Chappaquiddick is something that means anything to any American over the age of 55. Or else this is an interesting, little-remembered but not forgotten incident from the political history of the United States back in the sixth decade of the 20th century that has interest for college students of American History or Political Science.
Chappaquiddick marked the practical end of the Kennedy family political dynasty that was marked by the tragic assassinations of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 in Dallas, Texas, and in 1968 that of his younger brother, the aspiring Presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, the former, formidable U.S. Attorney General. Robert Kennedy enjoyed such a tremendous margin of popular support that his election as next U.S. president in November 1968 was considered a sure-thing, a shoo-in. It wasn't even considered necessary that Robert Kennedy even bother to campaign but campaign he did and was assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles in the summer of 1968. This is one of those seminal events that U.S. historians call a change in the course of history of the nation. It led to a change of American history in the November election of Republican Richard Nixon instead of the expected President Robert Kennedy. The Democrat Party and the Democrat sympathetic national mass media, Hollywood, national celebrities, et al, desperately looked to Ted Kennedy to carry on the Kennedy tradition, romanticized as, American Camelot, and become the de facto President Robert Kennedy that should have been. Their faith and trust proved misplaced. Ted Kennedy was not of the right stuff his elder brothers had been, leading credence to the family rumors that Ted was the family black sheep. Ted Kennedy avoided legal liability for breaking the law of leaving the site of an accident that he was directly involved in and also not contacting the authorities immediately after an accident. The American people were treated first hand to the reality of how family political power and wealth can cirmumvent legal justice. They would not witness something similar until the criminal trial of OJ Simpson almost three decades later.
Yet in the ensuing decades, Ted Kennedy not only avoided political oblivion but succeeded beyond all imagination of becoming one of the most powerful U.S. senators in Congress. Ted appeased everyone by embracing any and all liberal causes and with the Kennedy family name and still formidable political power and wealth became an unbeatable U.S. senator that could never be realistically challenged by any fellow Massachusetts Democrat let alone any Republican foolhardy enough to try. Ted Kennedy became above all political reproach in Massachusetts as a congressional senator and only his death ended his political career once and for all. Yet the incident of Chappaquiddick would stain Ted forever and preclude any hope of attaining the U.S. presidency, which many regarded a good thing as any U.S. president must be a man or woman with unquestionable personal courage, judgment under stress, and appropriate judgment.
After senator Ted Kennedy's death in 2010, Republican Scott Brown successfully campaigned to take Kennedy's vacated senate seat for the last two years of the late senator's term. During the abbreviated senatorial campaign, Scott Brown felt it necessary to lionize Ted Kennedy in all his campaign speeches to avoid antagonizing Massachusetts voters.
Chappaquiddick the movie will prove how unnecessary it was Scott Brown to do so. Ted Kennedy was the last man to deserve it.
Review of Chappaquiddick
