In my observation, great families tend to fall apart after three generations. The old man makes the pile, the kids grow up in extreme privilege and try to do right by dad, but they don’t know what it’s like to make their own beds, much less their own fortune. (See “Succession” for more of this.) By the time the old man’s grandchildren are grown, it’s all divorce, drug addiction and dumbassery. The money may last a while, but the spark and verve is gone.
Which is how we end up with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From a Wall Street Journal story about his presidential campaign today:
He has aired claims—debunked by public-health experts—linking childhood vaccinations to autism. He has cast doubt on the safety of Covid-19 vaccines. He has questioned whether prescription drugs have caused a rise in school shootings and whether Wi-Fi exposure leads to cancer. He has said that the Central Intelligence Agency assassinated his uncle and could have killed his father, Robert F. Kennedy, despite no concrete evidence. And he has said the U.S. is perpetuating the Ukraine war to fuel the defense industry.
…He said he is avoiding some types of campaign events including parades because his security team has determined that they aren’t safe given the risk of an assassination attempt by the CIA.
The hundreds of supporters who came to hear Kennedy’s foreign-policy speech—some who drove hours and came with copies of his books—spanned the ideological spectrum.
“All the things that he’s saying about bringing the country together, he really believes he really can do this, and he’s unlike anybody out there,” said independent voter Rebecca Giles, 54, a retired physician from Bedford, N.H., and a Kennedy campaign volunteer. Giles supported Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 New Hampshire primaries and general elections, but soured on him over his pandemic response, which she saw as heavy-handed.
He’s speaking to a Moms for Liberty convention next week in Philadelphia. Steve Bannon thinks he’s swell. I think I know all I need about this guy. (And may I just say? Having heard him speak, he has a serious case of spasmodic dysphonia. No crime there, of course, but in an age where any woman who raises her voice is dismissed as “shrill,” we’ll see whether the same standards apply to men.)
In other news at this hour, Marjorie Taylor Greene called Lauren Boebert a “little bitch” on the floor of the House yesterday and I, for one, am highly amused.
I was going to post a sensitively written story from the Columbus Dispatch about the descent of its former legendary zoo director, Jack Hanna, into Alzheimer’s, but now I’m not. I’ve read a bunch of these in my lifetime, and they all boil down to the same thing: Once this person was formidable, now they are not. It’s never not sad and it’s also barely news. We’re all gonna die someday, and the lucky ones will have all their faculties intact when they do.
With that, I beg you adieu and watch out for the CIA.



