I used to cover Lieberman when he was the majority leader of the State Senate in Connecticut. We got along very well, except for one interview, during which he talked about working for J.F.K., and how he kept a Mass card from Robert Kennedy’s funeral to remind him of the principles to which he had dedicated his career. Showing me the card, he remarked casually that he hadn’t looked at it for some time.
I wrote an article using the neglected Kennedy card as a metaphor for Lieberman’s fall from his old ideals into the pragmatic politics of a party leader. He was outraged and wounded, and I believe I apologized.
Taking back the apology now.
[text of mass card after the jump...]
The Mass Card for Robert Kennedy:
ROBERT FRANCIS KENNEDY
November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968Dear God,
Please take care of him who tried to take care of yours."Come, my friends,
Tis not too late to see a newer world"
- Tennyson, Ulysses"Aeschylus wrote: 'In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.'
"What we need in the United States ... is love an wisdom and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our own country, whether they be white or they be black.
"Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world. let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people."
- Robert F. Kennedy
Extemporaneous remarks on the death of Martin Luther King. Indianpolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968
