What a Difference RFK Would Have Made

What a difference in this country a Robert F. Kennedy presidency would have made. Yesterday would have been RFK's 82nd birthday and Joseph A. Palermo shared the conclusion of his upcoming biography with readers at The Huffington post.

Kennedy began to look at American society with a far more critical eye. He believed the nation must stand for something other than consumerism and the pursuit of material wealth. "Our Gross National Product now soars above $800 billion a year," he said, "but that counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our streets of carnage. It counts the special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of natural wonder to chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and television programs, which glorify violence to sell toys to our children."

He lamented the loss of a higher purpose for America: "The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play," he said. "It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

Kennedy's legacy has become contested ground in the decades since his death. Conservatives have embraced his dedication to "law and order" as Attorney General, and his toughness as a prosecutor. It was Robert Kennedy who put organized crime on notice, and he showed his determination by snatching the mobster Carlos Marcellos off a New Orleans street and deporting him. He also brought forth Joseph Valachi to blow the whistle on the Mafia. Conservatives have also praised Kennedy for his criticisms of Lyndon Johnson's social programs. He believed that the government should not breed dependency, but provide a safety net while emphasizing self-reliance. His public-private partnership in Bedford-Stuyvesant stands as a model for his goal of creating jobs to help the poor become working taxpayers. Some of Kennedy's working-class supporters were deeply conservative on social issues, and in the years after his death slowly drifted toward becoming "Reagan Democrats." On November 20, 2001, a Republican administration named the Department of Justice building in honor of Robert F. Kennedy.

In the summer of 1999, President William Jefferson Clinton evoked Robert Kennedy's memory while touring several impoverished communities. He traveled to some of the same places Kennedy had visited in the late 1960s, including the Mississippi Delta and the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. The president spoke out against the poverty that existed in America, and praised Kennedy's daughter, Kerry Kennedy, for her charitable works. At the same time, Kennedy's former legislative aide, Peter Edelman, who served in the Clinton administration, resigned his post in protest after Clinton signed what Edelman believed to be a draconian welfare reform bill. In an op-ed piece in The New York Times, Edelman criticized Clinton's expedition, calling it a "cosmetic poverty tour." The episode shows that even among those who claim to be Robert Kennedy's ideological heirs the meaning of his legacy is still contested.