What If RFK Had Become President?

I believe RFK was a great man also, but he had weaknesses beyond the pitch and tone of his voice. This article is very biased against any Republican in all aspects. It would have been better for this analysis to have been done a bit more impartially. Completely taints the possibilities it projects.

My lone memory of RFK's assasaination was a bright clear morning on the playground before school began of Estabrook School in Lexington, Massachusetts and hearing either an aide or teacher screaming out "Robert Kennedy is dead" over and over again. I remember everything was suddenly very silent and everyone quickly lining up in their homeroom lines. Walking into the school, I vividly remember a male teacher who was holding the door open as we walked in openly weeping.

I think RK would have been the best President in the last 60-80 years. We had not good presidents in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. I believe Carter was pretty honest and Ford, but look at the rest. No president has retired poor since Einserhower, Truman and Roosevelt.

Not all Kennedy money was dads. Presidents are making deals to make thmesleves money instead of running the country. Watch Robert speak. Watch the media coverage. Then look at the crap that is spoken by both today.

This country isa disaster with an idiot like McCain, that admits he knows nothing about Economics, and please don't show me again how stupid Americans are by saying he has advisors. Clinton is dangerous and her husband is a traitor who should have been executed for treason for selling the China government and military secrets. Gore Too!

Abama is not a good negotiator (sp?) but at least he realizes that we have been doing it our way for 60 years and all it got us is 9/11 and a couple of trillion dollars in debt. under that scumbag Bush. RK is the only Kennedy that is worth anything in my eyes. Ted is a drunken muderer adulterer bum.

I'm all for a Democratic victory. Unfortunately, most of the people that I hear have very naive reasons for wanting that. Obama is who he is. Some things need to be brought to the front: Some peoples' reasoning that color makes a difference, are being mis-understood. It's obvious to anyone that's been following this campaign that a heck of a lot of people REALLY DID vote for their favorite color. If people notice that, and say even the smallest thing about it, they're almost immediately accused of being "Racist". Pardon me, but isn't that a bit like black calling the pot kettle? We don't know if Obama's going to be all that good or not. He might be, and he might not be. I'm willing to find out. But NOT because he's Black, (he's 1/2 "white" BTW. Why does everyone seem to call him "Black" if whites started calling him "white", how would Blacks react?) NOT because he's "proven", (he isn't) NOT because I "voted" for him as a candidate, (that decision was made for us by a few thousand "Super Delegates. Which I DIDN'T authorize to speak for me)... I like him because of who he is. Not WHAT he is.

I know this country would have benefited greatly from this great man. I recall his death vividly, as it was my 8th birthday on the 6th of that year. I was at school when they announced it over the intercom that he had been shot and died. I "lost it" (I cried uncontrollably) and recall watching his funeral that lasted all night (which was unusual in the days when TV stations actually went off the air in the wee hours of the day). I recall this event like others recall the JFK assasination. In these dark days living under the tyrannical dictatorship of the current administration, I hope that we can find a leader like RFK someday.

I was alive when RFK was running for President, as I also was when JFK was assasinated. RFK was no JFK. RFK was ruthless and extremely polarizing. He had the FBI call the Presidents of steel companies at 2 and 3 A.M in the morning, for example, instead of being respectful and waiting until working hours. He had enormous baggage, just as the Cllinton's, and was despised by the Mafia after reneging on Father Joe's deal to get JFK elected. Just as the Party's hierarchy wouldn't endorse Hillary, the same was true with RFK. They knew more than the electorate, and what would have come out would have been devastating.

"I think we can do bettah." --Robert F. Kennedy His murder was first time my mother ever heard me curse. Son, turning on the BBC at lunchtime, seeing a portrait of RFK and the dates: "Sh-t, no, no, oh godd-mn it, godd-mn it, those bastards!" Mother: "!!What's wrong, what happened?" Son: "They've killed Bobby!" When I've watched newsreels of him walking alone in the campaign streets, sometimes I couldn't shake the feeling he knew what might be coming. The dark, sad look in his eyes. ( And of course the question never answered to many people's satisfaction, and maybe not Bobby's, was, Who shot John?) I'd not believed much in our government since 1963, those days in 1968 pretty much ended all belief.

