“Neither Beck, Hannity nor Savage nor the hate merchants at Fox News and talk radio can claim to have invented their genre.”
— Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
On a hot June day in 1968, I stood in line for six hours to walk into St. Patrick’s Cathedral and touch the flag covering the casket of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. I was 17 years old and heartbroken. RFK was my political hero.
But I began to learn something that day. Actually, it was a continuation of a lesson that had already begun to trouble me as I learned more and more about American history –- and began to examine the words and actions of the American left that at that point in my life I thought I wanted to join.
It is a lesson that comes to mind yet again all these years later as I read a disgraceful post at Huffington today by, of all people, Robert Kennedy’s namesake son.
It’s one thing to stake out a position. It’s another to deliberately ignore historical fact, to make wild, mean-spirited, nutty and truly disturbing accusations about Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and Fox News. In the latter case, one well recalls that Kennedy’s viewpoint on the environment was given a full and unchallenged airing on Fox News, with an hour-long documentary showcasing his view of the issue. This is hardly the behavior of a network devoted to what Kennedy calls “right-wing hatred and violence.”
What really disturbs this no-longer 17 year old Bobby Kennedy fan is his son’s dabbling with left-wing hatred — from his presence on the hate-fest that was Air America radio (which has thankfully gone under, unable to find a large audience for left-wing radio hate) to the nutty conspiracy theories about the 2004 election to his hate filled rhetoric about corporations.
This latest outburst isn’t just pathetic. It’s sad. Unworthy of his father.
Someone’s famous son is embarrassing his father’s name.
And he should be ashamed of himself.