Rememberances

By Carl

This weekend will be filled with memories and rememberances, and it all started this morning:

New York City's Triborough Bridge will officially be renamed the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge in a dedication ceremony Wednesday.

The New York senator was assassinated in 1968 while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Speakers at the morning ceremony are expected to include former President Bill Clinton, Governor David Paterson and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Kennedy's widow, Ethel, is also expected to attend.

The bridge will be the first major public work dedicated to Robert Kennedy in the state he represented from 1965-1968 in the U.S. Senate.

The ceremony is being held a day before what would have been Robert Kennedy's 83rd birthday.

I was a bit too young to really have known the John Kennedy era, apart from sensing the excitement of people around me that this young vital war hero was our President and that things were about to change.

Who could have known?

When Robert Kennedy ran in 1968, I was a bit more aware of the world around me, being the bright little boy that I was. I knew that LBJ, as courageous a man as ever sat in the White House for what he did when he saw the world around him treating human beings like second class citizens, had serious problems in this war he had entangled the nation in.

RFK seemed to be the embodiment of everything his brother's legacy would destine him to be: young, powerful, opinionated, intelligent, and dedicated to making the world a better place. His signature quotation, taken from George Bernard Shaw was, "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?"

It is RFK that I have to thank for being as world-aware and as politically-motivated as I am. If all he had done for me was to spark my intellectual curiousity and gotten a ten year old to go out and campaign for the Democratic ticket that year, it would have been enough.

My family owes a far greater debt to Robert Kennedy, one that he earned posthumously. You see, in his family's spirit of giving back to the community, a family affected by the tragedy of what was then called "mental retardation," RFK's legacy was to help those in need get a leg up in life.

His foundation helped my brother, handicapped by a bout of meningitis in his early childhood, find a job, a job he has kept these thirty-odd years and will retire from shortly.

I often think of that day that my mother got the call from his employer, offering the job. I think of it particularly when I engage some conservative about welfare or some right-winger about personal responsibility. I think of the alternative, of how my brother could easily have sat around the house collecting Social Security for the rest of his life, a burden to society and to my family.

Instead, RFK in his wisdom found a way to reach beyond his years to present an opportunity to him. RFK would have done the same in his public life had he lived, I have no doubt.

And I have no doubt that happy moment has shaped how I perceive the world and what society owes to the least among us: a chance. As a progressive, I want all people to have that chance to grow and be something, to do something, to have something.

I don't mouth platitudes of "ownership society" and then ram a mortgage down someone's throat like it was a gift. Instead, I see government's role as one that seeks opportunities and seeks people in need and marries them to each other. If that means that government has to take responsibility until that opportunity presents itself, so be it.

It's the Christian thing to do.

It has been said of RFK, "Bobby, we hardly knew ye," and that is true, but for what little knowing we've had, we are a better people.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Political history

By Mustang Bobby

One of the recent Questions of the Day at Shakesville was "What's your first memory of a political campaign?" or something in that vein. Mine was in 1956 when my older sister and brother taught me "Whistle while you work! Stevenson's a jerk!" I was four and I had no idea what it meant. Then when I was eight my Cub Scout troop was recruited to canvass for Richard Nixon's run in 1960 against John F. Kennedy. All of my Catholic friends were Kennedy supporters, so I came to the logical conclusion that Catholics were Democrats. I dutifully went along with my troop, and I remember being in a political parade down Louisiana Avenue in late October 1960 in Perrysburg. There was a big cardboard "X" plastered on my bike basket and I was in a row of riders that spelled out N-I-X-O-N. It would be another ten years or so before I found out that my parents, going against their friends and long family upbringing, voted for JFK in 1960.

I don't need to bore you with my entire political-junkie life story. Suffice it to say that I have followed politics more as an observer than a participant, even though I have worked on campaigns, national and local, since I was old enough to understand the difference between the political parties and the issues that matter to me both as a person and as a citizen. My first crush, so to speak, was Bobby Kennedy, and in many ways I have never really gotten over it. I have not been as excited or energized about a candidate since then, although it's fair to say that like all teenage crushes, the intensity is never the same as the first time. And now, forty years later, I find that my ardor has mellowed and tempered with age and experience. No candidate is perfect; they will disappoint you and show their flaws, and at some point you will seriously ponder what it was you saw in them that attracted you in the first place. But unlike the mercurial passions of youth, you know that compromise, tolerance, and forgiveness are a part of every relationship, even if it's with someone who doesn't know you exist and only appealed to you for their attention because they needed your vote. As long as you realize that, you can put it in perspective: you're only choosing the leader of the free world, not your prom date.

