Last year I posted a recording of an interview with Senator Robert ‘Bobby’ Kennedy, conducted by David Frost, just a short while before Kennedy was assassinated. There is every chance that had he not been slain, he would have secured the Democratic Party nomination for the 1968 presidential election and beaten Richard Nixon, the Republican candidate, just as Kennedy’s older brother did back in 1960.
The assassin’s bullet took the life of a potentially great US President, in all likelihood a far better politician than his considerably over-rated older brother. I posted the recording as an inspiring example of political communication and it was picked up just this month by Debra A. Baily on her Soul Mosiac blog. One of the things that so impresses me about Bobby Kennedy is that he presents such a reasoned, erudite and thoughtful perspective in a time characterised by so much conflict and violence.
From the same era, a compelling study of division, hatred and intolerance embodied in a single man is an LP of Spiro T. Agnew, Richard Nixon’s first vice president and political hatchet-man. Agnew was a corrupt, money-laundering fraudster. In 1973 he became the only vice president to resign in disgrace, though I suspect that the current holder of the office is a cat on its eighth life. Agnew’s plea bargain was mocked as the “greatest deal since the Lord spared Isaac on the mountaintop” by former Maryland Attorney General Stephen Sachs.
Anyway, back to the record, which I came upon in the same record shop where I found the Kennedy LP a year earlier. I think these two sides capture a nasty, small-minded and condescending man who somehow rose in just six years from County Executive to the second highest office in the world’s most powerful country. As an example of political communication it serves as a fitting counterpoint to the Kennedy sides.
The amazing thing is that the record was released by Agnew’s supporters!
I’m not sure if ‘enjoy’ is the right thing to say, but…
Side one:
Side two:
May 16th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Robert Kennedy’s measured, heartfelt concern and thoughts about how to heal the soul of this country are in stark contrast to the arrogant name-calling, and dismissive attitude of Spiro Agnew. Kennedy had vision. Agnew sarcasm. Kennedy sought healing through discourse, Agnew sought to squelch it. Kennedy offered hope, Agnew cynicism. Kennedy listened. Agnew derided.
When you listen to Kennedy, you felt there was a way out. When you listen to Agnew…you just feel depressed.