Times change, and so do political consequences for wrongdoing. Last January, after several women accused him of groping them, Al Franken resigned from the Senate.
Back in 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy did not resign after he drove a car off Dike Bridge and into Poucha Pond, a deed that led to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, his 28-year-old passenger. Kennedy instead asked the people of Massachusetts “to think this through with me.’’ Their thoughts — expressed through calls, letters, and telegrams — convinced him to remain in office. In 1970, his first campaign after Chappaquiddick, Kennedy won reelection with 62 percent of the vote. He won six elections after that, earning his lowest tally — 58 percent — against Republican Mitt Romney, in 1994.
Most Massachusetts voters never gave up on Kennedy, a show of loyalty that may spark queasiness as the credits roll on “Chappaquiddick.’’ Whatever its Hollywood-induced flaws and inaccuracies, the film forces us to face the lies and coverup that so many smart, talented people helped Kennedy weave and perpetuate after Kopechne ended up dead in his submerged car.
The senator’s brilliant, “post-Chappaquiddick’’ legislative career supposedly makes up for his willingness to dodge a full reckoning for his actions that July night. For a certain generation of voters, the assassinations of two Kennedy brothers are also cause for empathy. Besides, all humans are flawed, as Jason Clarke, the actor playing Kennedy in the movie, reminds us. But watch “Chappaquiddick’’ — or better yet, read Leo Damore’s “Power, Privilege and the Ted Kennedy Cover-up’’ — and there’s no avoiding another reality. A vote for Ted Kennedy endorsed a proud and passionate liberal agenda. But it also endorsed the corrupt process that protected the senator after Kopechne’s death. Beyond Massachusetts, Chappaquiddick was a deal-breaker. But for Kennedy loyalists, the dream never died, as long as he lived. As time passed, it was considered bad taste for anyone, including his Republican opponents, to bring it up.
Would the #MeToo era change that? It’s hard to tell. Because of #MeToo, scores of powerful men have lost jobs and reputations. Because of #MeToo, Bill Clinton’s legacy seems more tainted now than when he left office, and his affair with Monica Lewinsky is fresher news. President Trump’s supporters aren’t bothered by the Stormy Daniels scandal. Of course, no one died in those cases. If a Chappaquiddick-like event happened today, it’s hard to imagine anyone, including a Kennedy, being able to elude serious political fallout. Social media and Fox News would see to that. But no one from the Chappaquiddick era has come forward to retroactively renounce Kennedy, who died in 2009, or tell their version of what happened.
The Kennedy campaign workers known as the “Boiler Room Girls,’’ who were on Chappaquiddick at the time of the accident, have remained mostly silent about Kopechne’s death. According to The Washington Post, the filmmakers did not contact them for the movie, “though one contacted them, to demand her name be removed.’’ That was Esther Newberg, a top executive at International Creative Management, who told People, “It was frustrating to read the screenplay and see one thing made up after another.’’ Another woman, who was not identified, told the Post, “How dare they now say it is to make us look stronger. Our friend died and they invent motivations? Distraught is an understatement.’’
In 1974, Rosemary Keough, another one of the boiler room girls, issued a statement to the Globe that said, “My friend Mary Jo just happened to be in the wrong car at the wrong time with the wrong people.’’ According to the Post, Nance Lyons submitted an addendum to a 2008 oral history that said, “Chappaquiddick changed my life. . . . The women from Chappaquiddick suffered greatly both personally and professionally.’’
But of course, not as much as Kopechne.
Watch “Chappaquiddick’’ in these changing times and it’s hard to escape an unpleasant and unwelcome sensation. It’s called complicity. Kennedy was responsible for his own actions. But the circle of accountability for accepting them is wide.
Joan Vennochi can be reached at vennochi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @Joan_Vennochi.
