November 29, 2006
BACK TO FLAK-CATCHING:
The Man, Movie, and Legend (ANDREW FERGUSON, November 29, 2006, NY Sun)
Biographers agree that in his last years Bobby Kennedy developed a sensitivity to poverty and race that he earlier lacked. Yet even here his liberalism is pretty sketchy.In 1966, by now a senator from New York, Kennedy talked several friendly businessmen into funding a pilot anti-poverty program in the Bedford Stuyvesant section of New York.
The program drew much more from the conservative ideals of private enterprise and individual initiative than from the big-government liberalism of his rival Johnson. Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California at that time, for one, was delighted with Kennedy's approach. "He's talking more and more like me," Reagan said approvingly.
Kennedy called for "doing away as much as possible with the welfare system, the handouts and getting people jobs by giving the private sector tax incentives."
That quote comes from a debate, held a few days before the California primary, with Senator Eugene McCarthy, one of Kennedy's rivals for the Democratic nomination (and no relation to Joe).
Eugene McCarthy was a genial man in his later years, but at the mention of Bobby's name he would grimace and say only, "an awful man."
Part of the reason for McCarthy's distaste was that last debate. When the moderator asked about poverty and race, McCarthy said that the black ghettos should be broken up by dispersing subsidized housing around the country, beyond the inner cities.
Kennedy, on camera, looked horrified, and with his eye trained on the then all-white suburbs of Los Angeles, he said: "We have 10 million Negroes who are in the ghettos at the present time. … You say you are going to take 10,000 black people and move them into Orange County. It is just going to be catastrophic."
McCarthy never quite recovered. Kennedy's distortion made his opponent look like a despoiler of white suburbia, a sentimentalist at best, and a radical at worst.
But it worked. This bit of ruthless race-baiting — "political thuggery," as the otherwise worshipful reporter Jules Witcover called it — frightened enough white suburbanites into voting for Kennedy to hand him the California primary and to send him, in triumphant good humor, into the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel on the evening of June 4, 1968.
Forget the race-baiting for the moment, try to imagine a Democratic presidential debate in 2008 between a candidate whose main program is Welfare Reform and one who's pro-Ownership Society. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 29, 2006 8:34 AM
McCarthy gave the paternalistic response, without any concern for the politics (the tension, the reality) or for the people involved.
Kennedy gave the calculated political answer, comparing Negroes to some sort of contagion. Just as he had done many times before, with other 'groups'. He was not an awful man, but he was certainly no saint. He had more of his father in him than Jack did.
Posted by: jim hamlen at November 29, 2006 9:52 AMMcCarthy was right. There's nothing better we could do as a society than move the urban poor to homes of their own in suburbia. RFK was right. The reason we don't, and don't have education vouchers, is because white suburbia doesn't want poor blacks moving in.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2006 10:04 AMI would argue that point OJ. It would be best for the urban poor to move to homes of their own in suburbia, if they do it. If we as a society do it, it will just move the ghettos around. Ownership has to be earned. Look at how many people explode when they win the lotto. Suburbia doesn't have a problem with poor blacks moving in, it has a problem with section eight housing and similiar goverment programs. I've seen this kind of program in action here, and all it did was move the warzone around. That's because it's not poverty but people who make a ghetto. I agree that it's a good idea, but the goverment has soiled it. Nothing like nightly gunfire to turn people off an idea.....
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at November 29, 2006 11:05 AMRobert:
Yes, that's what the vouchers buy--their own homes.
Posted by: oj at November 29, 2006 12:24 PMNot sure what OJ meant by his last comment. I think he's right about the suburbs and vouchers, but Robert is right about Section 8. It's ruined several working class neighborhoods around here.
Posted by: jdkelly at November 29, 2006 6:03 PMJdkelly, I think what OJ means is just what he says, get them their own homes and be done with it. The problem is "grasping the nettle". The failed half measures(like section 8 housing) make it harder to sell the program. Who has the political power to give away houses(on the Republican side) and then to stop, cold turkey(on the Democrat side)? That's why these little programs FDR saddled us with are so hard to end. The Republicans have tilted at that windmill for 70+ years. Bush is trying another way, and the cons. slit his throat for his efforts.
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at November 29, 2006 9:51 PMOrrin,
In 1968 I registered as a Dem in CA for one reason only. To repudiate Bobby's johnny come lately campaign, after Eugene, in equal idiocy and anti-Americanism, had shown the field was fallow.
JFK was an empty suit, drug and sex addicted with good speech writers.
RFK, he only looks good if compared to Teddy!
Mike
Orrin,
In 1968 I registered as a Dem in CA for one reason only. To repudiate Bobby's johnny come lately campaign, after Eugene, in equal idiocy and anti-Americanism, had shown the field was fertile.
JFK was an empty suit, drug and sex addicted with good speech writers.
RFK, he only looks good if compared to Teddy!
Mike