Staff Reports
Drama has long been the middle name of the Kennedy clan, but even by their standards, this latest episode involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is something straight out of a sitcom. Perhaps the last thing America expected to hear was that an influential political figure once played a bizarre game of “whodunnit” in a city park—complete with a dead bear and a cover-up worthy of a slapstick comedy.
RFK Jr. recently took to social media to recount an odd incident from nearly a decade ago involving a freshly deceased young bear he claims to have personally felled, or rather, found. According to Kennedy, he stumbled upon the bear after a woman driving in front of him hit it in Central Park. Instead of just reporting the unfortunate event, RFK seized the day—or, in this case, seized the bear, announcing his intention to “skin” it and stash the meat in his refrigerator. Certainly not a conventional choice for a man vying for the presidency, but who said the political road was ever paved with conventionality?
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 4, 2024
As the story unfolds, one can hardly believe that Kennedy didn’t consider taking the bear directly to a butcher instead of to a falconry outing. Because who wouldn’t think twice before setting out on a leisurely day of hunting while toting along a freshly acquired carcass? But, as he gallivanted from one escapade to another, his plans took another twist and turned into something resembling the plot of a low-budget film. When pressed for time and faced with a dinner engagement rather than heading home, Kennedy decided that the best course of action was to leave the bear in Central Park—making it look like it had been the unfortunate victim of yet another bicycle accident, of which he took note due to a spate of similar mishaps in the city.
In that moment, Kennedy displayed a curious blend of high-brow aspirations and low-brow antics, where the adage of “don’t leave home without it” was taken to an absurd level. His logic stemmed from a questionable premise that leaving it in the car would be “bad.” One has to wonder what other kinds of “business decisions” are made in the mind of someone who believes their best cover story involves a bear and a bike. He may not have been drinking, but one has to wonder what else could prompt such peculiar judgment calls.
The aftermath of this curious incident was quite the spectacle. Kennedy watched in shock when the media picked up the story, transforming it into a sensational headline faster than a bear scampering away from trouble. He became an unwitting star in a drama that involved tape, helicopters, and a whole lot of police presence investigating the “great bear mystery.” For a presidential candidate, there’s a level of attention that could prove counterproductive as the nation grapples with much weightier matters than how a politically connected figure mismanaged a dead bear.
As RFK Jr. attempts to dodge what he anticipates will be a negative media onslaught, one has to question how a bearer of such an extraordinary tale can even think about running for president with such bewildering baggage. While he may have thought it was all a big joke at the time, his wild bear story raises more than a few eyebrows about his preparedness for the political arena. His next challenge in the race could very well be explaining how a political legacy could ever lead to such a ludicrous modern-day fable.
