you cite bobby kennedy as one of your heroes. on the downtrodden america whereas you now do shows with titles like "pregnant by my brother too" or i married a horse." are you really comfortable with that being your legacy? >> the equestrian community is upset because the horse left him and we did a follow-up show. i'll say this to you, in a society with a free media, all elements of the society should be reflected. this legacy i don't know what -- there is no legacy. i'm a schlub who got lucky. some are loved. some are disliked. irrelevant, be good for your kids so you can set an example for them so they have a good life and a good people. treat people well. that's what the memory should be. everything else is vanity. >> and he agrees you've known you are a good parent if your kid never ends up on that stage. >>> a note on the drastic flip-flop, february 2nd groundhog day. punxsutawney phil failed to see his shadow. no one believes him and phil is as accurate as a coin flip. he might have been right. record highs forecast across

bobby kennedy, you have to think bobby kennedy. one phone call changed the world. ronald reagan had to find that new job right into politics, and the rest is history. >> host: it all worked out. one of the things that i'm struck by in your father's career, he comes from hollywood and presumably when he was an actor he and nancy and her mother had friends who were gay and lesbian. it and i think that is an important piece of history that gets washed. and he campaigned against prop. six. the movie about harvey milk had a clip and a reference to your father campaigning against this proposition that would have taken gays and lesbians have a public schools. that seemed to be a very courageous move forefather to stand up against many social conservatives and religious conservatives. i wonder what lesson the current republican party should take from that of your father's stance, in particular a debate going on in february. sea-tac is contravening. one of 50 co-sponsors. that has caused such a raffle. the heritage foundation has pulled out of support for cpa see this year,

bobby kennedy calls general electric and says you know, your government contracts are up for renewal. do you what your government contracts to be renewed you need to get rid of the host and get rid of that television show. in 72 hours not long after that, general electric is cancelled. ronald reagan is looking for a job. now, if it stays on the air it stays on their right past the goldwater campaign. there's no time for choosing speech. >> host: so everything works out. >> guest: he's looking and that's why i say in the book you've got to thank bobby kennedy because one phone call changed the world and of ronald reagan had to find that new job into politics and the rest is history. >> host: so it all worked out. >> guest: >> host: one of the things i'm struck by your father's career is he comes from hollywood presumably when he was an actor she and nancy and your mother had friends who were gay and lesbian. and i think that's an important piece of history that gets whitewashed. he campaigned against i think proposition six, the movie "milk," what the reference to your father against t

>> guest: bobbi kennedy calls general electric and says you know, your government contracts are up for renewal. do you want your government contract to be renewed? you need to get rid of the hosting get rid of the television show and not long after that general electric theaters canceled. ronald reagan was looking for a job. if it stays on the air stays past the goldwater campaign. there is none -- make no time for choosing a speech. >> host: everything works out. kisco you have to thank bobby kennedy because one phonecall changed the world and ronald reagan had to find that new job and went from borax into politics and the rest is history. >> host: so it all worked out. one of the things that i am struck by in your father's career was, he comes from hollywood and presumably when he was an actor, he and nancy and her mother had friends who were and. and i think that is an important piece of history that gets whitewashed. and he campaigned against i think prop 6, the anita bryant, the movie had reference your father campaigning gets this reference that would have taken them out of the p

bobby kennedy calls general electric and says you know, your government contracts are up for renewal. if you want your government contract to be renewed you need to get rid of the host and get rid of the television show. 72 hours not long after that, general electric theater is cancelled. ronald reagan is looking for a job. now, if it stays on the air it is right past the goldwater campaign. there's no time for choosing the speech. >> host: so everything works out. >> guest: you look at that and that is why i say in the book you've got to thank bobby kennedy because one phone call changed the world and ronald reagan had to find that new job right into the politics and the rest is history >> host: it all worked out. one of the things i'm struck by in your father's career is he comes from hollywood, and presumably when he was an actor and he and nancy and your mother had friends who were gay and lesbian, and i think that's an important piece of history that its white washed, and he campaigned against i think prop. six the bride from the movie quote coalville," the reference against your

