Remembering Mary Jo Kopechne

Ted Kennedy has passed away, so how about a solemn tribute for the dead, said Henry Rollins in Vanity Fair. Not Kennedy—that's covered—but what about Mary Jo Kopechne? As people mourn Kennedy, it would be "negligent" to forget the young political activist who, at age 28, died trapped in Kennedy's car when he drove it off a Chappaquiddick bridge in 1969.

Fine, said Melissa Lafsky in The Huffington Post, but remember that Mary Jo Kopechne, a former Robert F. Kennedy campaign worker, "wasn't a right-wing talking point"—she was a dedicated civil rights activist who believed in the things Ted Kennedy spent his life fighting for. Nobody can say what she would have thought "about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history"—she might even have thought it was "worth it."

That may be the "most amazingly shallow, myopic, and ultimately self centered sentence ever written," said Rick Moran in American Thinker. Mary Jo Kopechne, no matter what her political beliefs, would have preferred to live a "full life" with family, career, and kids, over being "a catalyst" whose death pushed Kennedy to give up his presidential ambitions and serve in the Senate. "What a despicable thing to write."

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No, what's despicable, said Zennie Abraham in the San Francisco Chronicle, is demonizing a man who dedicated his life to serving others over of an accident 40 years ago. Mary Jo Kopechne's death was tragic, but Kennedy had his day in court and took his punishment. (watch Kennedy's speech after Chappaquiddick) So forget what the "Internet trolls" say about Chappaquiddick, and give Kennedy credit for a "great life's work after a mistake."