Coulter contra Senator Murder.

Ann Coulter (My latest litmus test for so-called "conservatives") wonders why the Bay State Blimp should be considered America's conscience when it's obvious he's hiding something by drowning his.

Sen. Teddy Kennedy has demanded that the Bush administration waive attorney-client privilege and release internal memos John Roberts worked on while in the solicitor general's office 15 years ago, all of which were supposed to be held in the deepest confidence. Apparently, Kennedy thinks public officials have no right to keep even their attorney-client communications secret.

This surprised me because the senator is such a strong advocate of the (nonexistent) "right to privacy." And not just in the way most drunken, Spanish quiz-cheating, no-pants-wearing public reprobates generally cherish their own personal right to privacy. I mean privacy in the abstract.

I know as much about the "right to privacy" as I know about any other made-up, nonexistent right, but I would have thought that any "right to privacy" would protect confidential attorney-client conversations at least as much as, say, abortions in public buildings.

But I'll have to defer to the expert.

Consequently, applying the principle even-handedly to members of the executive branch as well as the legislative branch, I demand that Kennedy immediately waive all attorney-client privilege relating to his communications with his lawyer after he drove Mary Jo Kopechne off the bridge at Chappaquiddick. It's time to clear up, once and for all, the many questions that have swirled around Kennedy since Chappaquiddick.

Oops — "swirled" may have been a poor choice of words there. How about "floated"? Nope. "Surfaced"? Oooh — even worse, in terms of irony. "Come to light"? OK, now I'm just being obtuse. "Beset"? Yes, that's better.

Youth is no defense. John Roberts was 26 years old when he wrote the documents that Kennedy demands on behalf of the Senate. Kennedy was 36 when he drove Mary Jo Kopechne off a bridge.

If the Senate needs to know what Roberts thought about the law at age 26, then the Senate certainly needs to know what Kennedy thought about the law at age 36, when he drowned a girl and then spent the rest of the evening concocting an alibi instead of calling the police.

This isn't a "rehash" of Chappaquiddick; it's never been hashed. The Senate needs to know whether Kennedy was guilty of manslaughter. How else can the Senate be expected to carry out its constitutional duty to expel Kennedy unless Kennedy makes these key documents available?

We'll pick them up in the same van we send to collect John Kerry's military records and Bill Clinton's medical records.

While we wait, here's my guess as to what those attorney-client conversations sounded like, based on the facts in Leo Damore's book "Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up":

Interview with client Teddy Kennedy, July 19, 1969:

Teddy: May I approach the bench?

Lawyer: It's not a bench, Teddy. It's my desk. And no, you can't have another Chivas Regal.

Teddy: (Hiccup)

Lawyer: Let's start at the beginning.

Teddy: I'm going to say you were driving.

Lawyer: No, you are not saying I was driving.

Teddy: OK, someone in your family was driving.

Lawyer: They weren't even in Massachusetts that week. Can we move on? Why didn't you call the police after the accident, Teddy?

Teddy: I had to protect my political career, obviously. But this wasn't just about me! I was thinking about future drunk, philandering U.S. senators who may or may not have just drowned some chick they met at a party.

Lawyer: But what about Mary Jo —

Teddy: Yes, precisely! How would it look if I, a United States senator, were driving off to a secluded beach at midnight with a beautiful, nubile female after a private party? How would that look?

Lawyer: But Mary Jo was still alive for two hours —

Teddy: Did I mention my wife was pregnant? You think I should have reported the accident now, Mr. Smartypants?

Lawyer: She was trapped in that car, struggling to breathe!

Teddy: Do you know that two of my brothers were assassinated?

Lawyer: She was still alive! You could have saved her!

Teddy: Yeah, and say goodbye to my presidential ambitions. There was the future of the country to consider — as well as the future of the Chivas Regal company and all their employees. I am a Kennedy. I have a divine right to the presidency. I had to put that ahead of my lawyer's conscience. Anyway, Mary Jo was driving.

Lawyer: Teddy, we can't say Mary Jo was driving.

Teddy: What if some phony witness claimed that the driver stopped to ask for directions. Wouldn't that prove it was a woman driving?

Lawyer: But what about the witnesses?

