From Kennedy name to Kennedy shame

There is a Yiddish word you should have in your vocabulary. Chutzpah. It’s fun to say, though sometimes you must spit after saying it. In English “audacity” is close, and “hubris” is perfect if you are a little pretentious. So just think RFK, Jr.

He recently offered to support Kamala Harris if she would promise him a seat in her Cabinet. That does suggest he thinks she will win the presidency. But, turned down, Kennedy announced his support for Trump and Vance.

Kennedy, with his own campaign for president having gone nowhere, still saw himself as an asset of significance. That is chutzpah for starters, but worse, it is also an embarrassment to the Kennedy name.

His siblings have all urged that he be ignored — an insult to their father and family — and they stopped just short of calling him deranged and in need of help. Instead, he has found a home, having announced his support for the Republican ticket. But as he joined, Donald Trump weaseled a bit.

A Trump-friendly Catholic newsletter reported “When pressed by hostile media, Trump and Vance have both said they will not seek to ban abortion at the federal level.’’

Of course, no such ban is likely to be approved by the House or U.S. Senate anytime soon. It is an odd cop-out, not “where you stand,” but “where you straddle.”

Robert Kennedy’s siblings don’t straddle. His brother Max issued a statement, “I’m heartbroken over my brother Bobby’s endorsement of Donald Trump. I think often about my father and how he might have viewed the politics of our time. I’m not sure what he would have thought about TikTok or AI, but this much I know for sure: He would have despised Donald Trump.

“Yet my brother now endorses Trump. To pledge allegiance to Trump, a man who demonstrates no adherence to our family’s values, is inconceivable to me.

“Worse, it is sordid. Earlier this month, as Harris surged in the polls, my brother offered her his endorsement in exchange for a position in her coming administration. He got no response.

“Now he has offered that same deal to Trump. His is a hollow grab for power, a strategic attempt at relevance. It is the opposite of what my father admired: the unselfish spirit that exists in the United States of America.

“Let me go through the record.

‘‘My father was an anti-racist who joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in common cause and forged a powerful bond with African Americans everywhere he went in 1968. Donald Trump is a lifelong racist whose entire career has been shaped by his dislike of people with a different skin color.

‘‘My father believed in expanding legal immigration because he came from an immigrant family and knew how much talent and drive hardworking families bring if we open our doors to them.

“Donald Trump stirs up hatred of immigrants, whom he mischaracterizes as criminals and drug addicts. My father believed in the rule of law, as a prosecutor, and as the attorney general of the United States … My father believed in bringing Americans together. “

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.