Central to the idea of censorship is that it’s an action taken by the government. But it appears that the Kennedy family may have come up with a new form of censorship: suppression of government documents by a private person.
Boston Globe reporter Bryan Bender writes that Max Kennedy, one of Robert Kennedy’s children, has barred full access to his father’s papers dating back to his time as attorney general. Historians tell Bender those documents could prove embarrassing given what they might reveal about RFK’s actions with regard to Cuba and civil rights.
For censorship aficionados, Max Kennedy’s e-mail to Bender is a classic:
There are many requests to see them, and frankly, many of those requests come from people with poorly-conceived projects. It is my responsibility, as custodian of the papers, to grant use responsibly. That does not mean that every book must be cloyingly positive; I do not think that for a moment, and I would be doing a disservice to my father if I acted that way. But I do believe that historians and journalists must do their homework, and observe the correct procedures for seeking permission to consult the papers, and explain their projects.
In other words, freedom of information is too precious to grant it to just anyone. What a repulsive example of hypocrisy.
Those papers were created at public expense and belong to us. It’s been 50 years. I’m not sure why Max Kennedy even has a say in the matter. But since he does, it’s long since time for him to put the public interest above the possibility that his father’s legacy will be tarnished.
Update: Martin Callaghan points out that Bender does not explain why the Kennedy family rather than the government gets to decide who has access and who doesn’t. The story demands follow-up, and I hope that explanation is forthcoming.
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Before jumping to conclusions, you ought to remember that presidential libraries are a modern invention and the public nature of presidential documents are a very recent phenomenon — dating back only to the 1978 Presidential Records Act. These documents were all created before 1978.
What the article really fails to explain is what is the legal status of these non-presidential documents. But you can draw an inference from the article’s reference to a “signed deed” that is needed before the documents can be processed and released to the public. This suggests to me that there is little legal question surrounding the privately-owned nature of these 1960s documents. If the Kennedys have a signed deed then that implies that they own the documents. But I’m not a lawyer specializing in public law…
When you write, “Those papers…. belong to us,” you may be incorrect on the law. But I wouldn’t argue with you at all if you said that they ought to belong to us, the public. Maybe a retroactive law ought to be passed.
I find it promising that the Kennedy Library’s leaders appear to be on the side of public access — and do not appear to be protecting the fairy-tale image of Camelot at all costs. I suspect this article to be part of a publicity campaign designed to bring political pressure on the Kennedy family to release the documents more widely…
Before jumping to conclusions, you ought to remember that presidential libraries are a modern invention and the public nature of presidential documents are a very recent phenomenon — dating back only to the 1978 Presidential Records Act. These documents were all created before 1978.
@Michael: Neither the Globe article nor my blog post suggested anyone was doing anything illegal. I’m looking for Max Kennedy to do the right thing. That’s all.
Notice how neither that article nor the Kennedys in general address the 1963 Coup d’Etat, also known as JFK assassination?
Here is my take. If anyone wants my complete ‘LBJ and CIA killed JFK” file. Just email me at Morrow321@aol.com or call me at 512-306-1510.
The LBJ-CIA Assassination of JFK
Lyndon Johnson made a dirty deal with CIA Republicans to murder John Kennedy in the 1963 Coup d’Etat. (People like Clint Murchison Sr., H.L. Hunt, Nelson Rockefeller, David Rockefeller, top Nelson Rockefeller aide Henry Kissinger, George Herbert Walker Bush and Gen. Edward Lansdale all are excellent candidates for elite sponsorship.) Lyndon Johnson and Allen Dulles may very well have been co-CEOs of the JFK assassination; with the CIA in charge of the killing of JFK, and Lyndon Johnson and (his close friend and neighbor of 19 years in Washington, DC) FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in charge of the cover up.
Clint Murchison, Sr – more so than even H.L. Hunt – was a key player in the JFK assassination because of his close ties to the inner core of US intelligence (Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller, John J. McCloy), close ties to Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, bankers Rockefellers; Murchison was even friends with key Kennedy-hater mafia godfather Carlos Marcellos of New Orleans. Not only that, Murchison, Sr. was a patient and partner of Dr. Alton Oschner, the former president of the American Cancer Society and who ran covert cancer research for the CIA. Oschner, likewise was a Kennedy-hater. John Simkin: “One of Ochsner’s friends described him as being ‘like a fundamentalist preacher in the sense that the fight against communism was the only subject that he would talk about, or even allow you to talk about, in his presence.”
