"I had not spent a lot of my life hanging out with Republicans, and what I imagined they were talking about was exactly the opposite."

"Now I'm in an administration surrounded by immensely talented people who are immensely idealistic. I always imagined Republicans would get together thinking about how to screw the poor and reduce taxes on the rich, but they're actually narrowly focused on how do we solve these big problems and make our country work. The level of idealism that I see at every level in the White House and in my agency is inspiring. And then the level of capability—the competence of the people I'm surrounded with...."

And a bit earlier in the conversation:

"I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom."

Writes Mark L. Wolf, 78, who has been on senior status as a federal judge since 2013. He's stating a downside of being a judge.Wolf's column, in The Atlantic, is called "Why I Am Resigning/A federal judge explains his reasoning for leaving the bench" (gift link). It begins:

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment.... When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president. 

Despite being a Reagan judge at the time of appointment, Wolf handed the power to appoint the next judge to President Obama. Wolf is sloughing off senior status to gain a power for himself, the power to speak freely. And what he wants to talk about is Trump's "assault on the rule of law." He ends the column by quoting RFK Sr. — "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope" — and the poet Seamus Heaney — the “longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

ADDED: For more detail on that Seamus Heaney line, here's Bill Clinton:

Should the widow stand back and know that her place is to quietly mourn and to express no opinions?

I'm reading The Washington Post: "Erika Kirk emerges as vocal public figure, redefining role of political widow/Vocal and stridently determined to advance her husband’s work, she has embraced her public role" (gift link).

In modern times, the number of women who have found themselves in this unenviable and tragic situation in the United States is small. The group is largely limited to the widows of the men slain in the tempestuous mid-1960s. Some biographers who chronicled the lives of those men — Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and John F. and Robert F. Kennedy — are wary of drawing historical comparisons that might by extension elevate Charlie Kirk, who made numerous disparaging remarks about Black people...

Inflammatory characterization casually inserted. 

... to the stature of an iconic civil rights leader or a president. But they see important distinctions between the ways the widows of the ’60s acted in their unwanted roles and the ways Erika Kirk is defining it.

“It’s such a different era and the partisanship is so much more extreme now,” said David Margolick, who wrote a book on the relationship between Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and whose journalism is being turned into a documentary about Coretta Scott King and the Kennedy widows flying RFK’s body home after he was killed. “And people are all in their respective political communities and have very little interaction with people on the other side. In [the era of the earlier widows], as partisan as it was — and some people really hated the Kennedys — there was respect for the presidency that crossed party lines. The mourning wasn’t red and blue.”

I see "RFK Jr. gives opening statements, gets interrupted by protesters at Senate hearing," and one of the protesters is Ben Cohen, the ice cream mogul.

Why would Cohen think this is a good place to insert himself? I would think ice cream is one of the top reasons for the obesity crisis in America. Where does he come off thinking he can pose as an exemplar of virtue against RFK Jr.?

The disruption begins at 1:50. The momentary look of terror on Bobby's face made me think of his father, suddenly interrupted and shot dead. 

The chant you hear is "RFK kills people with hate."

"My first time in this Oval Office was in... 1962... I came here... and I had a meeting with my uncle who was President... He was involved deeply, as we all know..."

"... in restoring physical fitness in this country.... At one point during his administration, he challenged Americans to do a 50-mile walk, which I ultimately did. But I remember the day that my father completed his walk. We were staying at Camp David, and my father came in after 18 hours walking on this towpath with his feet bleeding and blisters on them...."

Said RFK Jr. at the beginning of the short speech he made after his swearing in yesterday. I wrote quite a bit about that speech, here, but I did not include that part, and this morning I'm seeing an important reason why I should have. 

RFK Jr. began his remarks with JFK's physical fitness program, and then he extends beyond his uncle to his father, who took the uncle's challenge very seriously, and we hear of his father's wounds — his wounded feet. I think of Christ's wounds, so often detailed in art, and here, we are given grisly details — "bleeding and blisters." RFK Jr. began with a family story — father, son, and holy President — and a grand mission — physical health. 

From that beginning RFK Jr. spoke of how his father came to run for President in 1968.

"His basement, his garage, and his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available..."

"... and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.... Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.... Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination, and that of his own father...."

Wrote Caroline Kennedy, about RFK Jr., quoted in "Caroline Kennedy Urges Senators to Reject Her Cousin’s Nomination/In a harsh letter to lawmakers considering Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for health secretary, Ms. Kennedy called her cousin unfit for the job and a 'predator' who led family members to addiction" (NYT).

I have gone 60+ years without viewing the crucial seconds of the Zapruder film.

And this morning, I cannot scroll through X without it popping up in my feed over and over. I am still managing to avert my eyes, and yet I feel that I have now seen it... in the vertical realm of my peripheral vision. 

