Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Not In Touch With Reality

[Above: The best Robert F. Kennedy analysis is from Leslie F**king Jones on the Daily Show, November 2023. - eds.]

At the urging of a friend, I recently listened to an hour-long interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I’m not sure why she wanted me to hear it, but she seemed both alarmed at, and intrigued by, some of the points he was trying to make.

Given how he has insinuated himself into the next election — the wildest of wild-card presidential candidates — I felt obliged to listen. Mostly, I found it sad.

To start with, it was on the podcast of Danica Patrick. Yes, that Danica Patrick, whose iconic status as a race car driver does not readily translate to an unrelated field like, say, presidential politics.

Rather, she reveals herself to be quite the plastic ditz, with absolutely nothing meaningful to contribute to what amounted to a Kennedy monologue. She did manage some less-than-seamless editing, including a few clumsy non sequiturs that inserted Formula 1 racing, shamelessly, into the conversation.

But as for Kennedy himself, all I could think was how far down he’d come. A brilliant guy from a brilliant if deeply flawed family, his long and stellar track record in the forefront of environmental law would be legendary, if legends could be made from such difficult but necessary work.

Instead, he’s on a third-rate podcast, several steps down the food chain from the mainstream media. If there was once a legend there, he has dirtied it.

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