Would history have been different? Gee, let's see: No Watergate, no Rehnquist, no Chinese appeasement, no presidential resignations, no Gerald Ford presidency, no Spiro Agnew resignation, and no future double digit inflation from the elimination of the gold standard.

Looks like he really set the bar low for all PODUS of the future.

The article did hit a good message."to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." would be an challenge to either candidates. The article make you ponder if the country would respond the same way in 1968 if Obama is elected president and slain. There is similarities of the this election as of 1968. McCain to Nixon as Obama to Kennedy. Lets hope we have learned from our prejudice and discriminate ways and be a strong nation.

History will have taken a different path if Bobby Kennedy wouldn't have been killed. It would have been interesting to see the presidents after him would have acted if any different.

"I think we can do bettah." --Robert F. Kennedy

In 1968 I was a paperboy delivering the Pittsburgh Post Gazette morning edition. Half way on my route a woman came out at 530am and told me that RFK had been shot. I do not know that I realized the gravity of the event, I was 11. I received a clock radio from my mom for my 12th birthday on 6/6, and it is my recollection the first thing I heard was that the Senator had died. A sad time indeed. I like to think that the world would be different had RFK been elected, but the cynic in me thinks not. Look we had 8 years of Clinton to be repaid by 8 with the current simpleton, Ed Dougherty Bellefontaine Ohio

The U.S. would have been on a different path if Bobby wasn't killed. It would have been interesting to see how different history would have been.

Whew, after reading these comments I had to go back and reread the article. I'm sorry but I didn't see any hidden agendas, any Obama posturing or any Anti-Christs. 'What-ifs' are great at provoking thought and discussions. They are definitely not a waste of time. They many times offer inlightment and alternatives. No one says you have to reflect on the what-if so I you don't want to, simply don't. One last piece of advice, for the completely ridiculous posts concerning Anti-Christs, unpatriotic behavior, and the other really stupid ones (and you know which ones I mean!), simply ignore them. Ignore them and hopefully we might be able to have a semi-inteligent conversation.

Thanx, Stu

PS: LBJ really killed JFK? Go figure?

Must we forever read romantic drival about Robert Kennedy? You mention Richard Nixon in here as the consumate schemer -- but Richard Nixon (and his wife Pat) had lived the American Dream...they had worked hard and been a part of the real life of American'sin the 20th century.

The Kennedy's only discovered (by their own admission) that there had been a depression in America as late as1960 while campaigning in West Virginia some 30 years after the Depression had begun. Talk about being out of touch. Robert Kennedy had lived a life of relative ease in the bubble of wealth. He did not understand America and was a divisive political figure at the time of his terrible death.

Robert Kennedy was not going to be the nominee in 1968. He had not even had the courage to challenge President Lyndon Johnson -- he only jumped in after Senator Eugene McCarthy had already forced Johnson out of the race. The way Democratic Party politics worked back then assured Hubert Humphrey of the nomination. Kennedy was an ego trip...certainly and eloquent and elegant one...but not one that understood the political climate of 1968.

Robert Kennedy is a myth of the elitist media...we are to worship a 'what might have been that was never going to be' from the man who ordered Dr. King to be secretly taped and was known to belittle King in private conversations at trendy Washington parties.

Please, enough already with this nonsense. Kennedy was ruthless, unprincipled, felt entitled and would have been nothing had in not been for the family wealth. Perhaps a serious article on other political leaders of his era would be far more enlightening. This article surely is not.

Mike, Richmond, Virginia

America didn't want Bobby Kennedy for our president, so they had him killed, just like his brother John. John Kennedy was probably the best President this country has ever had. It's a shame that they had to die and that people in office had them killed. We will always remember the Kennedy's. Bush is a worthless president with all his lies. Bush is a DISGRACE to this country and the American people. We sure can't wait till that ass is out of office.

scaredofobama,
mccain is th best democrat running? are you even paying attention or ur really that busy preaching about god and the bible? i do believe in god...but i dont believe obama is the anti christ.. people are gettn ridiculous in this race. you should find legitamate reasons to not want obama as president other than his race religion or him being the anti christ. get real! mccain btw is republican... there u learn something new every day right?