The New York Daily News reported on Friday that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is writing a book for Random House. The new volume will ostensibly “explore the health and environmental effects” of industrial farming.
Anyone speculating on where Kennedy will come down on this issue needn’t wonder for long. Kennedy, whose Waterkeeper Alliance has (unsuccessfully, so far) tried to sue America’s hog farmers out of business, has told reporters that “the best thing would be if this [pork] industry did leave the country.” He has also called American pork producers a greater threat to freedom than Osama Bin Laden, and vowed to “put an end to this industry.”
Fans of Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation will probably adore Kennedy’s planned 2004 hatchet-job. Fans of common sense and responsible journalism will recognize that Kennedy’s trying to inoculate the jury pool so that his next lawsuit will produce the big payday he’s after. Kennedy himself has estimated that legal “damages” from suing hog farmers could top $13 billion, a large chunk of which would flow into Kennedy & Madonna, his own law firm.