Teddy: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Hey, what's so funny? Did I just say something funny?

To be continued ...

Here's Part Deux:

Interview with client Teddy Kennedy, July 19, 1969 (based on the facts in Leo Damore's book "Senatorial Privilege: The Chappaquiddick Cover-Up"):

Lawyer: Let's get back to the night of the accident. Why didn't you call the police?

Teddy: Stop nagging me! Mary Jo was driving. I wasn't even in the car.

Lawyer: No, Teddy. People saw you leave the party together.

Teddy: I had spurned her sexual advances and the poor girl was distraught. That's probably why she drove off the bridge.

Lawyer: A police officer saw you behind the driver's wheel speeding toward the bridge with a blonde in the passenger seat shortly before the accident.

Teddy: I asked Mary Jo to take the wheel after realizing I was too drunk to drive.

Lawyer: Now I know you're lying.

Teddy: How would that cop like a new NASA facility named after him?

Lawyer: You were soaking wet when you got back to the cottage.

Teddy: I went for a swim.

Lawyer: Fully clothed?

Teddy: I like to go for a little dip after a night of drinking and attempted extramarital sex. It clears my head.

Lawyer: There were any number of houses with lights on near the bridge – these are people who like you, Teddy – but they can't understand why you didn't ask them to call for help.

Teddy: I can't remember anything that happened that night! It seems like I was wandering for days, dizzy from the loss of oxygen after my heroic attempts to rescue Mary Jo. If you think about it, it was a lot like my brother Jack's rescue of his men on PT-109. He was driving when the ship got hit, and he didn't save all of them either. (Teddy singing now) The car was in, the Chappaquiddick bay, fearless man, who jumps and swims, a man who means, just what he says ...

Lawyer: What are you doing?

Teddy: It's a song I'm writing. I call it "The Ballad of Mary Jo."

Lawyer: You already told your confidant Paul Markham and your cousin Joseph Gargan the truth.

Teddy: Yes, get those names. They'll back me. Mary Jo was driving.

Lawyer: You're going to ask all these people to perjure themselves for you?
Teddy: I already have. They're balking of course, but I left them no choice.

Lawyer: What do you mean you've left them no choice?

Teddy: When they dropped me at the dock after they tried diving for Mary Jo, I told them I would report the accident the moment I got back to my hotel. But they knew I was lying. An hour went by and no police had come by to question them? They knew I hadn't reported it. They're as guilty as I am!

Lawyer: Well, arguably, you are more guilty, inasmuch as you drove off the bridge --

Teddy: Mary Jo was driving. And I've been drowning my sorrows ever since. Get it? "Drowning my sorrows"? Can I at least have a beer?

Lawyer: – and then you went to absurd lengths back at the hotel to create an alibi for yourself – drying off and changing clothes, making a point of complaining to the hotel owner about the noise from the next room even though everyone was sound asleep at that hour, asking the hotel owner to tell you what time it was.

Teddy: That was a nice touch, wasn't it?

Lawyer: How can you explain that behavior as anything other than trying to create an alibi?

Teddy: Are you listening? I'm a married man! Mary Jo was a babe! I was drunk, speeding toward a secluded beach with her. Do you think we were going to look for seashells? Now how would that look?

Lawyer: Hey – what are you doing with that neck brace?

Teddy: Look! Now it's a hat! Hey – there aren't any cameras in here, are there?

Lawyer: I don't know how I'm going to get you out of this ...

Teddy: Do you know who I am? I am a Kennedy! JFK, Jackie O, Camelot, Prohibition-era rum-running Kennedy clan – any of that ring a bell? The judge is a Democrat, and the weenie DA keeps sending me mash notes promising not to prosecute. Ha ha! He must think I need a new chauffeur!

Lawyer: You are in a lot of trouble, Teddy.

Teddy: I've got it all in hand. Hey, I'm feeling a little loaded. Which side of this neck brace is up? My press conference is in 10 minutes.

People think Ann Coulter is some crazed witch who can't control herself. My guess is she uses humor like a pressure release valve. If she did not beat down morons like Senator Murder every couple of weeks, she'd spend all her time slamming doors and shooting up televisions, a la Elvis.