In any case, I'm glad to see that Trump has kept his promise and signed an order to release the rest of the files on the assassination of JFK, MLK Jr., and RFK. Here's RFK Jr. reacting:

RFK Jr. is thrilled that President Trump declassified all JFK, RFK, and MLK assassination files.

“I think it's a great move because we need to have more transparency in our government.”

“He is keeping his promise to have the government tell the truth to the American people… pic.twitter.com/R17PLW3rX7

— End Tribalism in Politics (@EndTribalism) January 24, 2025

Goodbye to Ethel Kennedy.

Ethel Kennedy, widow of RFK, dead at 96 after suffering stroke https://t.co/30Q0nkr8HJ pic.twitter.com/5s5wAZyQnG

— New York Post (@nypost) October 10, 2024

From RFK Jr.'s "American Values: Lessons I Learned from My Family" (commission earned):

After my father fell for my mother, they embarked on what Arthur Schlesinger described as “one of the great love stories of all time.” My dad loved Ethel Skakel’s fiery spirit, and was intensely proud of her reckless competitiveness and athleticism, her self-confidence, her humor, and her peculiar blend of deep religious faith and mischievous irreverence. Her fearless, fun-loving, outgoing personality perfectly complemented my father, providing encouragement to a man who was inherently quiet, vulnerable, and shy. Her devotion to him became a platform for his growth as a public leader. Where Jack was detached and deliberative, my father burned with passion. She fueled those flames. 

My parents were so affectionate with each other that they often appeared pasted together, arms draped over each other’s shoulders, kissing and calling each other “sweetheart,” “darling,” and “honey.” I had an early allergy to corniness, and these antics would have put me in anaphylactic shock had they not been so casual and adorable. They held hands when they ice-skated or walked on the beach. On river trips they lay against each other beside the campfire. He proudly introduced her at his speeches, and she always took the front row and hung on every word, even after hearing the same stump speech a hundred times. Her disciplined attention to his talks always impressed me. I thought, “She must have learned that in Catholic school, where they rapped your knuckles for wavering attention.” She sat behind him in the motorcades, and he would look around whenever he lost track of her. He told reporters that his greatest achievement was “marrying Ethel.”

"Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to endorse former president Donald Trump..."

"... according to a new court filing in Pennsylvania. The filing surfaced ahead of a planned speech in which Kennedy said he would make an announce about the direction of his campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in a speech Thursday in Chicago. Trump is campaigning Friday in Nevada and Arizona. He is scheduled to be joined by a 'special guest' in Arizona."

From "RFK Jr. to endorse Trump, court filing says" (WaPo).

I'm very interested in hearing RFK Jr. explain — with precision — how one goes from where he's been to supporting Trump. 

ADDED: Here's his full speech, which I thought was excellent:

 

From the transcript:

The DNC dragged us into court state after state.... It deployed DNC-aligned judges to throw me and other candidates off the ballot and to throw president Trump in jail. It ran a sham primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden, then, when a predictably bungled debate  performance precipitated the palace coup against President Biden, the same shadowy DNC operatives appointed his successor also without an election. They installed a candidate who was so unpopular with voters that she dropped out in 2020 without winning a single delegate. 

My uncle and my father both relished debate. They prided themselves on their capacity to go toe-to-toe with any opponent in the battle over ideas. They would be astonished to learn of a Democratic party presidential nominee who, like Vice President Harris, has not appeared in a single interview or an unscripted encounter with voters for 35 days. This is profoundly undemocratic. How are people to choose when they don't know who they are choosing? And how can this look to the rest of the world? 

My father and my uncle were always conscious of America's image abroad because of our nation's role as the template for democracy, the role model for Democratic processes, and the leader of the Free World. Instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris based upon... well, nothing. No policies, no interviews, no debates. Only smoke and mirrors and balloons in a highly produced Chicago circus....

How did the Democratic party choose a candidate that has never done an interview or debate during the entire election cycle? We know the answer. They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by abandoning democracy. They did it by suing the opposition and by disenfranchising American voters. What most alarms me isn't how the Democratic party conducts its internal affairs or runs its candidates. What alarms me is the resort to censorship and media control and the weaponization of the federal agencies when a US president colludes with or outright coerces media companies to censor political speech. It's an attack on our most sacred right of free expression and that's the very right upon which all of our other constitutional rights rest....

RFK Jr. said what needs to be said: Biden's use of government power to suppress the speech of his political antagonists is a worse threat to democracy than whatever Trump has done.

