So a couple of years ago my uncle added me to his email list. Mostly it’s ribald jokes and pictures of topless women, but hell, my Mom’s on the list so it must be okay. And on occasion he forwards right-wing propaganda. For his sake, I’ll assume he’s just mindlessly forwarding the stuff and this is not an advocacy position.

Either way, today this arrived.

From Mary Jo Kopechne

I would have been 65 years of age this year. Read about me and my killer below.

When Sen. Ted Kennedy was merely just another Democrat bloating on Capitol Hill on behalf of liberal causes, it was perhaps excusable to ignore his deplorable past.

But now that he’s become a leading Republican attack dog, positioning himself as Washington’s leading arbiter of truth and integrity, the days for such indulgence are now over.

It’s time for the GOP to stand up and remind America why this chief spokesman had to abandon his own presidential bid in 1980 – time to say the words Mary Jo Kopechne out loud.

As is often the case, Republicans have deluded themselves into thinking that most Americans already know the story of how this “Conscience of the Democratic Party” left Miss Kopechne behind to die in the waters underneath the Edgartown Bridge in July 1969, after a night of drinking and partying with the young blonde campaign worker. But most Americans under 40 have never heard that story, or details of how Kennedy swam to safety, then tried to get his cousin Joe Garghan to say he was behind the wheel.

Those young voters don’t know how Miss Kopechne, trapped inside Kennedy’s Oldsmobile, gasped for air until she finally died, while the Democrats’ leading Iraq war critic rushed back to his compound to formulate the best alibi he could think of.

Neither does Generation X know how Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard on his ear 15 years earlier — for paying a fellow student to take his Spanish final. Or why the US Army denied him a commission because he cheated on tests.

As they listen to the Democrats’ “Liberal Lion” accuse President Bush of
“telling lie after lie after lie” to get America to go to war in Iraq, young
voters don’t know about that notorious 1991 Easter weekend in Palm Beach, when Uncle Teddy rounded up his nephews for a night on the town, an evening that ended with one of them credibly accused of rape.

It’s time for Republicans to state unabashedly that they will no longer “go
along with the gag” when it comes to Uncle Ted’s rants about deception and moral turpitude inside the Bush White House.

And if the Republicans don’t, let’s do it ourselves by passing this forgotten
disgrace around the Internet to wake up memories of what a fraud and fake Teddy really is.

The Democratic Party should be ashamed to have the national disgrace from Massachusetts as their spokesman.

Let’s ignore that the literary genius who drafted this forgot about half way through that he was supposed to be writing in Kopechne’s voice and drops into the third person. It would be petty to dwell on such minutiae. Rather, let’s analyze the deeper meaning here to see if we can discern the larger theme.

What I learned from my uncle’s email:

– Murder and rape are excusable as long as you are just bloating around.

– Anyone with a substantive message must have his past examined and be haunted by it. Ummm, unless you’re the President

– Being drunk and stupid when young is inexcusable regardless of what else you accomplish in life. Ummm, unless you’re the President.

– Committing vehicular homicide and lying to try and cover it up is BAD

– Lying about the case for war and sending 1700 soldiers to their death and killing tens of thousands of people in the process is GOOD.

I guess I was wrong. It was educational!!