Monday, May 12, 2008
President Bush and John Ashcroft honor Bobby Kennedy as a tough-on-crime attorney general who fought "evil," but RFK's daughter cries foul.
Nov 21, 2001 | The Sept. 11 attacks, and their aftermath, have managed to encapsulate the most dramatic tensions and terrors of recent U.S. history: There are echoes of the Cold War and perhaps its scariest moment, the Cuban missile crisis; of the debates over how to balance public safety and individual liberty that played out from the days of McCarthyism through the federal crackdown on organized crime to the end of the Civil Rights era. And of course there's shock and sorrow the nation hasn't seen since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
On Tuesday, President Bush presided over an august ceremony to name the Department of Justice building after the one man who was in the thick of every one of those moments: former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
The subject of the ceremony may have been the late great liberal hero, but terrorism was on everyone's mind -- and lips. In a speech that focused on honoring Kennedy's widow, Ethel Skakel Kennedy, who sat on the dais with him, Bush said that "America today is passing through a time of incredible testing. And as we do so, we admire even more the spirit of Robert Kennedy, a spirit that tolerates no injustice and fears no evil."
Added Attorney General John Ashcroft: Kennedy "led an extraordinary campaign against organized crime that inspires us still today in the war against terrorism. He was unafraid to call the enemy 'evil' and unapologetic about devoting all his resources, his energy and his passion to evil's defeat."
The subtext to the event was so obvious, it was hardly a subtext: As more questions are raised about the various and controversial methods the Bush White House is proposing or using in attempting to combat terrorism at home -- an omnipotent presidential war-crimes tribunal, a vast dragnet of Muslims and Arab-Americans, increased surveillance powers for the federal government -- Tuesday's event was not only a way to make nice and act bipartisan, embracing America's foremost liberal dynasty, but a way to tie the current, somewhat controversial crusade to the (mostly) righteous battles of the past.
It's a campaign that didn't start Tuesday.
"Robert Kennedy's Justice Department, it is said, would arrest mobsters for spitting on the sidewalk if it would help in the battle against organized crime," Ashcroft told the U.S. Conference of Mayors on Oct. 25. The former Missouri senator then pledged that his Justice Department would "use the same aggressive arrest and detention tactics in the war against terror," using "every available statute," "every prosecutorial advantage," and "all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution."
Hours before the Justice Department ceremony, however, in the Russell Senate Office Building where her "Uncle Ted" -- Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. -- works, one of Robert Kennedy's daughters, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, attacked Bush and Ashcroft's attempts to don the RFK tough-but-fair mantle. Cuomo chastised Ashcroft as going too far in infringing on civil liberties in the cause of rooting out terrorism.
While presenting a human rights award also in her father's name, Cuomo spoke to her 6-year-old daughter. "Cara, if anyone tries to tell you this is the type of justice your grandpa would embrace, don't you believe it." Cuomo said that her father's determination "was always tempered by his commitment to protecting civil liberties even when it meant letting the accused go free."
At the Justice Department later on, however, it was all smiles -- toothy, gleaming Kennedy smiles. It was an event most presidents dream of, with Kennedy's oldest son, famously liberal former Rep. Joe Kennedy II, D-Mass., turning to Bush and thanking him "for your kindness, for your generosity, and for the strong leadership you're showing our country today." Bubbling over with praise for Bush's leadership since Sept. 11, Joe Kennedy said he spoke on behalf of the entire dynasty, pledging that "we stand behind you and with you at this time."
Apparently disagreeing with his sister, the former congressman also made a flattering comparison between his late father and the president. His father, he noted, was sometimes called "too unyielding, too unwilling to compromise between right and wrong." Kennedy knew there was "a fundamental difference between good and evil and that evil had to be opposed. Like you, Mr. President."
Notably, Joe Kennedy also thanked Ashcroft "for standing up for what you believe in."
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