Every candidate says that "this election is the most important in our nation's history." Well, of course they're going to say that; otherwise, why should we pay attention to them? But in truth, this election of 2008 is very important, and not just for the prospect of either electing the first black man to be president or the first woman to be vice president. This election comes front-loaded with expectations above and beyond the events that will occur after January 20, 2009. And while there is no doubt that the next few years are going to be difficult in many ways, not the least of which will be recovering from the last eight, they will be anticipated as being important because of what this election brings with it. It wasn't always so. The election of 1980 was not foreseen as momentous; most of the conventional wisdom said that Jimmy Carter would be re-elected over Ronald Reagan and the 1980s would go on as before. No one really saw the tectonic shift in the Republican Party coming, either, at the hands of the evangelical Christians. Now, half my lifetime later, we are seeing what a lot of people consider to be the end of the aftershocks of that election, and the beginning tremors of another. That may easily be; only history will tell. But I have the feeling that no matter what happens tonight, this election really is one of the most important in our history. I can't help but feel a little more than amazed that I've been a participant and observer.

So, if you haven't already, participate in history and vote.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

HRC and RFK: Clintonian self-victimization and the blame (Obama) game

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Nothing is ever Hillary's fault.

Ever.

Or, at least, that's what she and her campaign would like us to believe.

What's more, whether it's the situation with Michigan and Florida (a party issue, with rules set by the DNC) or any of the various controversies that have emerged during this long and sometimes bitter race, it's not just that it's never Hillary's fault, it's usually Obama's.

Or, at least, that's what she and her campaign would like us to believe.

And you can add Hillary's RFK assassination blunder to the list.

As you may remember -- and Creature put up an excellent post on it here -- Hillary recently remarked that she's staying in the race because, and let's quote her directly: "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." (And because Bill's 1992 campaign lasted until June -- not a fair analogy, given that he had wrapped up the nomination much earlier.)

Meaning: "I'm staying in the race in case Obama is assassinated," literally or figuratively (perhaps).

Well, of course, the Clinton campaign jumped to their candidate's defence, arguing that what she meant was that primary campaigns, such as the one in 1968, can be protracted affairs, lasting well into the summer, as the current one might. (Which is true, sort of. Again, 1992 is not a fair analogy.)

But that, apparently, is not enough. Now the Clinton campaign is actually blaming Obama for the whole thing:

"The Obama campaign... tried to take these words out of context," Clinton campaign chairman [Terry] McAuliffe said on "Fox News Sunday." "She was making a point merely about the time line."

Okay, then why didn't she just make a point about the time line? Why bring up RFK's assassination at all? It's not like she doesn't know that words matter, that how one expresses oneself matters. Either she's incredibly ignorant (in having said something in an incredibly ignorant way) or incredibly malicious (and desperate to justify her ongoing campaign in any way possible).

Hillary's insincere remarks on her remark suggest the latter: "I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family, was in any way offensive." Note the "if" -- "if" what I said "was in any way offensive." Not that it was, just that it could have been, maybe, depending on perspective. Note, too, that she mentioned only the Kennedys, not Obama.

I've had enough of this latest blunder, but I've also had enough of Hillary herself. While criticizing her campaign, I have tried not to be too negative, defending her repeatedly as a strong candidate and an impressive political figure with a bright future in the Democratic Party. However, she has grown increasingly desperate, pathetic, and nasty over the course of the campaign, smearing Obama whenever and however possible, fashioning herself a populist to win over working-class whites with whom she has nothing in common other than her skin colour, cozying up to the vast right-wing conspiracy that has so tormented her and her husband, and, as this incident shows, making up ridiculous and offensive arguments to justify her losing campaign.

It's time, Hillary. Get out.

40 years ago tonight

By J. Kingston Pierce

One of the most moving speeches ever made, its importance only exacerbated by one’s knowledge of the tragedy that would be visited upon Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy less than two months later.



(Cross-posted at Limbo.)