When JFK was slaughtered, Russia’s Khrushchev was literally crying, fearing nuclear war. Cuba’s Castro worried and feared an US invasion and gave an impressive speech the next day deconstructing the CIA’s deception provocation for war. Meanwhile at Clint Murchison’s home, their family maid May Newman describes the scene: “The mood in the Murchison family home was very joyous and happy. For a whole week after like champagne and caviar flowed, every day of the week. But I was the only one in that household at that time that felt any grief for his assassination.”
The Warren Commission should have really been called the “Allen Dulles Commission” because he controlled it and made it the farce that it was. Dulles was probably an elite sponsor (i.e. murderer), as well as certainly Lyndon Johnson. The 3 hardcore cover up artists on the Warren Commission were the 3 Council on Foreign Relations members: Allen Dulles (president CFR 1946-50), John J. McCloy (then chairman of the CFR 1953-1970) and Gerald Ford (CFR member, later president). John J. McCloy was a Rockefeller man, former head of Chase Manhattan bank, and very deep US intelligence since the OSS days. John J. McCloy’s nickname was “Chairman of the American Establishment,” and he mixed at the highest levels of business, intelligence and he was close to the Kennedy-hating Texas business elite. Cover up artist Gerald Ford was secretly reporting to Hoover and the FBI what the Warren Commission was doing. In 1970, Newsweek called Gerald Ford the CIA’s “best friend in Congress.” The CFR especially 40 years ago, was heavily Rockefeller influenced and it top players were deep CIA.
The CIA has been called the military wing of the CFR; and actually that is not too far from the truth. The CFR was in its heyday from 1950-1990.
Here is an absolutely spectacular article why the National Security State murdered John Kennedy: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/marshall10.1.html John Kennedy was despised by and did not control his CIA nor his Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Lyndon Johnson’s reasons to murder were out of his deep desperation and fear of what would become of him after his imminent expulsion from the 1964 Democratic ticket and his fears of going to jail over the exploding Bobby Baker scandal. LIFE magazine, being fed extremely damaging info by Robert Kennedy, was set to run an expose on Lyndon Johnson’s corruption that would blow him out of the water once and for all (Dec. 6th issue, but due to be printed and mailed on 11/29/63: source James Wagenvoord who worked at LIFE then). Bobby Baker was the protégé of a wildly corrupt LBJ in the Senate; Lyndon Johnson was like both a dad and a big brother to Bobby Baker (who named two of his children after LBJ: Lynda and Lyndon). Both Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Baker were receiving tremendous amounts of under-the-table money while Johnson was running the Senate. The Kennedys and LIFE Magazine were literally days away from politically executing Lyndon Johnson with the rope of the unraveling Bobby Baker scandal. After vaporizing the despised Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy was going to replace LBJ most likely with Terry Sanford of North Carolina or possibly his good friend George Smathers of Florida as VP on the 1964 Democratic ticket.
The Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson were having a sub rosa fight: Jack and Robert Kennedy brought knives to the battle and Lyndon Johnson brought guns and it was settled on 11/22/63 at 12:30 PM in Dallas.
Lately, I have been studying the role of McGeorge Bundy, the National Security Advisor for JFK and Henry Cabot Lodge, JFK’s insubordinate ambassador to Vietnam who Kennedy was planning to fire on Monday, 11/25/63. It is probable that both McGeorge Bundy and Henry Cabot Lodge were involved some way with the JFK assassination. McGeorge Bundy, astonishingly, was already drafting sharp escalations to JFK’s Vietnam policy NSAM 273 (which JFK would not have approved) on 11/21/63, the night before the 1963 Coup d’Etat! Bundy later ran the Ford Foundation from 1966-1979.
JFK’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, who ran the Rockefeller Foundation from 1952-1961, and was also a hawk on Vietnam, is another one who merits close scrutiny in the Coup of 1963. Kennedy had appointed Rusk because it was unlikely that the Senate would confirm JFK’s first choice J. William Fulbright, who later became a prominent opponent of the Vietnam War. After the 1963 Coup d’Etat, Rusk lasted through all the blood and guts of Vietnam and all the way through Jan., 1969, as Johnson’s Secretary of State. Walt Rostow (CFR), another Vietnam hawk, replaced McGeorge Bundy (CFR) as National Security Advisor in 1966. The CFR and the Rockefellers, not John Kennedy, lusted for the Vietnam War.
