Hit and Run

[Woody]

In Florida they are looking for a hit and run driver. This guy hit a pedestrian ... looked behind and then just kept on driving. They have him on video tape.

It reminded me of a guy who has been on the news lately by the name of Kennedy. Chappa ....

[Dr. Shane]

I was thinking about that the other day. At the time Kennedy killed that girl drunk driving wasn't as big of an offense as it is today. So to be fair, I think we shouldn't judge his act then by our standards now. Should have he gone to jail? Yes, probably. I think about a year.

[Kountzer]

It is hard to nail down a career politician and U.S. senator, be they democrat or republican, Especially a Kennedy.

[Dr. Shane]

Ultimately the voters knew what happened and re-elected him as a senator. He was rejected when he ran for President. It was vehicular manslaughter, if he had been convicted he may have only gotten a suspended sentence. As it is, he has been the butt of many jokes for many years since the incident. If it were to happen today, no senator would get away with it. But that was a different time and drunk driving didn't have the stignma attached to it as it right does today.

[Woody]

The problem is that he killed her ... did not attempt to help her ... and did not report it in a timely manner.

[Dr. Shane]

He was driving drunk. I have been in AA for over 20 years and known people that have been convicted for vehicular homicide. One guy actually ran his girlfriend over when he was drunk and got one year in county jail for it. That was back in the '80s.

In the case of Kennedy, the voters knew and decided to forgive him. They decided he was doing enough good that it out weighed the bad. It wasn't a malicious act. Society didn't have the same intolerance for drunk driving then that they do now. Now it would be a different story. Now we would throw the book at him because he should have known better than to get behind the wheel drunk. Now, just getting into a car while intoxicated is considered a malicious act. It wasn't looked at that way back then.

[Woody]

I can forgive the driving drunk. I can't forgive not trying to find out if the girl was OK and not trying to report it and get help. That is the unforgiveable part to me. It is always the cover-up.

[Dr. Shane]

He didn't help the girl and he tried to cover it up because he was drunk. Sober people don't drive off bridges in the first place. If I recall correctly it was very foggy and the water was very cold. Both of which would have made it difficult for a drunk man to find and help the girl. Personally, myself, I wouldn't have voted for him after that. But the people of Massachusetts did.

[Bravus]

What he did was horrible, agreed - by any standards: different standards don't give that young woman her life back. But dragging it up for political gain all these years later seems rather ghoulish to me. Let Mary Jo Kopechne rest in peace.

[jasd]

QR frame:

The following criticism absents the noteworthy of our list:--

Don't yah just luf it! how the most intolerable acts can just

be excused, excused, excused – away... That being so,

Kennedy’s constituents-slash-sycophants would appear not to have qualms embracing him.

(To hear those ‘slash’ hangers-on leftists gushingly extoll his supposed merits, to wit: icon, statesman, coiurahgeous, leeder, [...]* caused me to puke on my keyboard.

*Sorry, I had to get my spare keyboard)

That Kennedy was able to buy a pass on an act so destitute of common human decency that a young woman's life was forfeit to cowardice and politikal expediency – is a thing that defies rationale, and is simply one of a plethora of reasons

I simply cannot abide Dem'crats.

The water was relatively shallow. The car contained an air pocket capable of sustaining life for upwards of two hours. After (purportedly) repeated efforts to save the woman (gimme a break!)

he split...

passing four houses (some of, which had lights burning – and likely to have a phone) to make the 15-minute walk back to the Lawrence Cottage – where,

he lawyered-up.

It was, indubitably, at that point that the slipin’ and the slidin’ began tah be formulated – its concoction probably already in play beforehand.

Nine hours later, the ‘accident’ was reported.

"Senator Kennedy killed that girl the same as if he put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger" - George Killen, State Police Detective-Lieutenant

Is it necessary to note that, "I come not to praise the man..."?

Murder-redrum :-o

There is ‘drunk’, and there is drunk that is instantly banished by moment of import, or crucial event. (Never an alcoholic, I was drunk for decades. Sometimes, I would ‘misplace’ my car for weeks on end before it showed up at impound – and retrieved. I know drunk)

[Bravus]

Aye. You saw me all praising and excusing Kennedy above. NOT!

The man is dying of cancer. He got the death sentence, as do we all.

Now shut up already and start holding your Republicans to the same standards, and there'll be a little credibility.

[jasd]

Oy! the energy!

>>You saw me all praising and excusing Kennedy above. NOT!<<

You didn't happen to miss my qualifier, didja?

Quote:

Quote:jasd

The following criticism absents the noteworthy of our list:--

>>The man is dying of cancer. He got the death sentence, as do we all.<< [ed.jasd]

I hear the family say that he's goinna beat it. Mebbe, they don't know what others know? Anytheways,

since you've said it, need I?

>>Now shut up already and start holding your Republicans to the same standards,<<

Help me out, what 'publicrat has done what Kennedy did?

>>...and there'll be a little credibility.<<

I'm sure you must have missed it; "I don't give a rat's fundament for credibility - from my end." I put it out there,

and it either sticks or it doesn't; however, I try to check the facts first.

