I feel like The Grinch

Bobby is simply not a good movie. It's sincere and earnest, but not good.

This makes me sad because I really wanted to like it. The theater was packed and the audience ranged in age from about 25 to retirement. I wanted all these people to like it, too. I wanted Bobby Kennedy's message of hope and compassion and courage to reach as many people as possible. I'm not sure it will. Instead I fear audiences will be distracted by Ashton Kutcher's and Emilio Estevez' faux facial hair, Helen Hunt's fake tan and Demi Moore's awe-inspiring fall.

Bobby Kennedy was so important because he showed that politicians have the capacity to change and grow into statesmen. It's as though once his heart was irreparably broken by his brother's assassination, that same heart also opened to include others who were suffering, too. It also gave him the courage to take on a sitting President, the leader of his own party, while the country was at war. Watch the Republicans dance around George W. Bush today if you don't think that took courage.

The movie ends with a long, uninterrupted voiceover by Bobby himself. That was my favorite part. A shy, awkward public speaker, his diffidence added to his sincerity. It made me happy to see no one slipping into their jackets or heading toward the exits while he explained his vision for what we could be. There was also news footage of Bobby talking about all the things we aren't spending money on (environment, education, eradicating hunger here in the US) when we're spending money on an unpopular war abroad. I hope everyone who sees this movie listens, and that they hear.

It was on again this morning

MSNBC reran their documentary on Betty Broderick. That dame still makes my blood boil, even after all these years.

For the uninitiated, Betty is serving time for killing her husband and his new wife. Before dawn on a Sunday morning. As they slept. In their own bed. Betty stole her oldest daughter's keys to Daddy's house, went up the stairs, and plugged them. She then ripped the phone out of her bleeding ex's hand so he couldn't call for help.

Betty likes to portray herself as a feminist icon of some sort. Her husband left her for a younger woman. She felt that she was "gypped" in the settlement. She was upset that she had worked him through college and supported him through the lean years. She was angry, angry, angry.

Poor Betty. Life sucks, don't it? What she fails to mention is that she abandoned their four children on her exhusband's doorstep one night when he wasn't even there. That's perilous, bad mothering even in the best neighborhoods. It was then that he took custody. Even after their separation he continued to pay her credit card bills. For five years (the time it took Dan to be legally rid of this shrew), she drove her Suburban through his front door, left obscene messages on his answering machine (which she knew would be heard by her young sons), broke into their home and vandalized it, as they planned their wedding she stole the bride's guest list from a desk drawer.

Ah yes, the bride. That was Linda Kolkena. After only 7 months of marriage, she was murdered in cold blood while she slept in her own bed. She was only 28 years old. I've included her photos here, not Betty's, because Linda is the one who lost her life.

We live in a nation of laws. Betty broke them. Lots of them. She is a murderer. She killed the father of her children and their new stepmother. She left those children with no one because she couldn't control her rage. And somehow she thinks we women should support her.

There are mothers right here in the Chicagoland area who are raising children without the financial support of the fathers. These women not only don't get $9,000 each month in child support, they often find themselves at the business end of a fist. These women deserve my compassion and support. Not that blowzy old narcissist in California who is right where she should be, behind bars.

And for Linda Kolkena, whose life was stolen just as it was beginning, I say a little prayer.