The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

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Saturday, October 4, 2014

Murder By Bridge

Mama said there’d be days like this.  My herniated disc tried rather abruptly this morning to finally make good its escape from my spine, and a creditable effort it was.  Meanwhile, as I was busy attempting to medicate my malfunctioning back into submission, I was visited by a cluster headache — which, if you’ve never had the pleasure, feels a bit like you’re trying to pass a fully inflated blowfish through your right eye, but it’s gotten stuck in the socket.  And it’s wriggling.  Fortunately, I have medication for that as well, which means that at present my bloodstream is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer.
WarnerToddHuston.jpg
As you can imagine, I haven’t felt inspired to compound the pain by reading any of the usual suspects today, but as I wandered somnolently past RenewAmerica, I did stub my toe on the reliably truculent Warner Todd Huston, who has dedicated today’s column to proving that Chappaquiddick was MURDER!
Over at the Chicago Tribute, writer Eric Zorn indulged in a “thought experiment,” wondering how different the outcome might have been had the tragedy  played out in the era of 24-hour cable news.  According to Huston, Zorn concludes that Teddy Kennedy’s subsequent accomplishments in the Senate were worth the life of one young woman, although that doesn’t seem to be the question he’s posing.  Again, maybe it’s the drugs talking, but since Kennedy was never charged with a crime, the issue seems to be whether justice would have been better served if he’d been tried in the press.  But let’s sit back and let Warner lay out his case in his usual magisterial fashion:
If this isn’t the perfect example that liberals don’t care who has to die in order to make sure that left wing policies win the day, then nothing does. We can see this prime example in Eric Zorn’s horrid August 28 editorial where he thanks … well, whatever deity leftists believe in, if any… that the country didn’t quickly find out about the homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne that was committed by Teddy Kennedy in July of 1969.
You know, given the circumstances, I think even Jack McCoy would have let Kennedy plead to Man II.
Zorn is happy that the news of Teddy’s crime was quashed for hours as the poor woman slowly drowned while Teddy boy sat around a plush hotel drinking with pals.
It was the perfect crime…until D.A. Warner Todd Huston took the case!
So, as far as Zorn is concerned, quashing the news of the homicide that Kennedy committed was a good thing. In Zorn’s opinion, allowing the woman to slowly drown wasn’t so bad after all.
You’ll notice Counsel is stressing the “quashing” and the “slowly drown” part.  This was the crucial part of the murderer’s plan; he had to make sure he rolled his Oldsmobile off the bridge at just the precise speed and angle so that it would land upside down, creating an air pocket that would allow his victim to drown slowly enough that he could swim back to Edgartown and establish an alibi by drinking with buddies in a plush hotel.
It was a fiendishly diabolical plot.  But the killer forgot just one thing!  He was up against the World’s Greatest Detective, Warner Todd Huston!
There is no doubt whatever that Teddy Kennedy is guilty of homicide. There is little doubt that after that he was guilty of all sorts of moral outrages and violations of the law not to mention sins against his country. He was a terror supporter by helping the IRA during “the troubles,” he was a drunk and a sexual harasser, he tried to make side deals against his country with our enemies, and he supported some of the most un-American policies ever to disgrace Washington. That on top of his culpability in Kopechne’s death.
Teddy Kennedy was an odious, horrible American from a long line of criminals, abusers, drug addicts and murderers.
Actually, a lot of these details seem to assume facts not in evidence, or contradict the accepted chronology of events, and I have to admit I had some doubts about Warner’s assertions; that is, until I read his bio.  “Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary [is] sometimes irreverent[,] often historically based.”  I always thought his thoughtful commentaries were petroleum based, like caulking and pantyhose — so color me abashed.
Now I’m going to see if I can crawl gingerly enough into bed that I can keep my vertebrae from colliding like Clackers.

