Ted Kennedy Dies

Sen. Ted Kennedy died shortly before midnight Tuesday at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., at age 77.

The man known as the "liberal lion of the Senate" had fought a more than year-long battle with brain cancer, and according to his son had lived longer with the disease than his doctors expected him to.

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In July 1969, following a party on Martha's Vineyard, Kennedy drove off a bridge on the tiny Massachusetts island of Chappaquiddick. The car plunged into the water. Kennedy escaped, but his passenger did not.

Kennedy later said he dived into the water repeatedly in a vain attempt to save Mary Jo Kopechne, one of the "boiler room girls" who had worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign. But Kopechne, 28, drowned, still trapped in the car.

Questions arose about how Kennedy had known Kopechne — he denied any "private relationship," and Kopechne's parents also insisted there was no relationship — and why he failed to report the accident for about nine hours.

Kennedy pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident. He received a two-month suspended sentence and lost his driver's license for a year, but the political price was higher.

The political price was serving 47 years in the U.S. Senate. Puh-leaze. Ted Kennedy never paid a price for the death of Mary Jo Kepechne and he never made things right while he was still here.

Now he is facing God and answering for what he did so many years ago.

Rest In Peace, Ted. I don't think you deserve it, but then again, it's not my decision to make.