The midlevel murderers (field operations) of JFK would include CIA guys like Richard Helms, James Angleton, David Morales, William King Harvey, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, David Atlee Phillips and perhaps Cord Meyer. Deputy Harry Weatherford is a good candidate to have been on the Records Building as a sniper. Influential mobster Johnny Roselli was especially close friends with the CIA’s William King Harvey, a rabid Kennedy hater. The most likely mafia godfathers involved would be Carlos Marcello and Santos Trafficante, particularly in the Jack Ruby murder of Oswald and perhaps in the JFK Assassination as well and other murders in the post assassination cover up.
We now know Lyndon Johnson was far worse than he is presented in current biographies. Far beyond ballot stuffing, bribery, massive under-the-table kickbacks, and being a consummate and pathological liar, Lyndon Johnson was murdering a lot of people in Texas to cover up his eye popping corruption. A prime example is the murder of US agricultural official Henry Marshall in June, 1961, and who then Vice President Lyndon Johnson arranged to have murdered. In the 1980’s, Billie Sol Estes, a close and corrupt partner of LBJ, began confessing to the murders that he, Lyndon Johnson, Cliff Carter and LBJ’s personal hit man Malcolm Wallace committed. Lyndon Johnson, a manic depressive – and at times a barely functioning psychopath – murdered perhaps 10-20 people to avoid exposure before he got his knife wet with John Kennedy’s blood.
We now know that Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn with Hoover’s dossier on JFK, used sexual blackmail threats on John Kennedy on the night of July 13th at the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles to force Kennedy to put LBJ on the ticket. Johnson was not on JFK’s short list for VP; he was not on the long list. LBJ was not on the VP list – period.
John Kennedy told his close friend Hy Raskin: “You know we had never considered Lyndon, but I was left with no choice. He and Sam Rayburn made it damn clear to me that Lyndon had to be the candidate. Those bastards were trying to frame me. They threatened me with problems and I don’t need more problems. I’m going to have enough problems with Nixon.” Evelyn Lincoln, JFK’s secretary for 11+ years, also confirms that Lyndon Johnson used sexual blackmail combined with other threats to force JFK to put LBJ on the 1960 Democratic ticket.
My current thinking on US intelligence agent Lee Harvey Oswald is that he was indeed involved in the JFK assassination, but he was a patsy who shot NO ONE that day, neither John Kennedy nor Officer J.D. Tippit. Both murders were complete frame jobs. Oswald was a fake defector to Russia and his behavior in New Orleans 1963 was all about Oswald’s sheep dipping as he passed out pro-Castro flyers and pretended to be a “pro-Castro Marxist.” Meanwhile Oswald was working in concert in New Orleans with folks like David Ferrie and Guy Bannister whose politics were the equivalent of a 1960’s Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms. Oswald’s fake public persona as a “pro-Casto Marxist” meant that he was an ideal pick as a patsy and his likely knowledge of and/or participation in the JFK Assassination meant that he had to be murdered quickly. The folks who killed Oswald wanted a “dead Red” not a “talking head.” The JFK assassination was a deception provocation intended to facilitate a US military invasion of Cuba. It was that bad and ugly. A US invasion of Cuba might have provoked a broader war with Russia and from the point of view of some like Air Force General Curtis LeMay that was fine because, astoundingly, he wanted to wage and “win” a nuclear WWIII. Curtis LeMay hated Kennedy so much that a child could have recruited him into a plot to kill Kennedy. LeMay told Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis that he was an appeaser equivalent to Neville Chamberlain for not bombing Cuba.
That was the pool of sharks John Kennedy was swimming in: a desperate and psychopathic serial killer Vice-President Lyndon Johnson who was literally murdering a string of people down in Texas and who was waging a sub rosa war with the Kennedys, an out-of-control CIA hell bent on a coup; an FBI director Hoover who detested JFK and who was close friends and neighbors with LBJ, and a JCS military brass who wanted to invade Cuba, wage the war in Vietnam, and Curtis Lemay who, according to Robert McNamara, wanted to wage full scale nuclear war with Russia, giving them the “Sunday punch” while the USA still had first strike capability. Add to that the white hot mafia hatred that Robert Kennedy was engendering with his prosecutions. This same mafia had been working hand in glove with their friends the CIA to take out Castro in Cuba. Think of these enemies of JFK as fasces: “a bundle of wooden sticks with an axe blade emerging from the center, which is an image that traditionally symbolizes summary power and jurisdiction, and/or strength through unity.”
