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In Scranton Pa., Irishcatholicdemocrat is one word and when it was learned that Jack Kennedy, who was running for President, was coming to town, the excitement level started to rise. By the time he rolled into Scranton it was at fever pitch level.
The candidate was coming to speak at the Hotel Casey, which was across the street from Perino's Restaurant, and since I knew the owners' son, Russ, I got permission to be on the roof overlooking the candidate's arrival.
Some 8mm movies in B&W of the event exist, but finding them, they are packed securely away in a storage unit, would be a major task.
In 1968, while we were in California, we got a picture of Bobby Kennedy campaigning to get the Democrats' Presidential nomination. We use our most valued possession, a Nikon F, to get some still shots (also in B&W) of him in a motorcade in http://www.flickr.com/photos/8216859@N04/2301104834/ downtown Los Angeles.
Somewhere along the way we attended a political rally in San Francisco. Bobby Kennedy was supposed to attend it. His brother Teddy was there. Again we used the beloved Nikon to get some photos. Teddy was introduced to the locals. We jumped in line and when the guy went to introduce me, he balked. I said my name and shook hands with the Senator from Massachusetts and then yielded my to the next person in line.
At the end of this historic week, most of the posts in Punditstan will be about either CIA torture or Teddy Kennedy. In journalism, August is called the dog days because news is -- or used to be -- rather slow in the summer of a non-elecitons year, so it seemed like a chance to dash off a column recalling the times we saw all three of the Kennedy senators, was a gimme chance not to be missed.
You want this column to include some political gossip that you can't get anywhere else?
OK we'll give you the only hot inside rumor we have from the conservative world: according to what we hear, the conservatives are pushing the search for Obama's birth certificate because there is supposed (told ya it's just gossip) to be an application for a foreign student loan for the young Barry Obama that swears to his eligibility for the money.
If he produces a birth certificate from Hawaii and they then locate the alleged document from the President's college student days, well then, they have him swearing to a falsehood and don't the conservatives consider that solid grounds for an impeachment proceeding?
Yikes, did we just provide a spoiler for a Bill O'Reilly "scoop"?
That's the best we can do for this column. It's time to start wrapping this up. It's hot in Los Angeles. The Venice Beach is about four blocks away. You do the math.
The closing quote for this week comes from the Los Angeles Times website. While newly inaugurated Senator Ted Kennedy was talking about his relationship with his brother the President, he dabbled in some self-deprecating humor: "I was down at the White House this afternoon with some suggestions for the State of the Union address, but all I got from him was, "Are you still using that greasy kid stuff on your hair?'"
Warning: for this week's song, the disk jockey is going to play the version of Jackie DeShannon's song "What the world needs now . . . to which disk jockey Tom Clay added some news sound bytes. We gotta warn the liberals, if you've never heard this version before, it is going to make you cry. We dare the conservatives to listen to it.
We gotta go wipe a speck of dust from our eyes.
Have a "let's drink to his memory" (even if it's just diet soda) type weekend.