Peace, Aussie

[Bravus]

"Bush killed those 50,000 or so civilian Iraqi girls as though he'd put the gun to their heads himself"

[jasd]

Collateral damage.

In war, it happens. People die. Things are broken.

It'll happen here, in much larger degree. Perhaps, sooner than later.

We will become as a bird, which peepeth from the dust of the earth; and all nations will come against us.

Bush is not Commander in Chief, for nuthin'.

Vox Populi. He had it, until McMedia mindf the susceptible.

imho.

[Bravus]

Ack, I came back to delete that post, which I realised was silly because you don't accept that the war in Iraq is as much of a wreck as that crash in Chappaquidick, but it's too late.

Let's forget about it and go back to the 'Peace' part between us - I can get behind that!

[jasd]

You're a 'puter geek, aren't you? Tell me,

what does 'encountered, proxy settings' on my 'puter mean? I cut and pasted a member's post addressed to me and now have that warning on my 'puter every time I log on.

Some time back, I cut and pasted someone's post responding to mine and got, at that time, 'Macro found, suggest you do not continue'. I ignored it, thinking, naahhh...

My 'puter eventually crashed.

[Bravus]

A macro would come from a Word document, most likely (taking the older incident first). You could avoid that by pasting as unformatted text if the info comes from elsewhere.

The proxy settings thing may well mean that your computer is trying to connect to a site somewhere. It could be that you always connect through a proxy server but it's rejecting this connection, or it could be trying to link through a proxy of its own. Either way, it's not good mojo if your computer is trying to make connections you don't know about. Can you delete the offending file?

[Bravus]

...and do you have a good firewall program installed?

[Dr. Shane]

Bush going to Congress, getting authorization to use force and then going to war can hardly be compared to a drunk driver getting behind the wheel of a car. I think that was a poor example.

A better example (not perfect) would be Dick Chenney accidentally shooting his hunting buddy. The big difference is that Chenney wasn't drunk. But both were accidents. And the point I made earlier is that drunk driving was not the crime then that it is now. In 1969 vehicular homicide was worse than a hunting accident but not by much like it is today.

I think the fact that Kennedy won re-election goes a long way to showing the attitude the public had about drunk driving at the time. It wasn't like it is today. I don't think any politician would survive that today. Mothers Against Drunk Driving was not formed until the early 1980s and most of the attitudes the public now holds toward drunk driving are a direct result of them. If Mothers Against Drunk Drivers had been formed in the early '60s and made the same progress they did in the '80s, even Kennedy would not have survived it. Society has come a long way and I think it is wrong for us today to judge what he did 38 years ago by today's standards.

[Bravus]

Yeah, as I said, the Bush in Iraq example was me falling into tit-for-tat reactive partisan nonsense and I regretted it almost as soon as I'd posted it, and would have deleted it except that jasd had already replied.

[jasd]

Thanks! I knew a 'geek' or techy-weenie (is geek short for techy-weenie?) would know

(or..., is the use of 'techy-weenie' considered gauche? if so, consider it taken back)

Luckily, I decided to thoroughly check out my new 'puter before going online. So, I guess, my procedure is to ensure that I have a firewall installed.

Unlucky, for my friend - whose 'puter I am now using.

Again, thanks. Will certainly see what can be done - before she catches on :-o

[jasd]

Umm, I think the matter goes well beyond "drunk-driving".

Drunk-driving is the nano-factor of the equation.

The issue goes directly to character - or lack thereof - and the willingness of the people of MASS to award the Senator a pass.

It is impossible for good people to either comprehend or countenance.

[Dr. Shane]

I couldn't disagree more. The issue completely revolves around drunk driving. It is almost like being innocent on grounds of insanity. It is an excuse society no longer accepts - but it use to. He was drunk... He didn't mean what he said... The only reason he beat her was because he was drunk...

All kinds of bad behavior use to be excused because a person was drunk. They were not in their right mind. So they were given a pass. Mothers Against Drunk Driving changed all of that.

Now we see the connection with character. Before, as a society, we didn't. So by making it a character issue now we judge his behavior 38 years ago with today's standards.

[jasd]

Well, upon this point – we’ll forever remain at odds. That said,

one, accepting your premise, wonders at the lengths Kennedy and camp went-to in spinning

the circumstances surrounding Mary Jo’s death.

It is embarrassingly obvious, that Kennedy, et al, were really, really going sideways where the matter of ethics ought to have been of primary concern – charting the best course to –

“save your own blep...”

So, then, circa ’69, the question of ‘conduct’ was not a part of the Massachusetts ethos: witness, the forever reelected man from MA vis-à-vis the excuse –

stupor.

Drunken incapacitation. Such incapacitation that, though permitting a cogitative calculus to save one’s own blep..., could not work through the process of getting immediate help

to save a drowning woman.

Another bleping duck, “It’s me folks, Kennedy, Senator – reformed drunk.” Well, reformed, I s’pose I exaggerate.

One would think the decent thing – lacking other considerations – would have been, that the ‘good and honorable’ Senator from that great State of MA

to have forsworn boozing. At least, serious boozing.

But, that’s just me :-o

[there buster]

Quote:

Now shut up already