Adultery was his thing Harry Mount reviews John F. Kennedy by Robert Dallek

the Telegraph ^ | 31 Aug 2003 | Harry Mount

[RC one]

We all know that JFK was a ladies' man but it's never boring to remind ourselves quite how many ladies the man had, continuously - he told Harold Macmillan he got a headache if he didn't go to bed with someone once every three days - and from a young age.

Here he is at 19, writing to a friend about how his father's private secretary had, on a holiday in Cape Cod, "got us some girls thru another guy - four of us had dates and one guy got f---ed 3 times, another guy 3 times (the girl a virgin!) plus myself twice."

After he married, the compulsion for quick, random sex continued unabated. A woman friend said he was as "compulsive as Mussolini. Up against the wall, Signora, if you have five minutes, that sort of thing." Another woman he dated just before he became president was told, "I wish we had time for some foreplay."

[AD from SpringBay]

Ahh - Camelot, American royality, liberal wet-dreams, so on, and so forth.

[nathanbedford]

John F. Kennedy, the myth, stands as one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated on any culture in modern times. We conservatives ought to step back and look at the history of the Kennedy myth to learn the lessons to save us from the electoral damage caused by the utterly predictable mythologizing of leftist candidates and the equally predictable demonizing of conservative candidates.

I am referring for these purposes not so much to the sentimental inflation of his reputation after his assassination but to the carefully contrived myth which got Kennedy elected and would likely have gotten him reelected in 1964. By the time of his assassination, John F. Kennedy was a drug addict, a sex addict and terminally ill. None of this was made known to the American people yet much of it was current among intimate members of the elite media.

The parallels to the election of Barack Obama are so obvious that they do not need to be recounted here. Essentially Barack Obama's radical Marxist/terrorist associations would have debarred him from the presidency had they become generally known. This knowledge was not nearly as closely guarded as Kennedy's liabilities, they were known to the conservative media and in the blogosphere and well-known, of course, on FreeRepublic. Yet, the elite media spiked any investigation into the radical associations of Barack Obama.

In other words, the media engaged in the hagiography of Barack Obama just as they had mythologized John F. Kennedy. Except in the case of Barack Obama the media could no longer plead ignorance of the facts, they were known to those who sought them out. The media, unable to plead ignorance, is guilty of willfully slanting coverage to advance a candidate. At best they did so believing that they were making history by supporting the first black president, more likely that rationalization is but an excuse enabling them once again to push the country to the left.

If in 1960 the elite media believed that it was advancing the first Roman Catholic president while saving America from a demagogue named Richard Nixon, it is clear that the media ever since has arrogated unto itself the God-playing moral right to determine what is best for America and the power to feed America the myths calculated to manipulate the electorate.

We conservatives must understand that we have been the victims of this scenario time after time after time. The treatment of Martin Luther King Jr. is but one more illustration of the rule.

In this context the significance of Newt Gingrich's stunning victory in South Carolina becomes plain: Republicans, at least, do in fact understand how they have been victimized in this process and they are not going to stand for any longer. I can recall in the run-up to the 2008 election screaming on these threads that John McCain was certainly destined to lose the election if he did not morally destroy Barak Obama. As we know, McCain did not even attempt to do so.

Now Gingrich has done so. He has done so brilliantly and in a stroke he has catapulted himself to the head of the pack. He has done so by attacking the mythologizing and demonizing excesses of the elite media. That alone is a sweet irony.

But there is a greater irony here, Gingrich has done so as the man who stands in the shoes of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Junior, Robert Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson all of whom have been mythologized by an elite media which ignored their sexual peccadilloes. The media has certainly not ignored Gingrich's shortcomings but they have been prevented from driving him from the field.

It is a sign of Gingrich's political genius that he has converted this liability into a masterstroke.

To those conservatives who have doubts about Gingrich's ability to beat Obama take note of the fact that he just beat the combined efforts of the Republican establishment and the Democrat media in a stroke. You are not dealing with a candidate who will campaign back on his heels defending his "baggage." You are dealing with a candidate who can do, and will do, what John McCain could not do, or would not do.

You are looking at a candidate who just kicked over the table and declared that the game will not be dictated by any establishment. He will set the rules of the game which he can win.

While we ponder this sweet irony and the power it implies to win the election, we might also consider why Gingrich is the only choice for someone who will actually kick over the table and really restore our Constitution and our government to us.

[nesnah]

“...we might also consider why Gingrich is the only choice for someone who will actually kick over the table and really restore our Constitution and our government to us...”

