RFK

Last night there was a piece on Bobby Kennedy on channel 2 - for their series "The American Experience." It was very good, for trying to squeeze his whole life into two hours. Occassionally the choice of soundtrack was a little funny - when they showed him tour the slums, they'd be playing some kind of generic disco-funk that I guess was meant to set the stage for what it's supposed to be like to walk through the slums. There was a creepy moment that had him in a motorcade in San Fran, when suddenly you hear about 5 pops that sound like gunfire, and you see RFK flinch a little, before he realizes that it's not gunfire, just some firecrackers. His story is a very interesting one - it's not often that such a widely known, powerful figure goes from well-heeled trust-fund baby to civil rights and economic justice crusader over the course of his career in the public eye. His assassination was really, truly the end of an era. Who knows if any of his ideas would have made it through Congress (maybe his presidency would have been similar to Clinton's?), or if he would have actually been able to end the Vietnam War earlier, but it's still just amazing that someone so crazily idealistic almost became president. There's been no one like him since. But I have a good feeling about Barack Obama, really good. I think he can pull it off, but he HAS to run in '08. It's going to be Romney v. Obama, and it's going to be a close one, again.

"Bobby" was an OK movie, but it should have been an HBO television event.

If you want to read a fantastic RFK biography, check out Robert Kennedy: His Life, by Evan Thomas.