"It is also sad to read the vituperative comments from a number of bloggers to Politico about Kennedy's condition. The venom that has been exhibited in these screeds is a product of the mentality of hate that led to the assassination of two of his brothers. Most younger people do not know that his oldest brother, Joseph, was killed fighting Hitler in World War II.
"Without agreeing with or respecting everything he said or did, he is a significant and influential Senator who overcame his personal deficiencies during a productive life. His terrible illness should not be the occasion for partisan and malicious sniping we have read.
"The fact that he planned to go sailing this weekend after leaving the hospital says something about his energy and love of life. He deserves sympathy or silence, not abuse."
After sending the above, I received a comment from a good friend, Clark Whelton, who wrote:
"It should be noted that the "mentality of hate" has no political boundaries. Lee Harvey Oswald was a leftist who went to the Soviet Union, came back, and joined the "Fair Play for Cuba" committee. Sirhan Sirhan was on the political left. It is difficult to think of any president who has been the target of more hatred than George W. Bush. An entire film was made -- the wishful thinking of hate-filled minds -- about Bush's assassination. The mainstream press encourages hatred of Bush in every way imaginable. This is de facto war, with words. The more we see of hate-filled politics, the closer we get to another kind of war."
I answered Whelton's e-mail with this question: "Wouldn't you call Sirhan an Arab terrorist rather than a leftist? He killed RFK over Israel, didn't he?"
Whelton responded: "Isn't it the political left that constantly questions and seeks to undermine the legitimacy and existence of Israel? The Soviet Union and the Communist bloc armed Israel's enemies and egged them on. Nancy Pelosi went to Syria and put on a Muslim headcloth. Jimmy Carter placed a wreath on Arafat's grave. Doesn't Sirhan's hatred of Israel place him on the left?"
In my view, there is an enormous difference between the moderate left (Pierre Mendes-France, Tony Blair) and the totalitarian left. The word Nazi is a short form of the name Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. It was a German socialist, August Bebel, who said as far back as 1873 that "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools."
The Soviet Union was a classic example of the totalitarian left, but there were countries under the totalitarian right as well (Chile under Pinochet). Other nations are ruled by lunatics (North Korea's Kim Jong Il), generals (Myanmar), theocrats (Iran), fallen idols (Mugabe of Zimbabwe) as well as various kleptocracies run by juntas which defy ideological description.
Today we have strayed from New York City and State and their problems, but the latest Kennedy tragedy reminds us that there are matters in the world beyond our village. One may ask whether the illness of a man who has already lived more than thirty years longer than any of his three brothers can be called a tragedy, as their violent deaths certainly were. One could respond by quoting John Donne, who wrote, in "Meditation XVII", in 1624.
"No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or thine own were:
because I am involved in mankind, and therefore
never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."