Posted on 03/14/2006 6:14:46 PM PST by mathprof
Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, comes up for parole again this week in a potential conflict for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is married to RFK's niece.
Sirhan shot Kennedy to death at a Los Angeles hotel in 1968, minutes after the New York senator claimed victory in the California presidential primary. Sirhan received a death sentence, which was commuted to life in prison in 1972 when the California Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional.
The assassin's parole hearing at Corcoran State Prison on Wednesday - the 13th since his conviction and the first since Schwarzenegger's election in 2003 - will be heard by two board members, one of whom was appointed by Schwarzenegger.
If the board recommends his release - and that is unlikely, experts say - the decision of whether to free Sirhan will fall to Schwarzenegger, setting up an unusual dilemma.
"Judges can recuse themselves, but this is not the kind of decision a governor can delegate," said Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College.
The governor's press office declined to comment, saying it is highly unlikely the decision would fall to Schwarzenegger.
Sirhan's longtime lawyer died last year, and he has not chosen a new attorney.
Sirhan doesn't plan to present his own case, and if he doesn't choose a lawyer the board will make its decision without a public hearing, prison officials said.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney David Dahle, who will argue the state's case before the parole board, said there is little chance the decision would fall to the Republican governor. He conceded there is at least the appearance of a conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Either one is a Christian or isn't. "Ethnically & culturally" are just b.s. p.c. words to divert attention away from the real thing.
"Bobby Kennedy has his own message going at the time, and it was powerful. He came very far in a very short time."
Yes, I think you're quite right. Anyone who thinks RFK was a charlatan (or a Russian dupe, as one poster here inferred) is simply a fool. I think Robert Kennedy would provide excellent leadership today if he were alive.
LOL!
Heh... I don't think you have to be married to a Kennedy to think Sirhan ought to stay in the can.
I'm sorry, I was simply trying to convey the fact that Sirhan is a Palestinian arab who is not Muslim, not Jewish, but nominally Christian. I can't think of another way of stating that other than in the manner that I did.
I take it that you take offense at his being described as Christian in some sense. Since I am not certain how to know with ontological certitude whether or not Sirhan believes in the substitutionary atonement, total depravity, unmerited grace, or perhaps nothing at all I don't presume to know quite what he is. Perhaps you can elucidate a more complete analysis of the Sirhan theology for us.
Paula Poundstone used to do a joke about this. "It seems that Sirhan Sirhan told the parole board that if Robert Kennedy were alive today, he'd speak in favor of granting parole... Of all the rotten luck! The one guy in the world who would speak up for you, in favor of your parole, and you kill him!"
Mark
Actually Bobby Kennedy appeared to be largely 'borrowing' Gene McCarthy's message. McCarthy had seriously wounded LBJ in the early primaries. It was only after this was evident that Bobby jumped into the race, with a campaign that echoed McCarthy's opposition to the Vietnam War.
I didn't know that, that's very interesting. Sayyid Qutb was credited with being the intellectual godfather of the Islamist movement in one book I read, it may have been Steve Emerson's.
He is not, though. Such a person as he developed into in his last few weeks comes along rarely. We saw genius in action.
He's an Arab, but he's not Christian, judging by his actions. My husband knew him in high school. He was always an angry little toad.
He may have borrowed, as any genius must build on the existing or be so eccentric as to become irrelevant after his fifteen minutes, and after borrowing changed the expression into his own. He was in a way like Xenophon the stenographer become the general, with the group captains saying, you've got the stuff, go for it.
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