Bobby Kennedy for President

For three episodes I was completely enthralled by this four-part documentary on the life and times of Robert F Kennedy. Coincidentally, I'm currently reading the Larry Tye biography on Kennedy so this series couldn't have come to my notice at a better time.

Let me say straight away that I am a keen supporter of what Kennedy stood for and was striving to achieve before his assassination in June 1968 and do believe that both America and the world would have turned out better if he'd lived. He sure wasn't perfect - you.need only witness him baiting witnesses on the shoulder of Joe McCarthy during the early 1950's. However, I'm willing to grant that a person, especially through maturity and experience can change their views and from where I'm standing, Kennedy's seemed to change for the better as he became more involved with campaigns promoting civil rights, supporting the Latin and Native American causes, the war on poverty and of course the war in Vietnam.

It was fascinating to see so much verité footage of Kennedy's progress from being JFK's campaign manager in 1960, to being appointed Attorney General, then running for the Senate in Nrw York and finally his fateful bid to run for the presidency in 1968.

I was constantly struck by his graciousness and humility in meeting and helping people with problem, especially considering he came from such a privileged personal background. His story is told here in chronological order with extensive use of TV footage of the time, with interjections made by surviving family, friends and colleagues. I appreciate they may have been hand-picked but it's still remarkable how, forty years after he was slain, those around him revered him so highly

If this programme had ended with the third episode, I think I'd have rated it as high as I could but the fourth and final unnecessarily feeds into events after his death, including the trial of his convicted killer Sirhan Sirhan (and of course the conspiracy theories surrounding the murder), the chaotic Democratic Convention of 1968, the election and re-election of Nixon, bizarrely the Woodstock Music Festival of 1969, Teddy Kennedy's Chappaquiddick incident which saw an innocent young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne die, the Kent State shootings of 1970, ending up unsurprisingly with Watergate and Nixon's resignation.

Still, I came away from these four hours knowing a whole lot more about Bobby Kennedy and from where I'm sitting, most of it good. He came across as a listener and a doer, a rare thing in politics then, as now. Indees, my biggest takeaway from it was a perception of how much higher the standard of political candidacy at the highest level appeared to be then as opposed to now, especially in America.

4/30/18. A nicely done documentary series about JFK's younger brother, the "runt" (as his father called him) who would be president. The 4 episodes cover the man behind the image. For those who were around in the '60s, Bobby was the amiable young idealist/activist who really cared about the social issues of the day. He was a much more passionate Kennedy than JFK. Sadly, he never had the chance to implement many of his ideas for social justice because he was assassinated 2 months after Martin Luther King was. Worth catching. Great archival footage that captured his boyish good looks and his humor to cover a nervous and charming personality. He would have made a good president.

While there is a great deal of rare historical footage, this production doesn't provide any in-depth analysis of the man and his candidacy. The lack of narration is both jarring and telling. Any analytical narrative would have emphasized the fact that, while popular and symbolic, RFK's candidacy had little substance. He became a hero to the Latinos and (to a lesser extent) African-Americans, but he never articulated a real plan or proposed a practical policy that would have improved their plight. He conveniently transformed his image from a Hawk in 1962 to a Dove in 1968 once he saw the political capital in representing the peace movement. Yet, again, he had no plan to end the conflict in Vietnam. I firmly believe RFK was in support of civil rights and peace, but it takes more than a family name and compassion to be an effective leader. I doubt RFK would have gone down in history as an effective president had he lived to be elected.

The fourth and last episode of this series tips the hand of the producers. If it wasn't apparent in the first three episodes, the message of the fourth was clearly that the country could have been "fixed" if RFK had lived. That of course is pure speculation and, as I wrote earlier, is doubtful. The last episode is little more than blatant hero worship. The final episode also spends too much time on pointless conspiracy theories, theories which attempt to amplify RFK's real importance by suggesting that a higher level of authority considered him a threat and had him eliminated. Sadly, it was only the maniacal actions of mentally-disturbed man that tragically ended the candidacy of Robert Kennedy.

"If Lincoln didn't get us there, and Dr. King didn't get us there, and Bobby Kennedy didn't get us there, what the hell is left to say, that's going to have a rude awakening, to make a nation alive, and to greet the better part of itself? But we have to keep trying. And that's what Bobby Kennedy was really about. He was trying to find a solution."

-- Harry Belafonte

fwiw, this netflix documentary was better than wormwood in that there were zero re-enactments.

many times throughout this 4-part documentary, bias was shown in the form of choice of music, narration, and sequence. it did linger on some moments and ultra-compress others. what remains is a moving and largely factual account.

I knew little about Bobby Kennedy and this four part documentary series was extremely insightful on who Bobby was. This itself is something great as you can dive into the man and almost feel what goes inside is head. The footage is incredible beautiful and nostalgic. I highly recommend this limited series.