The elite domestic murderers of JFK did it for many reasons, both personal and ideological. At the core it was Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, and the shadow government of Texas oil barons and the Rockefellers. It was not either/or the Western “Cowboys” or the Eastern “Yankees” who murdered John Kennedy: it was the elites of both.
I always want to learn and I am always willing to change my mind. Two excellent books to read on the JFK assassination are 1) LBJ: Mastermind of JFK’s Assassination (2010) by Phillip Nelson http://www.lbj-themastermind.com/ and 2) JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters (2008) by James Douglass. Review: http://www.ctka.net/2008/jfk_unspeakable.html
Richard Nixon knew the dirty truth about the JFK assassination, but I do not think he was directly involved. In fact, when Nixon was under intense Watergate pressure, his firewall strategy as recorded on the “smoking gun tape” was to ominously say don’t investigate me because it you do “the President believes that this is going to open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again” – an obvious reference to the JFK assassination. Nixon’s aide Dean Burch said that when George Herbert Walker Bush heard that “He broke out in assholes and shit himself to death.” GHW Bush was probably an elite planner of the JFK assassination.
Without a doubt, top honors for being biggest source for disinformation on the Coup of 1963 has been the NY Times whose reporting on the JFK assassination has been the equivalent of 1950’s Soviet style propaganda, i.e. completely fraudulent and parroting the 1960’s fantastic whoppers of LBJ, FBI, CIA and the Warren Commission. CBS News, ABC News, the Washington Post and the former LIFE magazine and CIA assets in other major media have been equally bad. LIFE Magazine actually bought the rights to the Zapruder film early on and never showed it once to the American people in video form., which would have revealed the incriminating “back and to the left” head snap of John Kennedy, all but proving a kill shot from the Grassy Knoll (grassy knoll shooting area being an extremely close 33 yards away from JFK). Finally, when American hero Robert Groden showed the Zapruder film on Geraldo on ABC in 1975, millions of Americans knew without a doubt what a sham the Warren Commission was.
After he murdered John Kennedy and assumed the presidency, Lyndon Johnson gave over his Administration to the Council on Foreign Relations, both in regards to domestic and foreign policy. The CFR, the CIA, the Rockefellers, the JCS, and the military contractors wanted the Vietnam War. It is extremely significant that in spring, 1968, after he had withdrawn from the presidential race, Democrat Lyndon Johnson secretly supported Republican Nelson Rockefeller for president. LBJ wanted someone who could stop Robert Kennedy, and more importantly, who would continue the cover up of the 1963 Coup d’Etat. Nelson Rockefeller personified the CFR, CIA and Eastern Establishment and I think he was a sponsor of the JFK assassination. Note: Rockefeller did not support fellow Republican Barry Goldwater in his 1964 race against Johnson.
A special word about the Council on Relations role in the 1963 Coup d’Etat and cover up: no other organization has been more responsible for the murder and cover up of John Kennedy than the CFR. Elite CFR members such as Allen Dulles, Nelson Rockefeller and George Herbert Walker Bush were probably sponsors of the JFK assassination. Certainly leadership CFR members such as Allen Dulles, John J. McCloy, and Gerald Ford played the most critical roles in the Warren Commission farce. Add in cover up roles played by Nelson Rockefeller (CFR), Henry Kissinger (CFR), Richard Helms (CFR), William Colby CIA/CFR, McGeorge Bundy (CFR), Nicholas Katzenbach (CFR), Jack Valenti (CFR), Bill Moyers (CFR), William Coleman (CFR) James Reston NY Times (CFR), Anthony Lewis NY Times (CFR), William F. Buckley (CFR),
Walter Cronkite CBS (CFR), Dan Rather CBS (CFR), Peter Jennings ABC (CFR), Daniel Schorr (CFR), Arthur Ochs Sulzberger NY Times (CFR), Kenneth Gilmore Readers’ Digest (CFR), Stephen Rosenfeld Washington Post (CFR), Bobbie Ray Inman (CFR), Donald Rumsfeld (CFR), Rupert Murdoch FOX (CFR)… the list is almost endless. Note two things: 1) they are the key establishment players of BOTH major political parties spanning decades 2) their power and influence is directly proportional to the fantastic whoppers they tell about in the 1963 Coup d’Etat. For the older CFR members it is a case of PARTICIPATION and COVER UP in the JFK assassination. For the younger ones such as George Will (CFR), Charles Krauthammer (CFR), Bill Kristol (CFR), David Gergen (CFR), John Segenthaler (CFR), Frank Sesno (CFR), Michael Beschloss (CFR), Michael Gerson (CFR) it is a case of WILLFUL IGNORANCE as they still push the Big Lie. Note: Chris Matthews of Hardball, another willfully ignorant man, is close friends with Richard Haass, current president of CFR. I have never seen the highly acclaimed political guru Michael Barone, a Bilderberger attendee, ever say anything credible on the JFK assassination.
