Rarely have I seen anyone who presents as such a normal, intelligent, and erudite dude have such profoundly dangerous ideas as RFK, Jr. His brain farts over the years were not harmless, but they seemed mostly confined to the vaccine space. Not any more.
The WaPo did us all a solid and fact checked a recent RFK, Jr. speech.
…Kennedy's lecture, about how the United States allegedly provoked the Ukraine war, was filled with so much misinformation and Russian talking points that it seems worthy of a detailed look.
To me, there are fewer topics less in question: Russia is our enemy. The enemy of the West. The enemy of democracy. Of rule of law. Of modernity. Of decency. What brilliant insights does this scion of American royalty have for us? Here's the first quote:
"You know, Putin every day says, 'I want to settle the war. Let's negotiate.' And Zelensky has said we're not going to negotiate. But Zelensky didn't start that way. I don't want to belabor the history. But Russia was invaded three times through Ukraine. The last time Hitler killed one out of every seven Russians. They don't want to have Ukraine join NATO."
Even I know that's an absurd, Trumpian load of horseshit. Here's WaPo's analysis:
Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war by invading Ukraine, and he's shown little sign of wanting to end it unless Ukraine accepts losing territory Russia has seized. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Russian atrocities during the war make it imperative for the country to win back all of its territory.
It's unclear how Kennedy counts three invasions of Russia through Ukraine, though he says the "last time" was World War II. The previous prominent attack on Russia was by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in 1812, but Napoleon aimed his attack on Moscow and did not invade through Ukraine.
There's several more quotes debunked, well worth reading. But I'll just leave you with one more outrageous lie:
"When the wall came down in the Soviet Union and Europe, [Soviet President Mikhail] Gorbachev destroyed himself politically by doing something that was very, very courageous. He went to [President George H.W.] Bush. He said, 'I'm going to allow you to reunify Germany under a NATO army. I'm going to remove 450,000 Soviet troops. But I want your commitment. After that, you will not move NATO one inch to the east.' And we solemnly swore that we wouldn't do it."
Here's what our intrepid fact checkers at WaPo say about that whopper:
Kennedy is echoing Russian propaganda here. By every account of the 1990 negotiations for the unification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, including Gorbachev's, the conversation claimed by Kennedy never happened.
"The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years," Gorbachev said in a 2014 interview. "I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn't bring it up, either."
The pro-Russia lies are so big, so one-sided and so mis-informed that I really have to ask if he's on Putin's payroll — it's the only way any of this makes a lick of sense.
I can't believe this asshole of the aristocracy, this nimrod of the know-nothings, this prevaricator of the privileged, this blabbering, boorish bastard of the blue bloods is going to be the thing that sinks Biden.
Previously: RFK Jr. says doctors found dead worm in his partially eaten brain
