It would be easy to make too much of the similarities between Robert F. Kennedy, who died on the night when the Democratic presidential nomination came within his grasp, 40 years ago today, and Barack Obama, who has just firmly taken hold of it. The times are different, and so are the men. But then again.
Hope, like greatness, is a thing some men have thrust upon them. They emerge as repositories for the finer yearnings of a confused and bitter nation, a mirror in which we see ourselves reflected not as the people we are, but as the people we would like to be—and may, because of them, inch slightly closer to becoming. Whether or not they are worthy of such faith is, in the end, less important than the fact that they inspire us to be more worthy ourselves.
This is why it's a mistake to dismiss Obama as being "only" inspirational. Despite the example set by our current president, competence is not all that difficult to come by in Washington, DC. (In fact, our permanent civil service could get most things done much more effectively without any political leadership at all.) But someone who can make us believe that this country of ours might actually pull itself together and become a little bit more compassionate or a little bit more just, someone who encourages us to dedicate ourselves to that goal rather than to just lowering our taxes or paying less for gasoline—that's something found far more rarely inside the Beltway.
*snip*
People like to talk about populism and change, but in the world of gritty American politics, where parties are locked in a petty and intractable clench, change seldom takes place. The people around Kennedy felt he was on the leading edge to a new world. Yet the actual policy changes Bobby Kennedy proposed were modest—for the most part, slightly better versions of the kinds of plans for jobs, health care, or environmental protection that Democrats are still floating today. His approach, however, was something else. When doctors asked Kennedy who was going to pay for improved medical care, he replied, "You will." He told corporate executives they had a moral responsibility to the citizenry. He insisted leaders take responsibility for their actions. George W. Bush is not his type of guy.
Obama is no populist, either, in any meaningful sense of the word; his proposals for change are modest, and his movement about as thin as Bobby Kennedy's. He is a shrewd politician, appealing to the grassroots but also willing to deal with powerful corporate interests, just as Kennedy dealt with the machine politics of Mayor Daley and his ilk, knowing that he could not win without them. But Obama has something close to the same sense of public duty that Bobby Kennedy had. And somewhere inside his chest there seems to be a beating human heart, which is something we haven't had in the White House for a good long time.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2008/06/barack-obama-rfk-bobby-kennedy.html
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