Question: do we really expect the CFR to admit that some of its elite members slaughtered John Kennedy and many more played integral roles in the cover up? No, but it is important to highlight that the Council on Foreign Relations has stunk up the place with tremendous amounts of radioactive horse manure relating to the 1963 Coup d’Etat.
The 1963 Coup d’Etat was very similar to the 1992 election between George Herbert Walker Bush, Ross Perot and Bill Clinton. In 1963, there was a Texas Vice President, a desperate and dangerous Lyndon Johnson – supported by the CFR, the intelligence agencies, military contractors and the oil industry – who feared exposure of his criminality and was on the verge of political and personal annihilation. So Lyndon Johnson used the CIA to murder his political rival John Kennedy.
In the 1992, there was a Texas President, a desperate and dangerous George Herbert Walker Bush, supported by the CFR, the intelligence agencies, military contractors and the oil industry – who feared exposure of his criminality and was on the verge of political and personal annihilation. Ross Perot was well aware of the gargantuan Bush/Clinton/CIA drug smuggling of the 1980’s. So George Herbert Walker Bush used CIA assassins to threaten to murder Ross Perot. GHW Bush feared what Perot, a self-funded (and therefore uncontrollable) billionaire might do in office. Bush, like LBJ 29 years before, faced both political and personal annihilation if an untainted Ross Perot were elected.
Ross Perot was leading in a Time/CNN poll in June, 1992, with 37% to 24% Clinton, 24% Bush. On July 16, 1992, Ross Perot, a billionaire who could self-fund and was leading in the polls significantly, QUIT the presidential race because he feared that a desperate George Herbert Walker Bush might assassinate him. Google “Chip Tatum Pegasus” and read about the elite CIA assassin who quit rather than follow the orders of George Herbert Walker Bush and neutralize Ross Perot:
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MENA/TATUM/tatum.html An incensed Perot later got back in the race only to ensure the election of Bill Clinton.
I think that George Herbert Walker Bush became a made man with the JFK assassination in 1963. One of the first things the Bill Clinton CFR did after he got elected in 1992 was to ask Webb Hubbell at Justice to find out who really killed John Kennedy.
The Discovery Channel has put out some incredibly bogus, poorly done disinfo presentations such as Inside the Target Car. Any MSM site that features Vincent Bugliosi, Gerald Posner, especially Hugh Aynesworth, Edward Jay Epstein, Gus Russo, Michael Shermer, Dale Meyers, Max Holland, Dave Perry or Gary Mack prominently and positively is giving you counterfeit money. Edward Epstein and Gerald Posner in particular are thought by many credible JFK researchers to be CIA propagandists. If you google “JFK assassination” the first 2 links that come up are lone nutter controlled disinfo sites: 1) Wikipedia 2) John McAdam’s site. John McAdams is a very lowly regarded man who basically controls JFK related content on Wikipedia as well as his own site. Both Wikipedia and the NY Times are both tremendously dishonest sources for information relating to the 1963 Coup d’Etat. Finally, another major source of disinformation on the Coup of 1963 is the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, which blithely recycles the shredded vapors of the Warren Commission, as if it had an ounce of truth in it. Gary Mack, the curator of the Sixth Floor Museum, simply does not have credibility on the JFK assassination.
In the near future there are going to be efforts by both Tom Hanks (HBO series) and Leonardo DiCaprio (a movie) to take on the JFK assassination. Sadly, these are both going to be disinformation efforts; the ONLY legitimate take on the JFK assassination is that it was a full blown domestic coup d’etat. Tom Hanks is a clueless lone nutter.