bobby kennedy junior, core conviction not just eloquence but a real passion that is demonstrated and flows through you saw that in regan you knew what he wanted to say and he said that over and over again. it is those politicians, i think barack obama has the capacity, one of the greatest communicators all the time but the policy keeps shifting those core convictions don't manifest in terms of communication. >> ronald regan was able to get up on stage or in a group and they might have been the same quip over and over but he could deliver them. >> he had those speeches and baseline for years and years and years, sort of the corpus of the speech and add on to it and build off it and there was a constant and consistency over the years, evolution none the less of core values and that made him so effective. end of the day, sincerity, repetition in terms of message, ability to not take yourself too seriously, you got to be light at the same time you are pointed in terms of it. >> what about delivery, barack obama's delivery is professor i can't like. he is working the tell prompter his hea

himself was murdered bobby kennedy way said vietnam might not be so easy and one is about the wisdom of putting someone they hardly know in charge of such an important country. they. really. want to. eat. in the course of the mire ambassadorship which had been agreed to be last just one year i dealt with fire government in other words the house was clean turned over five different times with the chaos that one can imagine while the national security council was busy replacing vietnamese governments right and extreme right l.b.j. acted like he was the victim in this thing that. worried johnson and constantly room were at him was the instability of the south vietnamese government i guess you might call the coat of arms or the vietnamese government turnstile for god's sake and i remember very vividly somebody would come in his office and say those of the like is a coup beginning and the end of the coup you know coups were like like fleas on a dog and johnson said i don't want to hear any more about this coup shit i've had enough of it and we've got to find a way to stabilize those peopl

i wanted to say a few words about one of my heroes, bobby kennedy. get that when he was appointed attorney general, he was the most least popular appointment that president kennedy made. he was criticized as being too young, too inexperienced, and most of all, i think, probably to political. so, it is interesting that 50 years later -- i do not think that anyone would have predicted, except for ethel, that we would be celebrating him as the greatest attorney general of the 20th-century. how is that possible? because he was himself a remarkable person. which no one understood, really, i think. he was dedicated to government. to making government work. and he was dedicated to the law. he was determined to make the department of justice the face of block in the united states. as it should be. after he was made attorney general, he continued to give criticism. he got criticism from the civil rights people because he was not giving them sufficient protection. which he did not see how he could do under the laws that existed. he did a point many new attorney

it was important that president kennedy wanted bobby a lot. >> there was a time when he was having a of the people who are working on developing what became the war on poverty and he was going in and out in the relief for 15, 20 minutes, half an hour, come back, not missed a beat back into the conversation is that we've been there the whole time. it turns out that he was going down the hall to discuss what to do about the cuban missile crisis. completely compartmentalized, totally calm and doing both of those things at the same time. he was concentrating so much in his mind, in his head. i think what he was carrying around were religious issues. russia, europe and his job, which was running the department of justice. >> robert kennedy got the terrible news from jay edgar hoover in a phone call at hickory hill and his world turned upside down. >> the attorney general was not -- was not running the halls and cracking jokes for a long time after that. and it was always the sense that in fact a different life and different reality. he came out of that and after a period of several months

vietnam war, we were in the aftermath of watergate, we were in the aftermath of the assassination of bobby kennedy and john kennedy. and also martin luther king jr. and we were in the aftermath of the church investigating committee in the u.s. senate that showed that the cia particularly under kennedys had committed serious crimes, even of assassination. so there was a disillusionment on the part of the american people with washington. and that was the main thing that i emphasized. i told them i would never lie to them and so forth, and i emphasized the fact that i was from the deep south. i had been out of politics and all of my predecessors had, that i was a peanut farmer and can that sort of thing. so it was because of those volunteers in texas and other places that i never had before that never had been in politics before that i was finally elected. as a matter of fact, amazingly still to me, i ran against one of the best men i've ever known in texas, and that was lloyd benson. i beat lloyd benson 2-1 in texas. which was amazing even now to me. but i had kind of a groundswell of support among

