Forty Years

I recall waking up to my clock radio, which was announcing that Bobby Kennedy had been shot and killed the night before in LA, on June 5th, 1968. It was quite a shock to someone growing up in a family of Democrats, coming so soon after the King assassination, and a reminder of the assassination of his brother less than five years earlier.

Now, decades on, it's pretty clear to me that, like his brother, he was vastly overrated, but his death was a tragedy nonetheless. Not because we were deprived of a great leader, but because we imagined we were, and it was traumatic, particularly for the left. To the point that, like JFK, though he was killed by a leftist (in this case a vengeful Palestinian) they had to concoct bizarre theories to make it appear to be a "right wing" conspiracy. Both the Kennedy assassinations are wounds from which so-called liberals have never really recovered, or gotten over their anger.