Tell Mary Jo “We Believe Survivors”

© Jack Cashill
September 26, 2018 - WND.com

On Monday evening a group of leftist activists drove Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife out of a DC restaurant with the persistent, if nonsensical, chant, “We believe survivors.”

There is any number of problems with this scenario. The obvious is the co-opting of the word “survivor.” The word “survivor” only makes sense when many members of the same cohort fail to survive. The Holocaust comes quickly to mind. Or the Titanic.

Say what one will about Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby or Bill Clinton, no woman failed to survive her encounter with any of these predators.

The late Sen. Ted Kennedy is the exception that tests the rule.   (For the record, the phrase, “the exception proves the rule,” is an illogical misinterpretation of the Latin, “Exceptio probat regulam.") 

At their 2012 convention, Democrats did two things that should give the sensible among them pause: They listened in awe to a keynote speech by credibly accused rapist Bill Clinton and they honored the memory of lifelong sexual predator Ted Kennedy.

The Kennedy case is more relevant in that he served among the senators who will be weighing in on the fate of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Despite his many and notorious predations, he was not just tolerated by his Democratic colleagues, he was lionized.

Many of those colleagues have left glowing tributes for the Senator on his memorial page. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, who has called the Kavanaugh allegations “troubling,” wrote, “His love for the little guy and his affection for the underdog influenced everything he did.”

That love did not apparently did not extend to the little gal, certainly not to Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman he left to suffocate in his automobile while he scrambled away from the scene to prepare his alibi.

Kennedy served forty years in the U.S. Senate after he left Mary Jo to die. He learned nothing from the incident. “The lion of the Senate”continued to prey on young women for decades thereafter.

Another Kavanaugh critic, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, had this to say: “Senator Kennedy's dedication for over four decades to help millions of our nation's children, seniors and families is an inspiration to me, and I am honored to have had the opportunity to serve with him in the United States Senate.”

Former waitress Carla Gaviglio might not share that rosy assessment. In 1990, when the phrase “liberal journalist” was not yet an oxymoron, Michael Kelly wrote the following for GQ:

“As Gaviglio enters the room, the six-foot-two, 225-plus-pound [Sen. Ted] Kennedy grabs the five-foot-three, 103-pound waitress and throws her on the table. She lands on her back, scattering crystal, plates and cutlery and the lit candles.

Several glasses and a crystal candlestick are broken. Kennedy then picks her up from the table and throws her on [Sen. Chris] Dodd, who is sprawled in a chair.

With Gaviglio on Dodd’s lap, Kennedy jumps on top and begins rubbing his genital area against hers, supporting his weight on the arms of the chair.

As he is doing this, Loh enters the room. She and Gaviglio both scream, drawing one or two dishwashers. Startled, Kennedy leaps up. He laughs. Bruised, shaken and angry over what she considered a sexual assault, Gaviglio runs from the room.”

The consequences to Senators Kennedy and Dodd? None. Gillibrand holds Supreme Court justices to a hugely higher standard than she holds her Democratic colleagues.

"Enough is enough,” Gillibrand argued. “One credible sexual assault claim should have been too many to get a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court and make decisions that will affect millions of women’s lives for generations."

Said Rep. Nancy Pelosi about Kennedy, “Rooted in his deep patriotism, his abiding faith, and his deep concern for the least among us, no one has done more than Senator Kennedy to educate our children, care for our seniors, and ensure equality for all Americans.”

The least among us apparently did not include Patricia Bowman. On Good Friday 1991, Kennedy took his nephew William Kennedy Smith and his son Patrick out for a long night of drinking. What better way for a Catholic to honor Good Friday?

The young men brought two young women home with them. Hoping perhaps for his share of the action, a drunken Ted Kennedy, nearly 60 now, wandered without pants into the room where everyone gathered.

“I got totally weirded out,” said one of the women. She stood up and told the others, “I’m out of here. I’m leaving.” The fleeing guest left behind Patricia Bowman, the woman who would accuse Smith of rape.  Smith would be acquitted.  

Ted Kennedy cheered the acquittal.  He believed Anita Hill two months earlier, but he chose not to believe Bowman.

“It’s the acquittal that money can buy,” said Bowman afterwards. Reported rapes were said to have dropped 40 percent in that part of Florida after the trial. No one wanted to go through with what Bowman had.

As they say, it is a good thing these people have a double standard. Otherwise, they would have no standard at all.