I saw it yesterday with my girlfriend, and will be watching it again today with my mother, this movie is inspirational and a great movie at the same time.

The Kennedy's inspired not only Americans, but an entire generation in Latin America as well.  My mother dedicated her life to public service because of the Kennedy's.

South American's still remember that Kennedy sent in the Peace Corps and Kissinger/Nixon sent in the CIA.

how the movie will do? It had a very small budget. I hope it does very well because I think this movie highlights some of the same issues we must address today.

We weren't the only people in the theater last night (wasn't full either), but then again, it's in the DC area, it will be interesting to see how this movie does geographically.

Still fighting the same issues, does John Edwards remind anyone of RFK or is that just me?

very much so. That's what I saw watching the movie. Especially talking about the racial divide and inequality in America.

Bobby Kennedy is and always will be my political hero.  He was the one. Our world, our country would be a different place had he lived. Bobby Kennedy spent most of his live trying to prove that he deserved to be a Kennedy.  It wasn't until his breakdown after his brothers death that he became the human being we saw run for President.  (Evan Thomas' biography is wonderful.)  I was 19 years old and on the day that RFK was taken off the machines and declared dead; I stood in front of the White House for hours.  LBJ did have the flag lowered to half staff - but I knew that the country had lost it's best and only chance at real, powerful change for the good.  My generation hasn't been the same since.

Yes I will go see the movie.  But it will take some courage.  I'm so afraid it won't be true to him.  But everyone says it does, so I will go.

I wish every American would see it.  They need to see what our candidates for President need to be and where they need to be coming from. Where do we see any real wisdom?

We will never see the likes of Bobby Kennedy again. Here's what he quoted the night Martin Luther King was killed.

Even in our sleep
Pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart
Until, in our own despair,
Against our will,
Comes wisdom
Through the awful grace of God.

— Aeschylus

"Bobby Kennedy spent most of his live trying to prove that he deserved to be a Kennedy."

He's hero of mine two, in fact my great-uncle Walt worked as an entertainer on Jack Kennedy's Senate campaign, but I disagree with the idea he spent most if his life trying to prove that he deserved to be a Kennedy.  Camelot was born out of the death of John F. Kennedy with the intention Robert would pick up the mantle. All throughout his life afterwards, Bobby would say after giving a speech to an audience gave a standing ovation, "they're clapping for him ,[John], not for me."  Richard Goodwin said about the California primary win was that it was more Bobby Kennedy's victory instead of a Kennedy family victory, that he was emerging as his own man. If you read Evan Thomas's bio on him as I have also done, I'm sure you'd know that.  Not that I'm trying to pick a fight that's a little too petty here but I'm well read on the Kennedys and disagree on this point.  Now if it were regulated to family members, when he was a kid, Bobby threw himself into the ocean to prove he could be as good as his older brothers Joe and Jack.  He couldn't swim and his older brother fished him out of the water.  I think it was also Kathleen who mocked him.  That to me is sort of nature because its tough coming from a big family.  His Dad though thought it was Bobby and not Jack who should succeed him as family patriarch, but that was when he was an adult.

The world would have been different if both Kennedys had lived and if Martin Luther King had lived. We might even getting our money printed for free by the Treasury as is required in the Constitution instead of paying interest to a private bank (the Federal(?) Reserve).

We should never forget that those behind the killing of these men are still at large.

I believe Sirhan Sirhan is securely locked away in prison, and Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray are both dead.

But please, do enlighten us with the real story...

Oswald did not kill Kennedy.

I'm not going to go on an elaborate conspiracy theory, but Oswald did not kill Kennedy. It's called the 'magic' bullet for a reason.

I went at it wanting to believe that Kennedy was killed by multiple gunmen as part of a conspiracy.  I did not believe Oswald did it alone.
  Then after researching all the "plausible" angles that the conspiracies point to I found only one solution that took all the evidence into account.  Oswald was the gunman.

We want to believe that someone so significant and power as a president would only die for equally great reasons.  Unfortunately he didn't and Oswald was a goof- and a good shot.

And Oswald is still dead (not at large).

The specifics involved show that the likelihood of Oswald being the lone killer are very low.

