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Of all the U.S. presidents to mythologize, why pick JFK?
The Globe and Mail ^ | Jeet Heer

Posted on 11/21/2017 2:34:13 AM PST by mairdie

As the books' sales show, a large and receptive public likewise continues to worship at the shrine of JFK. Polls show that the U.S. public ranks Mr. Kennedy as among the greatest of American presidents, often in the same league as Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Rarely is popular mythology so completely disengaged from historical reality.

To place Mr. Kennedy in the same pantheon as Lincoln and Roosevelt is absurd. Lincoln presided over the Civil War and freed the slaves, Roosevelt laid the foundations for the American welfare state and led a reluctant nation into the Second World War.

Mr. Kennedy had no comparable achievements. 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.

Curiously, the cult of Kennedy is particularly strong in liberal circles, even though he was among the most conservative Democrats ever to be president. One character in 11/22/63 says that stopping Lee Harvey Oswald's great crime is a chance to "save Kennedy, save his brother. Save Martin Luther King. Stop the race riots. Stop Vietnam, maybe."

Not likely, actually: The son of an isolationist, Mr. Kennedy came of age politically in the late 1940s, when the tide of Cold War sentiment was at its highest. His father was close friends with Joseph McCarthy, and unlike other Democrats JFK never turned against the blacklisting senator. Indeed, like that famed demagogue, he consistently derided any attempts to negotiate with the Soviet Union or China as evidence of appeasement and unmanliness. ...

(Excerpt) Read more at theglobeandmail.com ...


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: jackkennedy; johnfkennedy; kennedy
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Couldn't find a publication date, but probably current.

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.

1 posted on 11/21/2017 2:34:13 AM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

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.


2 posted on 11/21/2017 2:37:35 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

The MSM and their liberal adoration of Kennedy was central. With his death, they had a hollywood type story to dominate the future. And don’t forget the historians who peppered his administration. The MSM would have turned Nixon’s death into a morality play showing why Nixon should never have been elected.


3 posted on 11/21/2017 2:41:27 AM PST by mairdie
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To: mairdie

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.


4 posted on 11/21/2017 2:42:43 AM PST by Vermont Lt (Burn. It. Down.)
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To: mairdie

“...freed the slaves,...”, is, considering the chain link strong death grip, that the propaganda machine has on many black people, still an open question.


5 posted on 11/21/2017 2:42:45 AM PST by Bogie
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To: mairdie
He's asking the question rhetorically, and he's absolutely correct. By any objective measure, JFK was a mediocre president at best.

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.

6 posted on 11/21/2017 2:53:37 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Tell them to stand!" -- President Trump, 9/23/2017)
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To: mairdie

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 .


7 posted on 11/21/2017 2:56:30 AM PST by ncalburt (l)
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To: Alberta's Child

Yes, and I recall reading the story in which Don Hewitt, who produced the Nixon-Kennedy TV debate in 1960, got away with making Kennedy look poised and polished and Nixon look very much the opposite. And also the comment from a friend of Nixon’s who thought Dick sounded fine over the radio, but this friend apparently did not watch the spectacle on TV.


8 posted on 11/21/2017 2:58:18 AM PST by OttawaFreeper ("If I had to go to war again, I'd bring lacrosse players" Conn Smythe)
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To: mairdie
Interesting question.

ff

9 posted on 11/21/2017 3:15:49 AM PST by foreverfree
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To: foreverfree
I was 2 and 1/4 yo when JFK was shot. He is the last POTUS I don't remember being in office (LBJ [born on 8/27 like me] I remember vaguely being in office, very vaguely)

ff

10 posted on 11/21/2017 3:18:38 AM PST by foreverfree
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To: mairdie

November 18, 2011


11 posted on 11/21/2017 3:22:51 AM PST by iowamark
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To: mairdie

Excellent observation! The myth endures and always shall.


12 posted on 11/21/2017 3:30:02 AM PST by Theodore R. (Let's not squander the golden opportunity of 2017.)
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To: mairdie

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.


13 posted on 11/21/2017 3:30:43 AM PST by JohnyBoy (The GOP Senate is intentionally trying to lose the majority.)
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To: mairdie

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.


14 posted on 11/21/2017 3:35:32 AM PST by Abby4116
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To: mairdie
Everything about the guy is a media fabrication, even the myth of him killing the men's hat indstury. Kennedy wore hats . . .

he just didn't like being photographed in wearing one.

15 posted on 11/21/2017 3:39:05 AM PST by Oratam ("Let justice be done tho' the heavens fall.")
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To: Abby4116

Some black co-workers put up Obama pictures after he was elected - and within a year they were all gone. They realized he wasn’t going to pay their rent or buy their gas, and were quite disillusioned. Obama was much more significant for white libs than blacks; that is why Black Lies Matter started during his presidency.


16 posted on 11/21/2017 3:41:33 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: mairdie

He was hittin’ Marilyn Monroe.

Today’s headlines prove that this is the biggest resume’ enhancer to Democrats. Sex and power.


17 posted on 11/21/2017 3:42:16 AM PST by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey playoffs season!)
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To: Vermont Lt

He and his brother Robert were screwing anything female on two legs.


18 posted on 11/21/2017 3:43:02 AM PST by wetgundog (Mainstream Media, Lying Liars Lying.)
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To: mairdie

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.


19 posted on 11/21/2017 3:46:24 AM PST by Arm_Bears (Rope. Tree. Politician/Journalist. Some assembly required.)
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To: mairdie

The MSM and their liberal adoration of Kennedy was central. With his death, they had a hollywood type story to dominate the future. And don’t forget the historians who peppered his administration. The MSM would have turned Nixon’s death into a morality play showing why Nixon should never have been elected.


Exactly. Kennedy was a media created president, maybe the first one. It showed the media their power, and they used his assassination as a bludgeon to enact their desired socialist revolution.

We would never have had Lyndon Banes Johnson and all the failed “Great Society” programs without the assassination of John Kennedy. It was one of the biggest “Overton Windows” or “Crisis not gone to waste” of all time.


20 posted on 11/21/2017 3:47:58 AM PST by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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