On November 22nd . . . Reflections About John Kennedy

[SoDesuKa]

Nobody since John F. Kennedy has approached him in the hold he had on the American people. The people who'd hated him before he was elected still hated him, a number that includes people on the left who distrusted Kennedy's friendship with Joseph McCarthy. But everybody else loved him.

The Kennedy White House wasn't like any other. Not only was Jacqueline Kennedy a very graceful figure among first ladies, the Kennedys hosted cultural events like Pablo Casals playing the cello. Kennedy had also invited Robert Frost to read at his inauguration. JFK had been a child in London while his father was the American Ambassador to England, and he was strikingly comfortable in formal situations.

Lyndon Johnson, a former school teacher, resented being characterized as some kind of buffoon from the provinces. It may have been LBJ's sense of social inferiority that made him refuse to quit Vietnam without a victory. It's unknown how Kennedy himself would have proceeded with the war. We don't know whether he would have ordered a massive escalation of the war the way Johnson did.

There has not been a president since Kennedy who has come close to him in the feelings of affection people had for him. That may have been a consequence of the assassination itself; or possibly that presidents since Kennedy have made sure they didn't approach mythical stature. I read that John Hinckley, Reagan's would-be assassin, said he'd thought about shooting Carter but couldn't work up the enthusiasm.

Kennedy held a full-scale press conference every week, and he was always on top of the news. He always gave good answers and didn't rely on press agents to cover his tracks after he'd said something stupid. Clinton was also good that way, but idiot Bush needed a secret radio transmitter to appear in a debate with John Kerry.

Is it possible that a whole generation can suffer something akin to PTSD as the result of a popular president being murdered out in public the way Kennedy died? There were people who lost all interest in politics on November 22, 1963. It resembles the way certain trauma victims repress memories of the event. Some New Yorkers refused to glance even in the direction of the World Trade Center after September 11th.



Everybody loved John Kennedy.

On edit: Corrected typo.

[polmaven]

1. 48 years later,

and this country still misses him. RIP Mr. President!

[SoDesuKa]

2. Kennedy Would Have Been 94 Years Old Today

JFK had Addison's disease, which is said not to affect life expectancy among adults. Still, surviving till 94 with adrenal insufficiency would show remarkable resiliency.