Thanks for the historical angle on this interview too.

The interview sounded good on the surface, but after a little thought, it just comes apart.

RFK Jr. can sound very reasonable, I agree. One thing that frustrates me is that when he does interviews (to his credit, with conservative media figures as well as with his natural constituency), he often gets away with outlandish statements because his interviewers have not done their homework. I don't expect an interviewer to know the logical follow-up question to every possible thing he could say on environmental issues, but he has a tendency to make the same charges over and over again (Bush's supposed culpability for asthma, for instance). Interviewers should anticipate that he will raise his favorite (and rather serious) charges, and be prepared to question him closely when he does so. basic journalism.

Just a couple more historical corrections for Mr. Kennedy:

He says, "When Roman law broke down in Europe during the Dark Ages, a lot of the feudal kings began reasserting control over the public-trust resources. For example, in England, King John began..."

Actually Roman law broke down in Britain after the Roman army left in 410AD (or thereabouts) while King John ruled from 1199 to 1216, with the Magna Carta being forced on him in 1215.

"The public rose up and confronted him at the Battle of Runnymede"

First off, there was no "Battle of Runnymede"... that's just where they met to negotiate the end of the noble's revolt. Let's not get too misty-eyed about the status of non-nobles in Angevin England either... The revolt of the barons that led to John's signing the Magna Carta at Runnymede was nothing to do with a public rising up against an oppressive ruler (in fact John was one of the more benevolent Plantagenets) - it was a revolt by nobles who were annoyed that they were being taxed by him (especially through scutage; a penalty for those avoiding their feudal duty to provide military units) and really irritated at his losses in France.

The Magna Carta was not primarily intended to give that many new rights to the commons either - the primary role of the document was to reaffirm many of the rights removed from the nobles in the years since William's invasion (and especially during the reign of Henry II).

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council the environmental organization which is a strong advocate of renewable non poluting energy sources such as wind power.

"I'm strongly in favor of wind-energy production at sea," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmental lawyer, when asked about the issue after a recent speech to business leaders in Boston. But Mr. Kennedy said he believed Nantucket Sound was not an appropriate place to put a wind farm, adding, "You wouldn't put wind energy in Yosemite Park."

Mr. Kennedy spent part of his childhood visiting his family's compound in Hyannis on the cape - which would be about 6.8 miles from the wind farm, according to Cape Wind Associates. He said he also still fishes with his family on Horseshoe Shoals, where part of the farm would be situated.

"One of the most important assets we have in this state is Nantucket Sound," Mr. Kennedy said, adding that for many people, "it's their only access to wilderness."

Hypocrite? Jerk? Nimby? Let me ask this question, if his name were Robert Schwartz, would anybody give a rat's patootie what he said? let alone quoting it in the New york Times.

Looks like Junior didn't inherit his father's brains or instincts. He's got the charm, by all appearances.
How typical that he'd screw up the simple facts about our 789 year written tradition of evolving democracy, which does make us special, in the process of disfiguring it.

Risible numbskull aristocrat Kennedy may not even be aware that he speaks for a combat unit in the government's war against the private sector, and that environmental activism is simply this unit's particular weapons system. Whether this is some grand plan or not is irrelevant, even if it's only the bureaucracy following the biological imperative of its parts--grow, reproduce,eliminate competition--expect that when our public sector attains a certain size, we private individuals will as if on signal surrender whatever spark identifies our culture, and become whatever it is we think continental Europeans have become. Cynical pessimistic serfs ruled by implacable overlords now incarnated as regulatory agencies rather than the King's wishes, would be one starter description. I've seen Mr. Kennedy exhibit his rote grasp of sophistry in several TV interviews; the only time he came alive and showed the physical signs of sincerity was once for a brief moment when Sean Hannity asked him why the Nantucket wind farm proposal for an area near his property was any different than the thousand similar projects he advocates for everyone else's property. Without a single thought as to the irony with which he was destroying in two minutes his entire lifetime ethical position, he in effect said the project had no right to take away his ("the local people's") enjoyment of that little section of shoreline. In other words, everybody else's NIMBY stinks, but not his. A conservator of nature would've retired in shame, but shame is an alien concept to many end-justifies-means activists. Thus many say that in discrediting classic environmentalism, the last several decades of political opportunism under its name has driven away the environment's conservative natural advocates. The environment, politicized, is the ultimate loser, along with the perspective of humanity being not in opposition to but rather part of the environment, and also deserving of respect.

He sure doesn't get the history of water rights correct. In the English system (inherited by the US) the "riparian rights" were that water belonged to whoever owned the land that the water was in or that it bordered. The current US system (where water belongs to the state) was only begun when the dryer parts of the country began to be settled. The man is an ignoramus.

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

Verry funny you maen-spirted rite-wingors. I were told to com here andy fend mysellf frum Fascists on "What Are Rights?", not Fishists on Water Rights. verry funnie.