"I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is... the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent. I can say that because I just won a case in the federal court of appeals — and now before the Supreme Court — that shows that he started censoring not just me but, 37 hours after he took the oath of office, he was censoring me (sic). No President in the country has ever done that. The greatest threat in democracy is not somebody who questions election returns but a President of the United States who used the power of his office to force the social media companies — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — to open a portal and give access to that portal to the FBI, to the CIA, to the IRS, to [???], to NIH, to censor his political critics. President Biden, the first President in history, used his power over the Secret Service to deny Secret Service protection to one of his political opponents, for political reasons. He's weaponizing the federal agencies. Those are really critical threats to democracy."

The interviewer — perhaps only pretending to misunderstand — asks how what Trump did is not a threat to democracy. RFK Jr. answers:

"Every right that the government has ever taken away from citizens was removed under the pretense of national security."

"My father's favorite philosopher, Albert Camus, wrote that the welfare of the people is always the alibi of tyrants and it provides further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a clear conscience.... People love TikTok. It's the digital public square. If there are security concerns in the tech backend, let's address them there, but let's never reduce Americans' ability to freely exchange ideas. TikTok has become an avenue for young Americans to grow businesses, to express themselves, and to join the political discourse.... President Biden enjoys censoring and silencing those who dare question him. I know that because I just won a case in the court of appeals on that issue against him. So it's no surprise that he supports banning TikTok. The First Amendment should not be disregarded for any reason...."

Says RFK Jr., on TikTok:

"Mr. Kennedy is the one person who has the qualities that can bring about the unity that most Americans are hungering for. He speaks a language of conciliation and compassion."

Said Dennis Kucinich, RFK Jr.'s campaign manager, quoted in "Why Robert Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Bid Is a Headache for Biden/The unexpected polling strength of an anti-vaccine activist with a celebrated Democratic lineage points to the president’s weaknesses, which his team is aiming to shore up" (NYT).

Notice the descriptor: "anti-vaccine activist." A lot depends on the strength of that label. If people accept it as a warning — steer clear of this nut — then Biden easily prevails. But if that insult is questioned — what is it they don't want us to look into? — then Biden is caught flatfooted.

On Joe Rogan's podcast, Kennedy expressed his skepticism about the relationship between vaccine manufacturers and the federal government. It isn't the idea that vaccines don't work, but questioning why so many vaccines, why they are mandated, especially for babies, and how the side effects are balanced against the benefits. Right now, we're seeing an avoidance of debating with Kennedy, but will that strategy work? People who lived through the rigors of the coronavirus pandemic may demand that the experts prove they were worthy of the trust and obedience they demanded. 

"In a statement, Sirhan’s attorney Angela Berry expressed concern that the board had been swayed by Newsom..."

"... who overruled the previous recommendation in 2022 and has argued that Sirhan has not been rehabilitated. She also argued against the idea that her client lacked 'sufficient insight' into his actions, citing psychiatric evaluations dating back to 1975 and the 2021 parole hearing. In an op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times last year, Newsom said Sirhan had 'not developed the accountability and insight required to support his safe release into his community.'"

From "Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin, denied parole again" (WaPo).

"It hadn't penetrated my think-tank that this was your hacienda when I came mavericking in."

Wrote William MacLeod Raine in the Western novella "Bucky O'Connor" (1910). 

The original meaning of "think tank" was brain. I learned that just now from the OED. 

In 1964, the St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch quoted Harry Truman saying that he wants to live to be 90 "if the old think-tank is working."  I guess the skull is the container — the tank — and the brain the contents. I see that people also said "think box." 

Does anyone still use the phrase "think tank" like that? It would be confusing, now that "think tank" has come to mean "A research institute or other organization providing advice and ideas on national or commercial problems" (OED). 

The oldest published appearance of that usage is:

"Mr. Sirhan’s assassination of Senator Kennedy is among the most notorious crimes in American history."

"After decades in prison, he has failed to address the deficiencies that led him to assassinate Senator Kennedy. Mr. Sirhan lacks the insight that would prevent him from making the same types of dangerous decisions he made in the past." 

Said Gavin Newsom, quoted in "Gov. Gavin Newsom rejects parole for Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of killing Robert F. Kennedy" (L.A. Times).

"I really do believe any prisoner who is found to be not a threat to themselves or the world should be released."

Do you believe that? I don't. 

The quote is from Douglas H. Kennedy, one of the sons of Robert F. Kennedy. I'm reading "California parole panel votes in favor of release from prison for Sirhan Sirhan/Parole for 77-year-old convicted of assassinating still must be approved by full board, governor" (WaPo). 

And here's quote from Robert Kennedy Jr.: "My father, I think, would be really happy today. My father believed in compassion. The ideals of our justice system are the possibility of redemption and the importance of forgiveness. He didn’t believe the justice system was just about revenge."

Not all of the offspring of RFK are happy about the decision. Six of them — Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.), Courtney, Kerry, Chris, Maxwell, and Rory Kennedy — put out a statement that sounds right to me:

"We are devastated that the man who murdered our father has been recommended for parole. We adamantly oppose the parole and release of Sirhan Sirhan and are shocked by a ruling that we believe ignores the standards of parole of a confessed, first-degree murderer in the state of California."