Start with Oswald getting off 3 shots in less than 5 seconds, a feat even marine sharpshooters could not duplicate (and Oswald was a mediocore shot in the Army). Continue with 2 bullets causing 6 wounds, as one shot from Oswald missed completely. So you have the kill shot that hits Kennedy in the head, and 5 other wounds caused by 1 bullet.

So either one magic bullet caused five wounds, or there was a second shooter. If there was a second shooter, by definition, there was a conspiracy.

His military records indicate that he shot 212 of 250 (sharpshooter) when he first enlisted.  Later, he shot a 191 (marksman).  These scores are not mediocre, although he was called unenthusiastic and unmotivated by his former fellow Marines.  Years later he mail-ordered the weapon later traced to Kennedy's assassination, and apparently used it to try to assassinate General Walker in April 1963.  There's no telling how much practice he had with the weapon, but he clearly had sufficient training to learn how to shoot effectively. When he wanted to do something well he was capable of doing so, as evidenced by his learning almost flawless Russian. 

The question of whether a single bullet could have caused so many wounds was surveyed and discussed extensively at the following site:  http://mcadams.posc.....  The fact is, I've never heard of any firearms expert who says it's impossible for one bullet to cause five wounds. 

Counting the shots commences AFTER the first shot is fired.  This means he had about five seconds to shoot twice.  The type of rifle he was using can be fired in less than two seconds. 

Sorry, I've never seen anything to prove a second gunman at the scene, and the conspiracy theories are all so contradictory and unbelievable it's impossible to give any one of them real credence over another. 

The two Kennedys' and ML King's assassinations were defining moments of my childhood.  It's hard to express how much uncertainty it introduced into my life when JFK was killed.  My mother was at the CIA.  She couldn't hide her anxiety and fear after that, or for that matter during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Around the time King was assassinated my family went for a brief trip to Massachusetts and returned during the riots to Union Station in DC.  I will never forget my father's terrified look that night as he came to pick us up and literally ran with our suitcases to the station wagon parked out near Constitution Avenue.  You could smell the smoke in the air. Never saw anything like that again until 9/11.  It was after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated that I began reading the paper every day, especially for political and war news.  Not sure I want to go there again.

That was almost the exact moment at which I became a Democrat - when I learned of John F. Kennedy's assassination at age 13, and I have been looking for another leader like him ever since then.

Until that time, I was a reasonably content child growing up in a moderate, blue-collar Republican family and, at the age of 10, had even helped to distribute Nixon bumper stickers in the summer and fall of 1960. 

However, as I began to pay attention to John F. Kennedy after he won that close election by a razor-thin margin, I grew more and more impressed with him.  I liked the way he interacted with his family, stood up to the Soviets, started us on the course of placing a man on the moon.

So, by the time JFK was assassinated, I had decided that I liked him - had even grown to admire him - and then he was gone; too fast, too soon.  I felt a terrible emptiness - hope . . . killed, promise . . . doomed, the future . . . dark and uncertain.

But soon there were other heroes - Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy - who bravely stepped up and into the national limelight, but then they were cut down, too.  More despair, more hopelessness.

Over time there were still others who momentarily captured the essence of that original Kennedy magic and mystique - Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton - but it just wasn't the same, and it didn't last. 

To this day, I have continued my search for heroes, for leaders, to return our country to that short time period of patriotic fervor and glory with a sense of destiny and purpose and to invigorate our national spirit like JFK had done for us between January 20, 1961 and November 22, 1963.

As Neil Young so eloquently and enthusiastically - yet needfully - sang to us earlier this year from his CD, "Living With War" in the song; "Lookin' for a Leader":
-------------------------------------------
"Lookin' for a leader, to bring our country home,
reunite the red white and blue before it turns to stone, lookin' for somebody, young enough to take it on, clean up the corruption and make the country strong.

"Walking among our people, there's someone straight and strong, to lead us from desolation in a broken world gone wrong, someone walks among us, and I hope he hears the call, maybe it's a woman, or a Black man after all.

"Maybe it's Obama, but he thinks that he's too young, maybe it's Colin Powell, to right what he's done wrong.  America has a leader, but he's not in the House, he's walking here among us, and we've got to seek him out."

"Yeah, we've got our elections, but corruption has a chance, we've got to have a clean win to regain confidence.  America is beautiful, but she has an ugly side, we're lookin' for a leader in this country far and wide.