The best discussion boards on the internet for good info are 1) Education Forum 2) Deep Politics Forum 3) http://www.assassinationresearch.com 4) JFKmurdersolved.com and 5) Mary Ferrell Foundation – http://www.maryferrell.org 6) JFK Lancer. On Facebook, the premier spot is JFK-The Grassy Knoll Witnesses (run by Rusty Yardum) http://www.facebook.com/pages/JFK-The-Grassy-Knoll-Witnesses/115305938487641 . Black Op radio’s web site http://www.blackopradio.com (Len Osanic) is an excellent place to listen to high quality interviews with folks such as JFK expert Jim DiEugenio. Deep Politics Quarterly (Walt Brown) http://www.manuscriptservice.com/DPQ/ and http://www.ctka.net (Jim DiEugenio) are 2 other quality spots on the internet.
As for videos, I highly recommend going to You Tube and watching the extremely important The Men Who Killed Kennedy – (episodes 7, 8, and 9). Much of these episodes focus on the role of Lyndon Johnson in the 1963 Coup d’Etat and they were BANNED from the History Channel because they were so accurate. LBJ aide Jack Valenti (CFR) organized a suppression campaign on the videos along with Lady Bird Johnson, Warren Commission con man Gerald Ford (CFR), Jimmy Carter (CFR) and Bill Moyers (CFR). Also, on You Tube watch “Evidence of Revision” and Jesse Ventura’s 2010 Conspiracy Theory show on the JFK assassination (You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHUKPXR5TbQ ). In addition, I recommend JFK the movie by Oliver Stone, director’s cut. Oliver Stone, despite immense criticism in the MSM by CIA assets, pretty much nailed the JFK assassination. It was a full blown Coup d’Etat by Lyndon Johnson, the CIA and key elements of the U.S. military.
Robert Morrow is a political researcher with over 200+ books on the 1963 Coup d’Etat, aka JFK assassination. His email is Morrow321@aol.com and he accepts phone calls at 512-306-1510.
1) http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/morrow-r1.1.1.html
2) http://www.infowars.com/the-lbj-cia-assassination-of-jfk/
Michael:
That’s the question I have. When are documents created and/or used by elected or appointed public officials deemed to be private or at least under the control of private individuals?
@Martin: I received some information today that, before the fight over Nixon’s papers and subsequent legislation, such papers were always considered the private property of the families. It’s absurd, and it is nothing that should stop the Kennedy family from doing the right thing.
Kudos to the Globe for running this article, and raising this issue.
Those of us who grew up in this area over the past half-century know all too well of the Globe’s fawning treatment of its favorite politicians: Kevin White, Michael Dukakis, but, most especially, the Kennedys. This new independence from the old Camelot party line is refreshing indeed.
It also gives the lie to Howie Carr’s increasingly archaic rants. From its coverage of the state probation scandal to today’s challenge to Kennedy-inspired censorship, it is clear that the Globe of the 1975 to 1995 period is a thing of the past. Carr, though, keeps at it. He’s become the Ellen Goodman or David Nyhan of the Right, trotting out the same old routine when everyone else knows how much things have changed.
I tend to agree with Michael Pahre. The article’s glaring omission is the topic of how the papers have come to be owned by some entity other than the federal government, since the papers themselves are for the most part, the work product of a public employee.
Maybe the legal status of the papers is an inconvenient fact to the thesis of the article?
Maybe the legal status of the papers is an inconvenient fact to the thesis of the article?
@Jack: Why? There is not a hint in Bender’s article that the Kennedys are doing anything illegal. And they’re not. They’re just doing the wrong thing, that’s all. I think Bender’s mistake was in not explaining that the law has changed since Kennedy was president, and he can easily rectify that in a follow-up. It doesn’t affect the Kennedy family’s moral obligation.
Is there any doubt that the Kennedy Family intends to follow the same plan with Sen. Edward Kennedy’s papers. Even though the taxpayers are forking over tens of millions to build the so-called Institute”.
I often find it amusing when people seem stunned by Kennedy Hypocrisy**; their family is rampant with it. From Chappaquiddick to Cape Wind, the Kennedys have loved to present themselves as this shining beacon of light. When in reality they’re hoping the light blinds you to some unspeakable sin they’ve committed.
Now granted, often the Kennedys did seem to realize that if you were going to have power and wealth and the inevitable abuses that come with it…then it was appropriate to try and “make up for it” somehow with works of charity and using your power/wealth for Liberal ideals of helping others less fortunate. That is to their credit, and I confess that considering how rare such a mindset has become in this day and age, I find myself increasingly willing to overlook a multitude of “unspeakable sins” the individuals committed considering the good works they did in repentance.
** No relation to our esteemed blog moderator, I presume.