Posted by scott on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 11:33 pm

12 Responses to “Murder By Bridge”

I always thought his thoughtful commentaries were petroleum based
Only the fumes, Scott. Only the fumes.
“Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary [is] sometimes irreverent[,] often historically based.”
Deeply offensive and wildly speculative after the fact, in other words.
Objection, witness is providing a narrative!
I was visited by a cluster headache — which, if you’ve never had the pleasure, feels a bit like you’re trying to pass a fully inflated blowfish through your right eye, but it’s gotten stuck in the socket. And it’s wriggling.
I’d have said “breathing in and out just enough to stay fully inflated but to make you newly aware of the volume every couple seconds so that you never, ever get a chance to get used to it, and also its tail is doing unpleasantly spiky things to your eardrum”, but six of one…
Seriously, Scott, my sympathies. They don’t make drugs good enough for this shit, but at least you’re channeling your pain in productive ways. May I recommend next time just posting a John Stossel column and breaking in every couple sentences to swear? Remember, the more you curse, the better you deal with pain.
Actually, it belatedly occurs to me, staring at my bath toys which include several different puffer fish water squirters, that if the one you’re referring to is the type with spines, wriggling is probably very accurate.
And yes, I have spent the last couple hours thinking about this.
Oh good God. Kennedy dies, so the rightwing decides to pull out the old “Chappaquiddick was MURDER!!!!” meme, eh?
You know, I agree that what Kennedy did (leaving the scene of the accident, failure to report the accident once he did arrive at a place where help was available) was reprehensible and for the Kopechne family, unforgivable. But from all available, unbiased accounts that I have read, nothing could have been done to save Ms. Kopechne. There were no cell phones, no 911 services to call for help.
It was an accident. A horrible, horrible, tragic accident–one that was made even worse by Kennedy’s non action–it wasn’t murder, anymore than the time Laura Bush ran a stop sign, plowed into a car driven by her boyfriend, and killing him.
Hey, I think I spotted several typos in the following sentence:
“Walter Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary [is] sometimes irreverant[,] often historically based.”
Shouldn’t that read:
“Walter Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary [is] sometimes irrelevant[,] often hysterically biased”?
You should also replace “sometimes” with “always”.
I have medication for that as well, which means that at present my bloodstream is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer.
There was a time in the late 70s when I was going to ask Hoffman LaRoche to sponsor me…
the homicide of Mary Jo Kopechne
Technically, this is accurate. Whenever a person dies because of the actions (or inactions) of another person, it’s a homicide. That’s what the coroner ruled in Michael Jackson’s death but it is not intended as a legal decision with consequences.
MJK was not driving the car, therefore it was not suicide, is what that means. Unfortunately, “Vera Rhuba” Huston wants to smear a dead man. And woman.
I always thought his thoughtful commentaries were petroleum based, like caulking and pantyhose — so color me abashed.
I thought they were nitrogen-based, like fertilizer.
Actually, it belatedly occurs to me, staring at my bath toys which include several different puffer fish water squirters, that if the one you’re referring to is the type with spines, wriggling is probably very accurate.
And yes, I have spent the last couple hours thinking about this.
You must be a Golgafrincham spaceship captain…
Ah, wingnut jurisprudence: “guilty of homicide”; “un-American policies”; “deals with our enemies”. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Get well soon, my friend.
He is quite the detective, isn’t he? I bet his I Ching calculator displays “a suffusion of stupid” for any calculation resulting in a value over 1.
Thanks for the outstanding work, even while your body isn’t cooperating.
Hope you feel better soon.
I hope you feel semi-human soon, Scott - - though even when semi, you sound more humanistic than a number of loud voices that have been blatting of late.
Zorn’s point about the effects of 24/7 “news” compared to the way it was ‘68 is a good one, which of course was ignored (or perhaps not even grasped) by many of his “indignati” commenters. Probably a good chunk of them are too young to know what it was like to live one’s life, day to day, and to form one’s opinions, without being blasted by nonstop sensationalism.

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