Well, this weekend in Texas, once again, a messenger arrived from the secret filthy heart of America.

Those words were used 55 years ago to describe the man who shot and killed Bobby Kennedy.

Senator Robert Kennedy was that rare kind of presidential candidate in 1968 who was loved,

not just by millions of people who were eager to vote for him, but by some of the toughest

New York reporters who covered the junior senator from New York.

None of those reporters were tougher than Pete Hamill, and no one was more angry and bitter and

disgusted. After Bobby Kennedy, like his brother before him, was assassinated. Pete Hamill was there

in the ambassador hotel in Los Angeles that night, almost within reach of Bobby Kennedy when he was

shot. I turn to Pete Hamill's reporting of that night sometimes after America's latest mass murder,

because I hope that Pete Hamill's rage and bitterness will somehow reduce mine so that I can report

on America's latest mass murder with some level of professional restraint. But my problem is that

professional restraint is not a quality that I admire in reporting on these stories. I hate

everything about what happened at that mall in Texas this weekend, and the thing I hate the most

is the predictability. It will happen again. We know that. Texans know that, and Texan,

Texas politicians are promising that it will happen again. And the way they promise that it will

happen again is to pray that it doesn't. The governor of Texas today promised to do absolutely

nothing in response to the latest mass murder in his state. But Texans have chosen this way of death

for Texans with their votes. A majority of Texans have voted for a governor and for Lieutenant

Governor and for two United States senators who have done everything they possibly can and will

continue to do everything they possibly can to make sure that Texas mass murders are the very best

equipped mass murderers in the world. I can only wonder what Pete Hamill would say about the

governor of Texas if Pete Hamill were still with us. Pete Hamill was never fooled by politicians' words.

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