Posted on 06/05/2018 7:13:24 AM PDT by GreyFriar
Fifty years after his death, his deep conservative beliefs continue to define him.
It was 50 years ago, June 5, 1968, that Robert F. Kennedy was shot by a 24-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian immigrant looking to exact revenge upon the New York senator for his support of Israel a year earlier in the Six Day War.
“My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming more and more of an unshakable obsession,” Sirhan Sirhan had raged in his diary on May 18, 1968. “R.F.K. must die. R.F.K. must be killed. R.F.K. must be assassinated.”
...on a historic night when he had just won the Democratic Party primary in California. Democrats would need to find another nominee. Bobby Kennedy was out. And for liberals, they lost a hero, an icon. They lost — they believed — a political soulmate.
Or had they?
Liberal or Anti-Liberal?
Truth be told, it’s hard to look back at RFK as a liberal — certainly by today’s standards of liberalism, but even by the standards of the ’60s. To be sure, it would also be hard to flatly call him a conservative, or to fully dismiss liberalism in his life or certainly in his 1968 presidential run.
(snip)
The reality is that RFK, like his late brother, like their father, were old-school Democrats, before the Democratic Party — and before today’s Kennedy clan, ultimately embodied by the almost cartoonish-buffoonish Ted Kennedy — all went hard left.
For starters, RFK, like JFK, like the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy, was an ardent anti-communist, which immediately put him at odds with leftists in the party. RFK was a Cold Warrior with a passion for covert operations, including against Cuba, where he detested Fidel Castro.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Political history ping.
I have said for years, if JFK were alive today WITH THE SAME BELIEFS, he would have to be a Republican. The Dem Party has gone so far Left, they have nearly fallen off the Left side of the earth!
No mention of RFK’s conflicts with the CIA? Given it’s apparent treachery regarding Trump’s election, one would think that RFK’s conflicts with the CIA would draw a little more attention.
Not JFK, but his brother Robert, once a specialist in digging up opposition research for none other than Joe McCarthy, a fellow Catholic in the US Senate at the same time John was also in the Senate. McCarthy and the Kennedys were close personal friends as well.
Robert Kennedy stood a very good chance of knocking off Richard Nixon for the Presidency a SECOND time (losing yet again to a Kennedy), so a lot of history changed that day.
Witness Ronald Reagan.
On the night RFK was shot during the California Primary, they interviewed Reagan, and he remarked that RFK was running “to the Right of all of us.”
Liberal? Conservative? Neither. He was an opportunist. He worked for Senator McCarthy when it was the popular thing to do - I believe McCarthy was godfather to one of his children. When McCarthy fell out of favor, he dropped that association like a hot rock. Fervently anti-Communist? But he had a hand in withdrawing support for the Bay of Pigs invasion. Civil rights? As AG, his DoJ wiretapped MLK. And then there’s the whole Marilyn Monroe thing....
RFK was essentially a charismatic HHH. I was 14 and hated Kennedy, because he had stolen the nomination from my hero, Eugene McCarthy. (Yes, I was young and stupid. Like David Horowitz, I had my epiphany and left the Left.) Anyone living at the time knew that Nixon vs. RFK would have been a reprise of the 1960 election, with RFK winning in a walk. If HHH had been more politically savvy, he would have put Ted on the ticket for VP and let Ted bring in the left while Humphrey brought in the working class, and he would have won--and Ted wouldn't have been driving that car in Chappaquiddick, which would have let him run for President in '76 instead of the peanut farmer. Reagan would have still become president, either in 76 or 80, but without having to go through Gerald Ford to get there.
On the Politics and Fate of RFK
Does any rational, thinking adult really, really, really give a sh!t...after 50 years?
Ronald Reagan told the public that he did not leave the Democratic Party; the party left him.
JFK, RFK are so much closer to Trump than Pelosi & Co. that there is a large ‘No man’s land’ between them.
The American Spectator started wimping out in the later Clinton years (after great coverage in the early Clinton years).
The Deep State has their hooks into them—big time—at this point.
I was a young intern at the Robert Kennedy memorial, probably 45 years ago or so now. I came to really love Robert’s heart and his convictions. I didn’t agree with all of them, but I think he was sincere. His brother’s death crushed him.
Thanks for the ping. Unlike today’s democrat party, RFK was pro-Israel and anti-communist.
Yeah...the whole clan were corrupt Jew-haters. Howie Carr has a great article on RFK this week!
No, a diehard Democrat never loses faith in “the democracy”, or as Edward Moore Kennedy called it “the dream.”
HHH thought he had a big “prize” in Edmund Sixtus Muskie, whom the media called “a second Lincoln.”
And pro-life, IIRC.
Thanks - that explains everything. I’m thinking deep state is a euphemism for “oligarchy”. That’s what we need to correct. Check out my Federalist Letters to Corporate America at my blog.
I distinctly recall a TV interview of RFK and Eugene McCarthy where Kennedy wholeheartedly supported Israel and McCarthy took a pro-Arab position. Since then I've always suspected Sirhan Sirhan may have seen the same program.
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