Bobby Kennedy 3/25/68 (and Obama 2008)
You can listen to the audio of RFK's speech here:
http://www.archive.org/details/RobertFKennedyAtSanFernandoValleyStateCollege
On March 25th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy said:
I'm not really a believer in such things. But it does put a smile on my face to think that if Bobby is watching this election from... well, somewhere, that on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, he'll be saying,
"See? I told you I'd get even with you."
http://www.archive.org/details/RobertFKennedyAtSanFernandoValleyStateCollege
On March 25th, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy said:
I am on the side, and I believe you are, of those who are not afraid to recognize past error, as I must recognize it in my own actions in dealing with the problem and struggle in South Vietnam; who refuse to blindly pursue bankrupt policies which rend us from our friends and drain our treasury in the fruitless pursuit of illusions which have long since been shattered. I am on the side of those who seek to reconcile the divisions that exist within our country - divisions of age, divisions of belief, divisions that exist because of the color of our skin; who will respect differences in ideas while uniting us in the determination to meet our dilemmas; who will not watch frozen in the ice of their own indifference. I am on the side of those who seek to bring jobs into the dark corners of our nation, in city slums and in the rural hollows alike, where proud men seek work and receive instead a welfare handout. I don't think that's satisfactory. I am with those who seek to build their communities instead of ignoring them out of apathy or destroying them out of despair. I'm on the side of those who seek more than blind dissent, and who respect the opinion of others. I am with those who express not simply opposition to the present, but propositions for the building of a better country. And very importantly, I am on the side of those who do not shout down others, but who listen, and challenge, and then prepare a better policy for the United States of America.I'm 36 years old. I was born in 1972. And I just about damn near cried when I listened to this speech.
...
For here is where the world is truly divided. Not by the long, dead barriers of race and religion, not by the boundaries of state and nation, not even by the walls of ideology. It is divided today - (bells ringing) Ronald Reagan, I'll get even with you - my speech was so eloquent I started hearing bells. It is divided today between those who are bound to the past, and those freed for the future; between the world of memory, and the world of hope; between the spirit of age, and between the spirit of youth. I stand between - and with - the spirit of youth. And I believe that's where the America that we know should stand for, and that's why I run for president.
And what I believe that means is a new effort, a new effort with new leadership to end the conflict in Vietnam, and to bring the journey back to peace. It will recognize with Sophocles that all men make mistakes, but that a good man yeilds when he knows his course is wrong, and that he repairs the error, and that the only sin is pride. A new leadership will not risk more and more lives, American and Vietnamese alike, in the name of false pride. As I have said before, that kind of leadership will put aside once and for all the false hopes of concentrating just on a military conquest, which hopes that we will - after we have spent 30 billions and 30 billions of dollars each year, and lately 500 million (sic) - 500 American lives - to seek a military victory which we have always been promised, and which we will never achieve.
I think we should change our course of action.
I'm not really a believer in such things. But it does put a smile on my face to think that if Bobby is watching this election from... well, somewhere, that on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, he'll be saying,
"See? I told you I'd get even with you."