---

Gingrich is succeeding because he has very clearly demonstrated he’s the only one of the pack ready to bare-knuckle brawl with Obama and his sycophant media minions.

[AU72]

I’d like to know what kind of sex he had with a back problem so bad he had to have it braced up so much that when he got shot in the neck in Dallas he couldn’t duck down to avoid the coup de grace.

[marktwain]

Excellent post! I wish that I had written it, but I am glad you did!

[MHGinTN]

Great writing! Thanks for sharing your insights.

[Vaduz]

It’s because it was what the women were worth.

[Bigg Red]

Brilliant,sir. But I have one disagreement:

At best they did so believing that they were making history by supporting the first black president, more likely that rationalization is but an excuse enabling them once again to push the country to the left.

***
Beyond a desire to push the country to the left, many of the progressive elites are overcome with a fervent fantasy of collapsing the republic and are counting on BHO to now complete the process that he has begun so well.

[Bigg Red]

I agree with you on nearly everything you have said on this thread.

I would much prefer to vote for someone who has shown more moral rectitude, but, unfortunately, I will feel compelled to vote for Gingrich in the general because the alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.

[Savage Beast]

Wait now...tell me once again... What were they saying about an open marriage?

[kabumpo]

According to what I have read, standing up against a wall and in a bathtub.

[Mr Rogers]

“So that’s our standard now—a democrat did it, so what’s the big problem?”

Nope. But I don’t believe the Newt of the 80s is the Newt of the 2110s. I think a man who converts in his 60s, and who knows he probably has 15-20 years of life left, and perhaps 10 in which he can make a serious difference, thinks differently than a man in his 40s.

[metesky]

The verdicts Dallek returns on those decisions are the conventional ones: Bay of Pigs - unmitigated disaster;

Correct. Stabbed the men on shore right in the back.

civil rights - cautious progress, which wasn't surprising in a man who had only met blacks as chauffeurs or valets;

Saint Jack was dragged kicking and screaming to the civil rights movement. His brother and Hoover were set to put the political shiv to MLK before Papa Joe discovered the benifits of being on the right side of history.

domestic reform initiatives - limited, because none of them became law, although several came to fruition under Lyndon Johnson;

Yeah, thanks Lyndon you POS.

Vietnam - not his fault;

Bwahaha!

handling of the Cuban missile crisis and US-Russia relations - masterly;

Pure BS! We had tactical nukes in Turkey and Saint Jack made a deal to remove them in return for the Ruskies taking theirs out of Cuba. IOW, we had the middle east and the Russians surrounded fifty years ago.

his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech and the inauguration address ("Ask not what your country can do for you…") - triumphs.

"Ask not..." one of the great socialist statements of our time.

Funny how these authors and historians keep finding their myth still basically intact.

Phooey!

[StAnDeliver]

"I’ll tell you what depresses me, that we’re 15 trillion dollars in debt, mired in high inflation and unemployment, falling into a socialist abyss, and rapidly declining as a nation yet we’re all talking about adultery like it’s even an issue."

Yeah, I remember 1992 too...

[BwanaNdege]

From the article:

“if he hadn’t been wearing the brace for his bad back which meant he couldn’t duck by the time of the third and fatal shot, it’s unlikely that any of us would be much interested in the B-movie politician with the A-movie looks.”

[BwanaNdege]

From the article:

“if he hadn’t been wearing the brace for his bad back which meant he couldn’t duck by the time of the third and fatal shot, it’s unlikely that any of us would be much interested in the B-movie politician with the A-movie looks.”

[blueunicorn6]

Evidently Camelot was really came-a-lot.

[M1903A1]

"I am referring for these purposes not so much to the sentimental inflation of his reputation after his assassination but to the carefully contrived myth which got Kennedy elected and would likely have gotten him reelected in 1964."

Would he really? From reading about the events of November 1963, I get the impression that he was rapidly losing support in key circles...indeed, that the whole reason he had gone to Dallas was because he was in serious danger of losing Texas.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

To me, Romney’s sins are much greater than anything Newt Gingrich has ever done. If you’re pushing Mitt Romney based on morality you’re in the wrong place.

[nathanbedford]

The difficulty in Texas was an inner family quarrel in the Democrat party. He still had Lyndon Johnson to deliver the state. He was a president riding an upswing in the economy, enjoying all of the advantages incident to incumbency and his reputation had been greatly enhanced by the Cuban missile crisis.

I doubt if he would've had a serious problem being reelected in the normal course. In the context of this discussion, the normal course was an election structured by a complaisant media