Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s impressive first televised town hall

NewsNation’s 90-minute town hall broadcast live from Chicago Wednesday with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was an intellectually stimulating and emotionally moving event. Despite the hour of mostly put downs that preceded it (hosted by Chris Cuomo with featured guest Bill O’Reilly) and the half hour of analysis that followed it (Chris Cuomo again with a panel that included Former Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker – the most fair and objective), Kennedy more than met the challenging questions presented to him by town hall host Elizabeth Vargas and a number of pre-selected Democrat and Independent voters in Chicago, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

By the end of the ninety minutes of town hall, I kept thinking of this statement attributed to Ronald Reagan: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally – not a 20 percent traitor.”

I found myself agreeing with Kennedy at least 80% of the time.

Even when, near the end, Kennedy countered a particularly obnoxious and challenging gay voter from South Carolina who attempted to get him off stride and sandbag him with a snide accusation, Kennedy pledged his lifelong support of LGBTQ rights (which he described as “LGBQT”) I could sympathize with what Kennedy was trying to do – in essence, to reach out in the darkness. Too bad that he wasn’t asked about his feelings about the current move to give special rights to transgender people, as in allowing them to participate in sporting events with people of the opposite biological sex.