Ted Kennedy biographer Neal Gabler, whining in The New York Times on
Friday, accused Chappaquiddick of “outright character
assassination.” He insinuates that the critically-acclaimed film
dishonestly portrays the night Kennedy killed a young campaign
secretary by drunkenly driving her off a bridge and leaving her to
drown, but Gabler fails to point to any historical inconsistencies
other than the amount Bruce Dern’s Joseph Kennedy Sr. should have
slurred his speech. The charge rings hollow, as Ted Kennedy’s
character committed suicide long ago, no assassination necessary.

Everything about Chappaquiddick — writing, acting, directing,
casting, etc. — is quite good. Most importantly, the film accurately
depicts the events that took place the night of July 18, 1969. Ted
Kennedy, then the senior senator from Massachusetts, invited a group
of six single, female campaign secretaries to join him and five
married, male friends for a party at a cottage on Chappaquiddick
Island near Martha’s Vineyard. At 11:15 p.m., Kennedy drunkenly took
Mary Jo Kopochne, who left her purse and hotel key at the cottage,
for a late night drive in his mother’s car. He drove off the bridge,
swam to safety, and left Kopechne to drown. Kennedy then walked past
four houses without alerting any neighbors to the accident, returned
to the cottage, told his cousin and friend what had happened, and
eventually returned to his hotel room in Edgartown. Throughout the
night and early next morning, Kennedy attempted to establish an
alibi and made several phone calls to friends for advice on how best
to cover it all up. He lied in official testimony, temporarily
donned an obviously unnecessary neck brace, and played the victim.
At no point before police discovered the submerged car and
Kopechne’s body did Kennedy report the crash to authorities.

Since that hazy night, Ted’s co-partisans have likewise attempted to
cast him as the victim in the whole affair: the persevering public
servant who overcame tragedy to emerge as the “Lion of the Senate.”
When Kennedy died in 2009, accolades poured in from Democrats and
the mainstream media — but I repeat myself — almost all of which
lauded the “the Lion of the Senate.” Now at last the popular culture
honestly depicts Ted Kennedy as the womanizing, man-slaughtering,
duplicitous, lying, cheating, cowardly drunk that he was.

So why now? It certainly is not because some crypto-conservatives
have managed to sneak one by Hollywood’s left-wing gatekeepers.
Virtually everyone involved in the film appears to lean politically
to the left, from star Jason Clarke to director John Curran, who
responded to an interview request from Fox News’ Sean Hannity with a
curt, “No f***in’ way. I’m not embracing the Right.” Even the
notoriously left-leaning critics like it. No, Chappaquiddick got
made, not because Hollywood has embraced the Right, but because
Democrats have embraced the Left. The Democrat Party still excuses
all sorts of evildoers and ne’er-do-wells, but “time’s up” at least
for the degenerate, straight, white men in its ranks. Intersectional
hyenas are devouring their own — even their lions of the Senate.
Conservatives should grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.


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Dems & the media want Trump to be more like Obama, but then he'd
have to audit liberals & wire tap reporters' phones.

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