Three significant anniversaries passed this week.

Only two have truly been noted.

First, of course, is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing on Saturday, July 20. The second was the 20th anniversary of the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister Lauren Bessette in a small plane Kennedy was flying to Martha’s Vineyard.

Only one of those deserves the hagiographic treatment both have been given, but I’ll get to that later.

The third was also a 50th anniversary, one that passed just two days after JFK Jr.’s and was, in many ways, related.

What could it be, Kennedy-worshipping-national-news-media? What could it be?

Only one of the most grievous miscarriages of justice, one of the grossest abuses of wealth and political power, and one of the most ill-deserved second acts in modern American history: July 18, 1969, the night a probably-drunk Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and left a young, adoring campaign aide named Mary Jo Kopechne to die in about three feet of water, her horrific death a slow agony — one that took hours — as she doubtless waited for her hero, the young and virile Ted, to run for help.

Instead, he stumbled back to his hotel room, called down to the front desk to complain about noisy guests, and went to sleep.

Chappaquiddick: Never forget.

If that sounds overly dramatic, consider this: The screenwriters of last year’s excellent film of the same name said they had never heard of it — any of it — until 2008.

“I only found out about it five years ago,” said writer/producer Andrew Logan, “because the Texas public school system does not teach things like Chappaquiddick.” Up till then, Logan said, Ted Kennedy had been among his heroes.

How many other school systems don’t teach Chappaquiddick?

Or, for that matter, any other history of the Kennedys that covers, say, presidential election rigging; raping a teenaged White House intern in his wife’s bedroom; wanton adultery and drug abuse; an interest in civil rights only as a personal, political headache; foreign policy catastrophes that include a failed coup of the Cuban government; the escalation of American forces in Vietnam, and nearly bringing the world to nuclear destruction in game of chicken with Russia — and that’s just Jack!

In a week dominated by headlines involving a rich, powerful, politically-connected man who used all that leverage to allegedly spend decades raping and trafficking girls as young as 14 — who escaped any true criminal consequence, and whose coming trial will be rivaled only by Harvey Weinstein’s — it’s well worth revisiting Chappaquiddick and Ted Kennedy’s true legacy.

After all, it’s taken 20 years for the needle to budge on the John Jr. myth. For years, the media has covered his death, and the deaths of his wife and sister-in-law, as Greek tragedy, fated and inevitable, a family cursed in a way that feels supernatural.

see also

The shocking recklessness that killed JFK Jr. and 2 of his friends

The teenager set off solo for a two-mile paddle across…

This week, some of that hagiography has been punctured. New retellings have begun to acknowledge — a little too politely, but at least it’s begun — the truth: That JFK Jr. had no business flying that plane, that at least one pilot on that same tarmac with far more experience took one look at the weather that night and said “no way,” that JFK Jr. wasn’t instrument-rated nor did he have the hours needed to fly without a flight instructor — and one offered his services that very night, on the spot.

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And the NTSB ruled the cause of the crash pilot error.

So when it comes to significant anniversaries, the way the media marks them matters — if they’re marked at all. It’s hard to believe, in the #MeToo era, we’re not reckoning with the night Ted Kennedy left a young woman to die and truly did not care, who panicked only when he realized this might cost him a future presidency, who walked right into a lifetime Senate seat and a lionization that extended to a eulogy, delivered by President Obama, that called Ted “a champion for those who had none.”

Tell that to those who loved and survived Mary Jo.