"We're lookin' for a leader with the Great Spirit on his side."
---------------------------------------------
And there are these links:

'Lookin' for a Leader'

http://www.npr.org/t...

http://neilyoung.com...

http://neilyoung.com...
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Maybe the leader we need is Barack Obama, or Wes Clark, or John Edwards, or Jim Webb, or some other man or woman who hasn't yet been "discovered".

Yes, "drmontoya"; I will most certainly see the movie, "Bobby".

And I will continue to hope.

And to look.

Thanks.

Steve

I think the accomplishments and abilities of Bobby should be admired and spoken about. Especially at a time when Our civil liberties are under assult in such an agreggious way. However, we need not be guilty like the GOP of trying to re-wreit history.

Using terms like "brown problem," and the Latino issue of " We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us," is to misrepresent what Bobby was facing, and the ideology of the times to somehow justify a modern day debate.

The border didn't cross anyone. All hispanic citizens of Mexico became US citizens when the treaty with Mexico was enacted. Nor was that really an issue at the time, as the divergence between the two economies was hardly what we see today.

Black Americans were referred to as ...Black. Not brown. Not African American. They were black Americans.

With so many people alive today who clearly remember those times, it is lazy at best, and just plain dishonest to try and rewrite history/terminology, and remake the words and experiences of our parents into something else entirely.

To me, this has completely devalued the movie, and made it simply a "left leaning" piece of propoganda that does little to serve the interests of coming to terms with our failings, and strengths as a society, as well as honoring a true civic leader like Bobby Kennedy.

I have visited Dallas on several occasions, toured the school book depository building and its small museum dedicated to the JFK assassination, walked along a portion of the altered November 22, 1963 presidential parade route and sat for a while on the infamous "grassy knoll", reflecting on the events of that day and how they have so changed my life and the lives of millions and millions of others.

I'm one of those "conspiracy types" and don't believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in JFK's assassination.  I am well read on the subject, and I do believe that we will eventually know the full story.  I am convinced that, when finally disclosed, the truth will be simultaneously alarming, sensational and sad.  Of course, it will come to us much too late, as intended.

To this day in Germany, the mention of John F. Kennedy's name and his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech will bring a hushed, reverent response, especially from older Germans, and the simple gift of a Kennedy half dollar is very well received there by them.

Quite obviously, Kennedy proved that one person can make a monumental difference in this world as we continue . . . looking for a leader.

Thanks.

Steve

The PBS documentary on his is spectacular as well. I haven't seen the movie, because I'm short on cash. Seeing the footage of Bobby's connection with the disenfranchised of America warmed my heart.

Just a quick thought, would be interested in discussing.. Do you think that the rapid assassinations of JFK, MLK, and RFK were mostly due to the racial climate and the work of the three men towards equality? Do you see the three assassinations as having different and/or separate motives?

. . . but probably different instruments of destruction.  There were five years between the first assassination and the final two. 

If I thought all three were directly connected, then I might be accused of being paranoid.

How silly . . .

Steve

There was so much going on.  I think they were not related events, but events that grew up out of a world that seemed topsy turvy.  I've never been clear on Sirhan Sirhan's reason for killing RFK.  I think he's just a delusional little piece of you know what who wanted the notoriety.  King was another matter.  There were a lot of people who hated him and it seemed almost a foregone conclusion that someone was going to retaliate against him and take him out.  With JFK, once again, all I see with Oswald is another inconsequential creep who decided he could make history.  He had a desperate need to do or be someone important.  That was his whole life story.  It's impossible to know how much Sirhan Sirhan was influenced by Oswald only five years earlier, but there seem to be similarities between the two. 

...don't be gettin' paranoid on us here.

Steve

I'm saying Sirhan Sirhan wanted notoriety and was inspired by what had taken place a mere five years before.  Call him a copycat.

Thanks.

Steve

Do you think that RFK would not have been assassinated if he hadn't reached out to disenfranchised people? I know very little about this, but it seems that his presidential campaign took off because he was so well loved by people who had always been ignored by the goverment.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I don't have a strong belief one way or another on any conspiracies because I know nothing about it; and honestly, being a college student, it really doesn't affect me.

Like JFK, Bobby Kennedy appealed to the masses, and that was probably his undoing.

Steve