he just didn't like being photographed in wearing one.
The writer is obviously young. If you were there then, you understand. I worked against Kennedy for Nixon while I was a senior in high school. But even I was poleaxed when he was assassinated. Obama was consequential for being the first black president. Kennedy was the first glamorous, handsome and young one for our generation. We skipped over the generation of our parents when our grandfather, Eisenhower, left office. Suddenly we, the young, were in power. And people who agonized and remembered the second world war, turned toward the future and space. People of that time wished they could travel in Europe, especially Paris. Suddenly the news was filled with beautiful people doing exactly that. The politics was almost irrelevant compared to the excitement.
And, yes, of course he was a minor president. But present mythology is based on the mythology that was real at the time Kennedy was president. It was all fake, but the population enjoyed the story that the papers presented of this young family dominating the globe. And part of the trauma of his death wasn't him, it was the recognition of the vulnerability of our system of government. Stories of other presidents being assassinated were just stories. For the first time, we lived with the reality. And it shook our foundations.
He was also assassinated when the MSM’s grip on the public was on the rise thanks to television. I doubt that if Nixon had won and had been assassinated he would be held in the same high esteem.
I can only speculate as I wasn’t around then. But, based on people I know who met him when he would campaign in Mass, he was a rich, good looking, charismatic guy with a gorgeous wife. After 8 years of Ike the US was ready to go younger.
Then he got shot. In our living room.
It had nothing to do with accomplishments, which we can all agree on as being mediocre.
“...freed the slaves,...”, is, considering the chain link strong death grip, that the propaganda machine has on many black people, still an open question.
He was nothing more than the first "TV character president" we ever had. If it weren't for television he would have been some nobody in Massachusetts politics.
Wow, how did the writer miss that Jackie Kennedy his wife created this myth .
?
There are books written about Jackie concerned about his legacy and her kids future cleverly using the current Broadway Musical Camelot to create this myth .
ff
November 18, 2011
Excellent observation! The myth endures and always shall.
JFK put a man on the moon. Yes, he didn’t live to see it happen, but his dream and his death made it happen. All empires and nations die. And when the American empire is dead, and all our buildings and monuments are gone from war or time, we will still have been the first people to take that first step beyond our planet. That will be remembered for all time and for that JFK should always be warmly remembered.
Like Obama was the first black president, JFK was the first Catholic president. There was a lot of “identity politics” surrounding JFK. How many people had a framed picture of any other president hanging in their home? They did with JFK (before the assassination) as I am sure many did during BHO.
he just didn't like being photographed in wearing one.
He was hittin’ Marilyn Monroe.
Today’s headlines prove that this is the biggest resume’ enhancer to Democrats. Sex and power.
Kennedy was worse than mediocre.
Getting plugged was the best thing that ever happened to him as it allowed the myth of Camelot to be built around what quite likely would have been a one term wonder.
The article was written in 2011. Aren’t you guys glad someone reads the links?
The significance of his presidency is that it marks the formation of the American Oligarchy UniParty by GHWB and LBJ-with J. E. Hoover as the “glue”-keeping the “reluctant’ in line in DC It marks the commencement of a period of continuous war of America with the rest of the world. See the American University commencement address June 1963.
The American Oligargchy remains hostage to the Dallas fairytale even today. The only “question” about it all is who has the keys to the real story. And despite what they will try to tell us all-it ain’t Russia.
JFK, Conservative, by Ira Stoll
The JFK of the early 60s was to the right of the McCains and Romneys of today, both of whom I regrettably voted for. His brother Teddy and many other Catholic politicians sold their souls to the abortion lobby. I wonder where JFK would have stood. Also, had he not been assassinated, would we ever had a welfare state on the scale we do now, courtesy of Johnson’s Great Society?
The author seems young. Half of Kennedy’s cabinet was Republican and he was the quite convervative compared to today’s liberals. It was only after his death where the history was rewritten by people like Art Schlesinger to make him seems like a wild eyed liberal.
Save for the assassin’s bullet that gave him a martyr’s halo, he was a mediocre president, distinguished mainly by his combination of eloquent rhetoric and often-reckless foreign policy.
Don’t forget the “Bimbos”.
The JFK assassination marks the turning point to a culture of victimhood and sainthood ... and welfare... for victims.
Gone are the days where the hero is worshipped. Gone are the days when one is praised and rewarded for making something, for doing something, for accomplishing something.
Welcome the days we count how many micro-aggressions we have suffered. For the more we are the victim, the more we get in prestige and recognition and money.