When Will the Incessant, Misguided Media Attacks Against RFK Jr. Stop?

Just over a year ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his run for President of the United States at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston.

During his announcement speech, the hotel’s emergency system triggered an automated voice advising everyone to evacuate. It was a false alarm. Kennedy didn’t miss a beat, saying “nice try” – a dig at his detractors, who he said had been censoring him for the past eighteen years. His supporters, some 500 strong who had gathered to hear him speak, gave a standing ovation, chanting “Bobby, Bobby, Bobby…” He continued his speech.

The media has been sounding the alarm about Kennedy since that day on April 19, 2023. In a ‘news’ piece about the Boston announcement, The New York Times’ Trip Gabriel wrote, “Mr. Kennedy is the latest in a history of fringe presidential aspirants from both parties who run to bring attention to a cause, or to themselves.”

With the Times often leading the way, the media has attacked Bobby for questioning the wisdom of Covid lockdowns; his vaccine skepticism; investigating what happened in Wuhan, in his book ‘The Wuhan Cover-Up’; and doubting the lone-gunman orthodoxy about the assassination of his father and uncle. He has been deplatformed from Facebook and Instagram, and called racist, anti-semite, anti-vax, anti-abortion, a conspiracy theorist, and recently, courtesy of former president Trump and his campaign, “the most radical Left candidate in the race,” an “environmental whack job” and a “Democrat plant.”

On April 4, the Times ran a snide column about Kennedy by Michelle Goldberg, in which she referenced the candidate’s April 2 appearance on Erin Burnett’s CNN show, OutFront. Kennedy had said, “I could make the argument that Biden poses a much worse threat to democracy than Trump” – but for Goldberg, and much of the media, “I could make the argument” was inconvenient and eliminated, changing the meaning of what Kennedy said.

A few weeks earlier, in its The RunUp podcast hosted by Astead Herndon, the Times cut into an interview with Kennedy to editorialize about his answers, a shameful practice covered by our publication, The Kennedy Beacon, here.

Recently, on April 6, ‘the paper of record’ ran a column, by Frank Bruni, beginning, “The hubris. The narcissism. The convenient and fraudulent anti-elitism. The out-of-his-mind theories presented as out-of-the-box thinking.” Bruni referred to Kennedy as “Trump with better manners, fewer lawyers and discernible pecs.”

On April 18, the Times published two articles ‘celebrating’ the small group of Kennedy relatives who endorsed Biden, conveniently omitting the fact that Kennedy has over one hundred relatives and a solid cluster who do support him.

Clearly, The New York Times Company chairman and publisher, A. G. Sulzberger, has no love for Kennedy. We get that. But why the vitriol, and where’s the news balance? Where are the stories about his success as an environmental attorney who took on big polluters and helped clean up the Hudson? Where is the analysis of his policy positions about the border, abortion, racial justice, chronic disease, and home ownership? Why the petty hit piece on the money he’s made from public speaking engagements or on how some members of his own large family don’t support him? Where’s ‘all the news that’s fit to print’?

During his speech last April, when Kennedy was still running as a Democrat, he spoke about the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening “to impose a new corporate feudalism in our country.” He spoke of our strip-mined middle class, in large measure due to the ‘forever wars’ overseas, the military industrial complex, and a devastating chronic disease epidemic. Referencing his 35 years as an environmental advocate, he said, “If we want to meet our obligation as a generation, as a civilization, and as a nation…we’ve got to start by protecting our environmental infrastructure – the air we breath, the water we drink, the wild life, the fisheries, the public lands.”

But despite his solid democratic credentials, the Democratic National Committee made it impossible for Kennedy to run as a democrat. In a speech on October 9, in Philadelphia, Kennedy declared his independent candidacy, noting how painful it was to leave the party of his father, both his uncles and many other family members. “We declare our independence from the corporations that have hijacked our government. We declare independence from Wall Street, Big Tech, Big Pharma, Big Ag, the military contractors, and their lobbyists….And finally, we declare independence from the two political parties and the corrupt interests that dominate them, and the entire rigged system of rancor and rage, corruption and lies, that has turned government officials into indentured servants of their corporate bosses.”

Renowned Columbia economics professor, Jeffrey D. Sachs, celebrated Kennedy’s decision in an editorial. “RFK Jr.’s announcement today of a third-party candidacy is a gift for our nation,” he began. “We now have a chance for a real debate about the nation’s future at a time when Gallup reports that 67 percent of Americans are dissatisfied and only 33 percent satisfied with ‘our system of government and how well it works.’” Sachs further wrote, “RFK is no spoiler. He is a bona fide lifelong, brave, and highly intelligent opponent of the corrupted politics that has brought America to its current impasse.”

It's been six months since the launch of Kennedy’s historic run as an independent. He’s averaging 12.5% in national polls, a recent TMZ poll of 56,000 people showed Kennedy beating Trump straight up (without Biden in the race) 64% to 36%, as opposed to the tight race Biden (the least popular candidate in 70 years) finds himself in against Trump.

Kennedy also recently brought on Nicole Shanahan, a lawyer and founder of Bio-Echo Foundation, as his vice-presidential running mate. And he’s on the Utah and and Iowa ballots and has enough signatures to qualify for ballots in Texas, New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, and Nebraska. He’s determined and on track to make it onto all 50 state ballots by election day.

And yet (or because of all this) the media’s brutal attacks are on the rise, aided by DNC-aligned public relations power-brokers, including master of the smear Lis Smith. Within the last two weeks, with fear-mongering that the Kennedy-Shanahan ticket will tip the election to Trump, MoveOn’s Executive Director, Rhana Epting, appeared on MSNBC calling for Kennedy to drop out. And California democratic representative, Ro Khanna, asked Shanahan to abandon her run.

We know Bobby, we know the arc of his life. Despite the National Resources Defense Council/ Times’ hit job on his environmental record, we know about Bobby’s work with Riverkeeper Alliance, taking on the Hudson River’s biggest polluters; and the integrity of his ongoing commitment to the environment. We know about his many thoughtful policy ideas, arrived at through rigorous empirical study. Finally, we know he won’t back down from a fight with Big Pharma, Big Ag, the military industrial complex, and the corrupt DNC and RNC media machines.

The Kennedy Beacon is financed by American Values 2024.