I normally don’t mean to sound so harsh, but bear with me for a moment.
Pat Robertson has said some ridiculous things, and he’s been roundly criticized for them by conservative evangelicals. The comments by Robertson and Jerry Falwell blaming September 11th on homosexuals and abortionists were roundly denounced. I am wondering when we’re going to hear a similar denunciation from the left of the horrifying and barbaric comments of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
As I take telephone call after telephone call this evening regarding the destruction of my hometown and all homes and livelihoods of my family members in south Mississippi, I am sickened beyond words that Kennedy would take the opportunity of Hurricane Katrina to score partisan political points. Kennedy, it seems, is blaming the apocalyptic nightmare, which includes the deaths of a still not counted number of people, on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s opposition to the Kyoto protocols on global warming.
When I was a teenager, Kennedy’s father was one of my heroes. Although I disagree now with his political stance, he had a heart of palpable compassion for the downtrodden, including disenfranchised African-Americans and impoverished whites in rural Mississippi. Today I have consoled my 79 year-old grandmother who has lost everything she ever owned and I have heard about people without high school diplomas taking up chain saws to help their neighbors dig out from the tragedy. And a man who inherited his millions, his notoriety, and his public platform from his dynastic family tells us that the dead are lying unburied in the streets of Gulfport, that families are weeping over rubble in Biloxi, because the governor doesn’t agree with him on an international environmental treaty?
Sure, we all know the Kennedy dynasty has seen better days. And, yes, we’ve known since Absalom that a titanic father doesn’t rule out a craven son. But I just wonder how long it will be before Sen. Clinton, Sen. Kennedy, Chairman Dean, and the rest of the Blue State leadership is willing to say to RFK Jr. what many of their conservative counterparts have already said to Pat Robertson: Sit down and shut up.
