Democratic political scion Robert Kennedy Jr. railed against civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, and offered distinctly Catholic meditations on his own “lust demons” and extramarital affairs in diary entries published by the New York Post.
“Al Sharpton has done more damage to the black cause than George Wallace. He has suffocated the decent black leaders in New York. His transparent venal blackmail and extortion schemes taint all black leadership,” Kennedy wrote in his diary in 2001, adding that Sharpton is a “buffoon” who gives Kennedy “the creeps.”
Kennedy also criticized Jesse Jackson’s “desperate and destructive addiction to publicity.”
“I feel dirty around him, and I feel like I’m being used. I feel like with Jesse, it’s all about Jesse,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy also slammed, among others, current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former President George W. Bush, whom he called a “puppet.”
Kennedy had a dim view of his own “lust demons,” even while chronicling his own affairs in the diary, and congratulated himself for refraining from engaging in a “double team” with two women who “mugged” him with sexual advances. Kennedy also wrote “Victory” on days when he did not cheat on his wife, who later committed suicide.
Kennedy initially denied keeping a diary during 2001, before confirming the veracity of the diary excerpts and condemning their publication in an email exchange with the New York Post.
“The New York Post has chosen to print excerpts from a 13-year-old diary illegally stolen from me,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Post.
“The diary served as a tool for self-examination and for dealing with my spiritual struggles at the time. It also contains unedited, unfiltered stream-of-consciousness musings about current events and people.’’
“Nothing in that diary was ever meant for publication. I have nothing but respect for Governor Cuomo, Rev. Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, all of whom have distinguished themselves as extraordinary national leaders over the past decade,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy’s then-estranged wife Mary Kennedy committed suicide by hanging in 2012.