Which recent Presidential death were you most saddened by?

[elperromagico]

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

1. Nixon and Reagan are the only ones I can remember

though LBJ and one other did die in my lifetime. I was very very young, though.

So I guess I'd have to say none.

JFK and MLK Jr both died before I was born, but I have cried about both of their deaths.

[Bluzmann57]

2. JFK

I was only 6 years old when it happened, but I will never forget my mom sitting in stunned silence in front of the TV while my then 2 year old sister was crying her eyes out. Mom and Dad sat me down and tried to explain to an unaware 6 year old what was happening and what it meant. Very sad and very earthshaking.

[Sinistrous]

3. Kennedy.

I was in college at the time. In Boston, no less. I admired him so much, and was devastated at his death. I felt as though I had lost a brother.

[ashling]

5. I was 11 when JFK died

I can remember sitting in Miss. Reid's social studies class when they put the radio over the loud speaker. Like most of the kids I was shocked. Some were crying, one girl sat with her mouth open for must have been 10 minutes.

When I got home my mom was crying. We were all extremely sad.

I remember watching the funeral on our old Black & White TV.

I remember being in Mississippi later that month for thanksgiving with relatives and the flag at the Post Office in Philadelphia was at full staff. My father was mad as hell at that.

I was saddened by Truman and LBJs deaths as well.

[Nikia]

15. My dad was the same age

He said that it was very tragic for him and is still is affected by it emotionally. My father has gone more conservative, but he admired his childhood president and was affected by this death.

[Oddman]

4. Why does the CNN website include Reagan

in their best presidents of all time poll?

He was much closer to the bottom than the top . . .

[elperromagico]

10. He was, at best, an average President.

And for the record, Reagan placed third in that poll, behind Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Even in death, he can't beat Abe and FDR.

[jpgray]

20. Because he was depressingly popular

There could not be a more devastating critique of our society than the fact of Reagan's immense popularity. :(

[Oddman]

27. Isn't that the truth!!

People have an incredible knack for deluding themselves and blinding themselves to reality. Likability does not equal ability. People are too lazy to hear the truth about someone.

[CalebHayes]

6. I dare someone to vote for Nixon

[name not needed]

9. okay!

:P


I voted for none of the above because I was born in 1988, after most of these deaths. I don't remember Nixon's and I was indifferent to Reagan.

[Marymarg]

7. John Kennedy

I absolutely adored him and the whole Kennedy family.

About 2 weeks before the assassination, I asked my mother about FDR's death and realized (as much as I could) how sad that must have been. When JFK was killed, I saw just how awful it was. And, to add to the tragedy was the fact that it happened here, in my state of Texas.

JFK's assassination was a life-changing event, even for a 15 year old. Our collective innocence (whatever we had) was gone forever.

[elperromagico]

8. The poll results thus far are very revealing.

The Presidents who have died in the last 40 years (Hoover-Reagan) were all advanced in age, with the exception of LBJ, and it was clear that he left office in less than stellar health. Two of those Presidents (Hoover and Reagan) were in their nineties, and two (Truman and Nixon) were in their eighties. Ike was in his late seventies.

The one which saddens most of us is JFK's assassination. Why? Because it was a shock. Here was a young and (at least outwardly) healthy President, struck down in his mid forties. We have had time to prepare for the deaths of other Presidents, who were elderly. But JFK had so much potential.

[aljones]

11. JFK, although I was not yet alive!!

I still cry when I see programs on the history channel or such about his life and death.

[CalebHayes]

16. same here

[wellstone dem]

12. JFK

I was 7. My folks bought our first tv, b+w so that we could watch.

I was in school in line to go to the bathroom when a fellow student said his Dad had called and said the President was shot. We all called the kid a liar.

[are_we_united_yet]

13. George Washington

I was pretty choked up when it happened.

[elperromagico]

14. You were holding out hope that the leeches would do their job?

n/t

[ronnykmarshall]

18. I was shocked!

I had just seen him on TV the week before.

[ronnykmarshall]

17. JFK

Even though I was only 2 when he died. I can watch old news footage from it and cry.

I do recall crying when Bobby Kennedy died and was very confused when Dr. King died. Since the papers refered to him as "King", I thought he was our King. In way I was right.

[Cooley Hurd]

19. Born in '65, the only ones I remember feeling sad about were...

Truman's and Johnson's funerals (at the time of their deaths, that is). Overall, JFK's assassination saddens me the most. I really don't believe he would've allowed us to get further into Vietnam - that he would've knew exactly when to cut and run, and told the JCS and McNamara to stuff it (much like he did during the Cuban missile crisis). And, if Bobby lived, he might've been President for another eight years beyond that.

What might've been...:(

[Minstrel Boy]

21. I was four when JFK was killed, and I cried all weekend because

my favourite cartoons were pre-empted.

I've since learned better reasons to be distraught at his murder.

I can't hear a word from his American University Speech without it choking me up.

"What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war...."

Damn it, that was a President, and that was an America worth mourning.

[union_maid]

22. JFK for sure

It was truly a national tragedy and we were involved with the Kennedy's in a way that doesn't happen too often with Presidents. There was a little cartoon book about Caroline, I recall. Wish I still had it. That would be quite a collectible. It was really the end of innocence for people of my generation, too. I know I kept expecting an announcement that he was going to make it - they didn't announce his death for a bit. When they did, we knew for sure that Bad Things really did happen and the good guys didn't always win.

I felt surprisingly sad at Nixon's death, though. It was more of not having Tricky Dicky to kick around anymore and that it was the end of an era than anything else in that case.

[salin]

23. None that I can recall.

was too young to know/recall Johnson.

Not saddened or elated just completely ambivalent about both Nixon and Reagan. Both were far past their presidencies, both were "rehabilitated" by image makers by the time of their death (suddenly Nixon was a great Statesman... with little said about having been impeached). In each case their death has little impact upon anything - they are long since out of a place of influence. I feel strongly about the damage that each of these presidents wrought upon this country - but as to their death... just didn't feel much of anything.

[Carolina]

24. JFK was so special

I grew up in DC and went past the White House everyday going to elementary school. JFK inspired people, inspired them to do GOOD. His time in office was so full of hope.

I was 10 when he died and you could feel a palpable change in the city, the nation. I remember everything about those 4 dark days in November: the misty rain that Friday evening and the North Portico entrance draped in black ... the bone chilling cold on Sunday and the quiet stunned faces of the crowd circling Lincoln Park en route to view the body in the Capitol rotunda ... the crisp, clear sunny Monday of the funeral and that cadence of the drums ... Seeing adults, family members and strangers, cry openly for the first time.

It wasn't just that the president was young and died suddenly. It was that more than a person died on Friday, November 22, 1963. And the impact of that loss still looms large today.

[VOX]

25. Other -- not a president, but almost certain to become one: Bobby Kennedy

As monumental a tragedy as the murder of JFK was, there was something about the murder of Bobby Kennedy that was even more devastating. So much was riding on his candidacy -- he had earned enough delegates to be the Democratic nominee in 1968 -- and could have certainly gone on to beat Richard Nixon.

It was as if all remaining hope died with Bobby, and our nation took a right turn almost at that moment, and it has been on that course ever since.

Had Bobby lived to become president, our nation -- the world, even -- might have been such a better place than it is today.

[greatauntoftriplets]

26. Who to hell voted for Nixon and Reagan?

:wtf:

[Solidarity]

28. Abe

Abe Lincoln. Just a second .... I'm old but not that old.