RIGHT-WING WEIRDNESS

Shortly after Samuel Alito's wife had her tear-stained moment, an obscure right-wing blog posted a link to a story that appeared on the Washington Post Web site, but added a detail that wasn't in the Post story at all:

While out of the room, Alito’s wife received a call of encouragement from Gwen Kopechne. Mrs. Kopechne told Bomgardner (Mrs. Alito) that while she understood the emotions that caused her to leave the room, she should be thankful her family member being abused by Sen. Edward Kennedy was still in the room, and not in the back of a Buick at the bottom of a pond.

The altered story was later picked up here.

And now today we have this at Free Republic:

I have an interesting tidbit of information to share.

My old college roommate's mother is friends with Judge Alito's mother. They go to the same church in Roseland, New Jersey.

Well, the judge's mother shared something with her that hasn't been in the papers and may bring a different perspective to those tears Alito's wife shed in the hearing.

It seems Judge Alito's wife (the former Martha-Ann Bomgardner) has had personal reasons to dislike Senator Kennedy since long before Splash's shameful treatment of her husband.

Long ago, the Senator was also less than kind to girl whose family was friends with the Bombgardner family. A girl that Martha-Ann knew fairly well before her untimely demise.

A girl named Mary Jo Kopechne.

It's a failed meme so far -- even the Freepers are skeptical about it. (One read the fake Post story and replied, "Color me skeptical. In the blog it says 'in the back end of a Buick.' Anybody remotely familiar with the story knows it was an Oldsmobile.") Still, ten years from now, when an aging Ted Kennedy is denouncing Justice Alito's majority opinion upholding President Lynne Cheney's suspension of habeas corpus nationwide, I guarantee you'll hear someone tell you this was the absolute truth.