TV REVIEW : ‘Bobby Kennedy’ Just a Campaign Stop

Bobby, we hardly knew ye.

Before he had a chance to rise to a great pedestal of power--or fall from that same pedestal--Robert F. Kennedy became a myth. The bullets from Sirhan Sirhan’s gun in the Ambassador Hotel kitchen guaranteed it, sealing Kennedy forever in a never-never land of “what if?” What if he had gone on from his ’68 California primary to snare the Democratic nomination? What if he had beat Nixon? What if he had pulled us out of Vietnam?

An interesting documentary on Bobby Kennedy might speculate on some of these, but it should also take a cold, hard look at the myth. “Bobby Kennedy: In His Own Words” (on HBO at 8 tonight, with repeat airings on Nov. 24, 26, 28, Dec. 2 and 6) goes the other direction, and only adds layers to the Kennedy mystique.

To be sure, producer Peter W. Kunhardt’s film announces at the start that this will be a tribute to Kennedy on what would be his 65th birthday. We will see an intimate view of the man, without commentary (except for a few clips of the younger Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather). We will hear Bobby telling his own story, see Bobby hard at work behind the scenes, enjoy Bobby as he plays with family before a home-movie camera.

Everything about Bobby, in fact, except the history. When any portrait of the so-called “Boston Terrier” spends more time on his trek up Canada’s Mt. Kennedy (named for JFK) than on the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin airlift and the Cuban missile crisis combined, something is seriously amiss. Bobby was Jack Kennedy’s right-hand man and counsel (in a rare moment of honest self-reflection, Bobby worries about nepotism before accepting the attorney general post). Yet nothing here sheds new light on the Kennedy Administration’s failures as well as triumphs.

Kunhardt’s valentine approach turns on itself in the end, since it ignores Bobby’s real achievement during JFK’s 1,000 days: Curbing the growing power of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Ironically, in trying to show the human side of Kennedy--outtakes from his ’64 Senate campaign ads--”Bobby Kennedy: In His Own Words” lapses into the rhythms of a campaign ad itself.

Perhaps we’re seeing the fulfillment of TV’s own logic. With Bobby’s campaign cut tragically short, his fans can imagine it living on through the illusion of campaign commercials. This is the Democrat’s video equivalent of the Richard M. Nixon library.