http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=34055&page=2

It feels kinda weird but refreshing to read Morning’s Minion’s comment and nod in agreement. Still,on reading Townsend’s assertion that in her family politics was considered an honorable profession, I’ll admit to some uncharitable reflections myself on possible reasons for this view.

“I have long suspected that for some, by no means all, Catholics on the Left in this country their true Pope’s last name begins with an O rather than a B.”

Careful there — you just might find yourself guilty of the modern version of praemunire and, thus, be branded a traitor to these United States, according to some of our more distinguished ‘patriots’!

Not the whole of the left. He managed to snooker figures as disparate as Cesar Chavez, Gloria Steinem, and Charles Peters, but there was a large constituency that could not abide the man. I have a dear friend who was obiligated to work on his 1964 Senate campaign. He said the experience of meeting Kennedy (in Auburn, N.Y. as I recall) and seeing him interact with his aides and retainers left him appalled. He was hot and heavy for Eugene McCarthy four years later. Gloria Steinem has also said the planning and discussion groups she and Allard Loewenstein were involved in during 1967 and 1968 were shot-through with ‘Bobby-haters’.

Recalling that in 1979 he was asked by Roger Mudd why he was running for president and had a less than concise and coherent answer, I am not sure he had much of a rationale for what he did do or did not do other than it was the role of a lifetime. I seem also to recall that one of his pet issues at the time was national health insurance. If I am not mistaken, he did not manage to get a bill out of subcommittee though he was chairman of the subcommittee.