some people i needed to hire to put out brochures, hire a respectable headquarters, the one that bobby kennedy once occupied, and i was taken seriously by the president as a result. but after that fundraising was done, as i say, mostly through the mail. >> i imagine there are probably many members of congress who envy that situation because one hears from them all the time that they're spending 30, 40, 50, 60% of their time in fundraising, not being the kind of legislator that they want to be. in the book, "freedom at risk," which we're going to have copies available to be bought and signed by the author, you talk about the intrusive bureaucracy, and you already made mention of that today. and you recommend that citizens be allowed to sue the federal government for damages. >> yes. isn't that reasonable? >> is that constitutional? [laughter] >> it is not constitutional. incidentally, most people who work in the bureaucracies and agencies are good people, intelligent people doing their job. of they become -- they become, as i said, it is a tendency to become so specifically focused on their par

hire people i needed to put up berkshires and higher a respect of all had quarters, the one that bobby kennedy once occupied. .. >> you talk about the intrusive bureaucracy, and you've already made mention of that today, and you recommend that citizens be allowed to sue the federal government for damages. >> yes. isn't that reasonable? >> is that constitutional? [laughter] >> it is not constitutional. incidentally, most people who work in the bureaucracies and some agencies are good people, intelligent people doing their job. they become -- there is a tendency to become so specifically focused on their particular portfolio that they often can't understand the consequences of what they think they ought to do on other parts of society and so on. but start with the thing that they are decent people, good people. but they're also human people, and they're not immune to the faults of human nature. and occasionally you'll find people who will be bullying, who will misuse their power. they recognize that whereas they don't have to pay for their lawyers, anybody they're contending with can really reac

it was set at the time and it was absolutely true that if it was important, president kennedy wanted bobbyolved. >> there was a time when he was having a meeting of people who were working on developing what became the war on poverty. out,he had gone in and ho leave for 15 minutes to an hour, and come back. not miss a beat, into the conversation as if he had been there all the time. it turned out that he had been going down a hall to discuss what to do about the cuban missile crisis. completely car minimalized -- compartmentalized, totally kong. -- calm. he was car ran around the world, religious issues, russia, europe, and his job, which was run in the department of justice. >> robert kennedy got the terrible news from j. edgar hoover in a phone call. his world turned upside down. >> the attorney general was not running the halls and popping jokes for a long time after that. there was always a sense after that of a different light, a different reality. >> he came out of it after period of several months. he was back to his normal, hard- hitting set out, because he could do everything. >>

the office of economic opportunity, and it started under president kennedy, he and his brother bobby kennedy and the justice department had fashioned a program to try to assist the poor and the country and then president johnson came with his big texas approach and enlarged it and it became the war to eradicate poverty and if you define poverty has a certain percentage of the population, and then you try to eradicate it, it's not possible because there's always going to be a certain percentage in that category, and they immediately started a host of programs. there was the job corps, head start, migrant programs, health care programs, drug programs, community action programs, just their must have been 12 or 15 different programs under this umbrella on the war on poverty. the these naim was the dewitt bypass the governors and mayors, elected officials, and of course that had the effect of in during republicans and democrats and public officials because the money would come straight from the federal government to the organizations, community organizations the were described as having maximum f

and needless to say, bobby kennedy was shot. but that was just beginning.rome smith receded to tell him that if the u.s. had gotten involved in a war with cuba, he wouldn't fight. the attorney general was aghast. this concept of conscientious refusal for military service was still a little bit foreign to him. i look around the room at the older members of the gathering for a little bit of support. he wanted them to kind of put the young man and his ways. they all nodded and said that spray. he is speaking what we want is he, too. this meeting lasted three hours. at the end of it, robert f. kennedy was out, physically shaken. so did james baldwin, the author who organized the whole event. in fact, i talked with the man who took them to a tv station for live interview, henry morgenthau. and henry told me that james baldwin was so shaken not, he was so physically disturbed that he just sighed henri, you need to take me to a bar and we need to get a drink. it you refused to do it and said no, we need to get to the tv station. in the interview thought it was sti

for me, and for so many americans, bobby kennedy embodies the idea he spoke of so often, that each of us can make a difference, and all of us ought to try. in the face of war, he called for peace. in places of poverty, he carried hope. in a violent time there revealed man's capacity to do harm, he never lost faith in our capacity to love. he never