Reaction to Bobby

With remarkable consistency, the U.S. press corps has risen in indignation against the candidacy of Bobby Kennedy. Even those who have come to his defense have demonstrated a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm. Of those newspapers and columnists who have commented, the great majority object both to the manner in which he entered the presidential race and his subsequent campaigning. Their tone ranges from outrage to contempt to a kind of weary resignation, as if to say, "Well, that's politics."

One of the most outraged was the conservative Chicago Tribune. "This is the cheapest sort of opportunism," it said. "Not since the days of Aaron Burr has the country been treated to such an example of unbridled personal ambition." Just as incensed was Liberal Columnist Murray Kempton of the New York Post. Kennedy, he wrote, had shown nothing less than "cowardice" by agreeing to support Johnson before the New Hampshire primary. With the returns in and L.B.J. bloodied, Kennedy is "just as much a coward when he comes down from the hills to shoot the wounded. He has, in the naked display of his rage at Eugene McCarthy for having survived on the lonely road he dared not walk himself, done with a single great gesture something very few public men have ever been able to do: in one day he managed to confirm the worst things his enemies have ever said about him."

More Sly. The Chicago Daily News was one of the papers that welcomed Bobby's candidacy editorially; its columnist Mike Royko, on the other hand, compared the presidential race to a baseball game being mismanaged by a fellow called Big Lin. "Bobby walked around telling the other guys what a mess Big Lin was making. But he didn't say anything to Big Lin." Only Eugene, who "wore glasses, read books and played the piano," had the nerve to tell off Big Lin and pop him in the nose "Suddenly Bobby shouted: 'Don't worry, Eugene, I'll protect you,' and Bobby socked Big Lin in the back of the head with the catcher's mask." After that "nobody thought much of Bobby. They figured maybe he was a lot more sly than he was brave."

The Washington Star was obviously resigned to Kennedy. "This was a ruthless performance," noted the paper, "but politics is a ruthless business." Echoed Atlanta Constitution Columnist Ralph McGill: "It will do no good to cry opportunist at Senator Kennedy. He is an opportunist--and he had better be! In politics, opportunism is the name of the game." San Francisco Chronicle Columnist Art Hoppe wrote an allegory in which the Gentle Knight (McCarthy) jousts the old king (L.B J) to a standstill, only to be shouldered aside by the Young Knight (R.F.K.) who has won over the crowd with words not deeds. "But the Gentle Knight was always universally admired--by those who remembered his name. Moral-Admire the brave, the gentle and the noble --and support the ruthless opportunist of your choice."

More Hesitant. Bobby fared no better on the campaign trail: "demagogic" was a charge frequently hurled at him by correspondents. "He has repeatedly misstated facts about the war in Viet Nam," wrote Washington Post Reporter Richard Harwood, "the most notable being his claim--which he has now amended--that the South Vietnamese do not draft their young men to fight. He has incorrectly blamed the South Vietnamese government for developing the Khe Sanh bastion and has refused to acknowledge that South Vietnamese troops are fighting there."

For all their beefs about Bobby, however, the press seemed to feel he had a fair chance of wresting the nomination from Johnson. But by week's end, some were beginning to have doubts on that score. Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak noted that Bobby was in danger of losing the youthful support he has so assiduously cultivated because he had toned down his revolutionary rhetoric. The Kennedy campaign organization in Washington, reported New York Daily News Columnist Ted Lewis seemed to reflect hesitant middle age rather than headstrong youth. "One gets the feeling in the Kennedy operating centers here that those most in charge are loyally rallying around a ghost. The most vital inspiration is the man who lies buried in Arlington rather than his brother. It is a strange new cause they are involved in, even more incomprehensible because of individual uncertainties that John F. Kennedy would have wanted his brother to do what he is now doing."

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