WHEN my brother Michael was a Senate page, he delivered mail to John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who had offices across the hall from each other.
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Good gosh, Mo must be old.
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He recalled that Kennedy never looked up or acknowledged his presence, but Nixon would greet him with a huge smile. “Hi, Mike,” he’d say. “How are you doing? How’s the family?”
It seemed a bit counterintuitive, especially since my dad, a D.C. police inspector in charge of Senate security, was a huge Kennedy booster. (The two prominent pictures in our house were of the Mona Lisa and J.F.K.) But after puzzling over it, I finally decided that J.F.K. had the sort of magnetism that could ensorcell big crowds, so he did not need to squander it on mail boys. Nixon, on the other hand, lacked large-scale magnetism, so he needed to work hard to charm people one by one, even mail boys.
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Or it could be that JFK was a phony and Nixon was a much nicer person.
You didn’t know Mo so old she knew Moses LOL!
She still tick off that Moses didn’t take her bar mitazh LOL!
I think it was Penn of Penn & Teller who spoke about how Nixon, right before he made his resignation speech, was sitting there, just chatting with his aides, the cameraman, etc. A genuine mensch, even though he was about to make his historic announcement, still was great one-on-one.
It doesn't surprise me in the least that a liberal like Kennedy wouldn't deign to be charming, unless there was some kind of "gain" in it.
Maybe it's a liberal trait.
I've never heard anyone say that Al Franken is anything but an a$$hole. Even before he was famous, or a Senator.
But I have heard that for as crooked as Bill Clinton is, that he is very charming in person. To everyone.