragedy, narrowly escaped death early yesterday when his car
plunged into a pond on a sparsely populated island off the coast
of Martha’s Vinyard,” read the lede in the July 20, 1969
Boston Globe.
The story, of course, was not that the Bay State’s senior senator
had “narrowly escaped death,” but that the occupant of the
passenger seat, Mary Jo Kopechne, hadn’t. “She didn’t drown,”
John Farrar, the diver who retrieved Kophechne’s body from
Kennedy’s Oldsmobile, later pointed out. “She died of suffocation
in her own air void. It took her at least three or four hours to
die. I could have had her out of that car in twenty-five minutes
after I got the call. But he didn’t call.” At least he didn’t
call somebody who could have helped Kopechne — between the time
of the accident and surrendering himself to the police the
following morning, Senator Kennedy charged 17 long distance calls
to his credit card.
Such questions as “What was the senator doing alone so late with
a woman other than his wife?” and “Why was the senator driving
after partying all day?” yielded to one even more troubling. Why
did Senator Kennedy work so hard to save his political skin when
he could have done something to save the life of the former aide
to his late brother Robert? Outraged Americans wanted Kennedy’s
resignation. Enamored Massachusetts voters reelected him the next
year.
Four decades later, the issue of a Ted Kennedy resignation is
again discussed, albeit in more hushed tones. The lawmaker’s
battle with brain cancer has made it difficult for him to perform
his duties in Congress. Kennedy has been absent from the Senate,
his workplace for nearly a half century, for 14 months. He has
participated in just 4 percent of the votes in the
111th Congress, missing roll calls on the stimulus package,
the tobacco tax hike, the budget, and virtually every other issue
of consequence that has come before the Senate.
The constituencies — Bay State voters and liberal Democrats —
that would benefit most from his resignation are the most
adamantly opposed to it. But the price of Kennedy retaining his
title is high: Massachusetts gets half of the Senate
representation as other states and Senate Democrats are denied
the opportunity to break filibusters without the aid of
Republicans.
When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin tendered her resignation because
she reasoned that frivolous ethics complaints and other
distractions had undermined her effectiveness, a torrent of
negative press followed. But in keeping a title without
performing the duties, Kennedy has experienced no such criticism.
HBO has been running a fawning documentary, “Teddy: In His Own
Words,” that, as its title suggests, tells the story of Ted
Kennedy’s life through his own words. This fall, the senator’s
memoirs hit bookstores, with electronically-signed, leather-bound
editions fetching $1,000. On Friday, the New York Times
ran a hagiographic article
on how much the Senate misses its second-most senior senator.
“What would Teddy do?” Senator Patty Murray explained to the
Times of the guiding principle on health care reform.
“We’re all working to do what we think he’d want us to do.”
Newsweek features the ailing senator on its cover and an
accompanying article authored by him.
Kennedy writes, “For four decades I have carried this cause —
from the floor of the United States Senate to every part of this
country.”
The irony here is that by treating his office as a family legacy
Senator Kennedy risks undermining his political legacy. The
health-care legislation widely seen as the exclamation point to
Kennedy’s career faces a tough slog, made more arduous by the
medical woes of Kennedy and his friend and former rival Robert
Byrd. In an atmosphere in which every vote counts, there are two
votes Democrats can’t count on. Apart from providing inspiration,
the biggest impact Kennedy can have on ensuring the passage of a
government-run health insurance program would be to resign and
allow Democrats another reliable vote.
But if his reprehensible behavior surrounding the death of Mary
Jo Kopechne didn’t prompt Senator Kennedy to resign 40 years ago,
it’s unlikely that missing all but a handful of votes for more
than a year will prompt him to resign today. For perhaps the
first time in almost 47 years, Republicans are better off with a
Kennedy inside the Senate than outside it.
