Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
“What is a ‘liberal” Republican?” is a question on everyone’s lips. Christopher Shays, a Republican Congressman from Connecticut, is often presented as an example. He presents himself that way, in fact. His current political advertising uses the word “independent” frequently, and never uses the word “Republican.” But he is a Republican.
So let’s see what an “independent” Republican actually is. Commenting on the current, ever-widening Foley Scandal, the other day Shays had this to say in defense of House (Republican) Speaker Dennis Hastert (who happens to be up to eyeballs in the cover-up that may go back as far as five years). “Well, at least he didn’t kill anybody as Kennedy did back in 1969.” Oh my. Shays goes right back to the Republicans’ favorite whipping boy before Bill Clinton came along: Ted Kennedy. All the way back to 1969, in fact. That Kennedy didn’t actually kill Mary Jo Kopechne (and a coroner’s jury, asked to go over the case a number of times by the organized Right-Wing legal beagles of the time, made that determination) is for Shays beside the point.
There is absolutely no excuse for what Kennedy did. He got very drunk at a party attended by many young political staffers and hangers on. He married at the time to be sure, rather drunk, got into his car with a young lady who was not Kopechne. He didn’t notice that an even drunker girl, Kopechne, had very sadly crawled into the back-seat and fallen asleep. Negligence of the highest order? Yes. Active killing, murder even, as Shays implied, surely not. But as I have often said, it just most unfair to confuse any reactionaries, Republicans and otherwise, with facts. But there went Shays, with the standard Republican mantra: “Two wrongs make a right.” And all the way back to 1969, as noted. They have been doing it with Clinton and Monica (as if an affair between two consenting adults somehow is at the same depth of immorality as an adult male hitting on teen-aged boys, but what the hey). And here Shays shows that, being a “liberal” Republican, he is not to be outdone.
