Thursday, February 23, 2006

WorldNetDaily: Student under fire for yelling: 'Remember Chappaquiddick!'

And if it gets people remembering that a United States Senator left the scene of an accident and let a girl drown, then it's about time.

The campus police said that he'd be hearing from the administration regarding disciplinary action. Yes, and the student would have plenty of places to turn for help in fighting the administration on this issue. When I was a student (at Yale College), I remembered students doing a lot worse than shouting two words at a guest speaker--even if this particular speaker is Massachusetts' senior Senator--and getting away with it completely. No one took down their names.

An instructor reportedly asked, "Can't you forgive him after all these years?" Said the student in reply, "No. He killed someone...If it had been me or any other person, we'd be in jail." And I'll second that. I've noticed a number of dedicated liberals who refuse to forgive conservatives for less, after much longer time spans. How sad that a college instructor wants people to "forgive" a man for involuntary manslaughter--which is what Mary Jo Kopechne's death amounted to.

I can guess her motivation, however. To her, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) is a champion of her idea of justice. So if he wants to ask an intimate favor of someone, that someone ought to be honored to grant it. And if she dies in the process--well, so what?

We have willing dames enough. There cannot be
that vulture in you to devour so many
as would to greatness dedicate themselves,
finding it so inclin'd.

MacBeth IV.iii.74-77

Senator Kennedy, from the picture that WorldNetDaily includes with the article, looks like a vulture who has devoured many willing dames in his career.

I know that politics isn't beanbag. But what has politics come to, when college faculty excuse involuntary manslaughter, and college administrators threaten to expel a student for calling on the carpet one who ought to set a higher standard for his behavior--and those same administrators let such an incident slide if the political ideologies were reversed? (Not that the student involved is all that conservative. It's just that he attacked a liberal icon.)

UPDATE: Massasoit Community College will not subject this student to discipline. This article gives the latest.