Sirhan was originally sentenced to death. "When California eliminated the death penalty, Sirhan was resentenced to life. California has since reinstated the death penalty, but has a labyrinthine appeals process and rarely executes anyone."

The decision of the parole panel doesn't set him free. It must be reviewed by the parole board and then the governor. The governor's decision will take place well after the recall election, which is on September 14th.

"Sirhan Sirhan, convicted of Robert F. Kennedy assassination, seeks parole with no opposition from prosecutors/Attorneys say that 53 years behind bars is sufficient punishment for the 77-year-old; Kennedy family declines to weigh in."

The Washington Post reports. 

Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón told The Washington Post shortly before his inauguration in December that he was creating a sentencing review unit to revisit the cases of about 20,000 prisoners for possible resentencing, analyzing both the fairness of long sentences and the cost savings for releasing low-risk or older inmates.... 

In Sirhan’s case, Gascón’s office is remaining neutral....Kennedy is survived by his wife, Ethel Kennedy, and nine children, many of whom declined to comment....

Ethel Kennedy is still alive. She's 93 and has never remarried. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for some reason has come to believe that Sirhan was not the killer, and he's met with Sirhan and told him so.

Under California law in effect in 1968, a life sentence with parole would have made Sirhan eligible for release after seven years. He has had no disciplinary violations since 1972, and although he claims not to remember the act of shooting Kennedy, he has expressed remorse in parole hearings since the 1980s.... 

ADDED: "Ethel publicly stated that she still considered herself married to Bobby and would not marry again, instead devoting herself to furthering his work and legacy."

"The idea was for the new series to be soothing and nonviolent, an answer to the moral panic about violence in the media in the wake of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination..."

"[They wrote] an adorable half-hour comedy-mystery with a lovable and hapless Great Dane — a character modeled, they often said, on the character Bob Hope played alongside Bing Crosby in the 'Road' movies. After 15 or so drafts, they realized that the dog, Scooby-Doo, was the star.... A half-century later, episodes of 'Scooby-Doo' are still being broadcast.... It has inspired fans in every decade, who cleaved to characters like the beatnik slacker Shaggy (based on Maynard G. Krebs from 'Dobie Gillis') and the bespectacled brainiac, Velma, who would become a lesbian heroine."

From "Joe Ruby, a Creator of ‘Scooby-Doo,’ Is Dead at 87/Charged with creating an animated mystery series, Mr. Ruby and his writing partner, Ken Spears, came up with a show that endures more than 50 years later" (NYT).

"This lack of personal involvement in the struggle did not stop Biden, when he was seeking national office, from inventing a civil rights past for himself."

"[Richard Ben Cramer, in his classic account of the 1988 presidential primaries, What It Takes,] reported on his rhetoric in the primaries in 1988: 'Joe was off on his life… how he started in the civil rights movement…remember?… The marches? Remember how that felt?… And they’re nodding in the crowd, and he’s got them, sure.' Even when his handlers warned him to stop saying this because it was not true, he couldn’t help himself: 'Folks, when I started in public life, in the civil rights movement, we marched to change attitudes.' The plain fact, as [Biden’s biographer Jules] Witcover notes, is that 'he avoided street protest or anything else that smacked of civil disobedience.' He was a concerned observer of, not a participant in, the great dramas of the 1960s. So how could Biden imagine himself as the reincarnation of the Kennedys? Those two words: Irish Catholic. His claim to that legacy is not experiential or particularly ideological. It is ethnic and religious. The Kennedys defined an Irish-American Catholic political identity—white (even in their case conspicuously privileged), yet by virtue of the grimness of Irish history and the outsider status of Catholics, supposedly not guilty of the grave crimes of racial oppression. Its promise was to act as the bridge across the great divide of US society, being mainstream enough to connect to the white majority but with a sufficient memory of past torment to connect also to the black minority. Its underlying appeal was to the very thing that Biden would come to embody—'a sense of the depth of their pain' rooted in 'vivid memories of sad times.' This is what Biden chose when he defined himself as he has throughout his public career: 'I see myself as an Irish Catholic.' And this was indeed a choice. Biden is not an Irish name.... So Biden could have presented himself, had he chosen, as an all-American boy. Instead he identified with his mother’s ethnic ancestry...."

From "The Designated Mourner" by Fintan O’Toole (in The New York Review of Books)(discussing Joe Biden's memoir, "Promise Me, Dad").

"Sirhan Sirhan, who is serving a life sentence for the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was stabbed in the neck and badly wounded at a San Diego prison."

[VIDEO DELETED]

ABC7.