Where's the Aura? (Without Question, The Best JFK Editorial That I Have Read This Week)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | Friday, November 21, 2003 | CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

[presidio9]

A short while ago, I chanced to be in Dallas, Texas, making a documentary film. One of the shots involved a camera angle from a big commercial tower overlooking Dealey Plaza and the former "book depository," and it was later necessary for us to take the road through the celebrated underpass. The crew I worked with was younger than I am (you may as well make that much younger) and consisted of a Chinese-Australian, an English girl brought up in Africa, a Jewish guy from Brooklyn and other elements of a cross-section. As we passed the "Grassy Knoll," and looked up at the window, and saw the cross incised in the tarmac, I was interested by their lack of much interest. The event of Nov. 22, 1963 isn't half as real to them as the moment, say, when the planes commandeered by suicide-murderers flew into the New York skyline. Nor, as I realized, is it half as real or poignant to me as the site of Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. Time has a way of assigning value.

[liberallarry]

Partisan revisionism at its best. I always thought better of Hitchens - but I guess he's as human as the rest of us.

[Mr. Bird]

Care to point out the revisions? I find nothing controversial in Hitchens' statements.

Kennedy was a tremendously flawed president. That cannot be refuted, even setting aside his "personal" problems. He was solid on the domestic front, regardless of his motivations. The civil rights movement and the notion of a little restraint on taxation were aided by his administration.

But on the foreign policy front, as Hitchens states, Kennedy often had us on a high wire without a net. One could argue that our evasion of incineration is testimony to Kennedy's talents; I would argue we were closer than ever because of his faults.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

Hitchens is absolutely correct on all counts here (although I disagree with his positions on many other subjects). The JFK myth is just that- a carefully constructed narrative, almost none of which is true. Had he not been assassinated (and I am also sure that we will never know the real story of that event), he would most likely have been defeatd in 1964 by- you guessed it- Richard Nixon. Half of this country DESPISED Kennedy and all his works- a fact which was conveniently forgotten after his death.

By the way, he would have led us down the same path in Vietnam that Johnson did- but,, being more reckless and far less astute than even that moron LBJ, he would most likely have turned it into World War III.

[presidio9]

I always thought better of Hitchens - but I guess he's as human as the rest of us.

40 years later, the truth still hurts, don't it?

[Dr. Scarpetta]

Bump

[Tares]

bump

[Monti Cello]

Was the leftist icon actually an 'unelected' President who led us into a quagmire? Oh my!

[Mr. Bird]

John Fund presents an interesting case in the OpinionJournal that Kennedy was in fact elected with less than a plurality of the popular vote. Apparently, Alabama's ballot did not list JFK's name; the option was to vote for a slate of Democrat electors.

Turns out, 5 of those electors cast their votes for another candidate. If a proportionate number of votes were assigned to that candidate, the final vote tally would have shown Nixon with approximately 50,000 more votes nationally than JFK.

Don't tell the Democrats, though.

[presidio9]

You forgot to point out how his screw-up on the naval craft his father bought for him, which cost three men their lives, was spun into a "based on a true story" novel chronicaling his "heroism." BTW, Joe Kenneddy picked a PT boat because they were statistically one of the safeest combat deployments a member of the armed forces could have in WW II.

[liberallarry]

Every President is tremendously flawed - as is every human being. That's why we can still argue about the wisdom of decisions made not just 40 years ago, but a 100 or 200 years ago.

Kennedy, like all other Presidents, faced intense criticism from both the right and the left, which limited his options. That's where Hitchens fails; he doesn't remember and doesn't describe context.

[liberallarry]

the truth still hurts

As far as I can tell, you have no capacity to recognize truth.

[presidio9]

If a proportionate number of votes were assigned to that candidate, the final vote tally would have shown Nixon with approximately 50,000 more votes nationally than JFK.

Help help! We've been disenfranchised. How do I get my franchise back?

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

"DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM"

But I'll make an exception for Kennedy (and Johnson, another scumbag who ran a corrupt and disastrous Administration).

[Peach]

Bump

[Wright is right!]

"Kennedy was a tremendously flawed president. That cannot be refuted, even setting aside his "personal" problems."

John F. Kennedy was a moment in time, an image that could only last with his passing, a man who, sans any bullets fired in Dallas, would not have lived long regardless. Had he served out his term(s), he might have led us into better domestic and worse foreign policies; he most certainly would have become merely a fairly decent President.

What is remarkable about the man is what everyone in popdom and the media continues to project into his dead image, the constant striving of the media to concoct an American Royalty where none need exist. Indeed, what is remarkable about JFK is that the frozen image of him and the controversy of his death have far outlived anything remarkable about the man himself.

A pretty-boy President with mammoth health problems and some shady connections slain slightly before his time becomes a legend in the idle minds of those who know too much and think too much of themselves to tell what they know.

It's truly a shame he was assassinated. Had he lived, the Kennedy "mystique" would have withered long before now and Teddy would...well, we won't go there. But he wouldn't be what he is today.

Michael

[liberallarry]

Joe Kenneddy picked a PT boat because they were statistically one of the safeest combat deployments a member of the armed forces could have in WW II

Joe Kennedy lost a son in combat.

John Kennedy could easily have obtained a 4-F excuse from all combat...based on his well-known medical problems. That he didn't is a testament to his courage...and is in marked contrast to the behavior of many others - well-known to us all - who chose not to expose themselves to danger even though their problems were far less serious.

As I said in the previous post - you have no idea at all about truth.

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

" he doesn't remember and doesn't describe context."

Funny, that's what I say about all of you JFK-worshipping liberals.

[presidio9]

As far as I can tell, you have no capacity to recognize truth.

I have an idea why don't you point out some of the inconsistencies in the article instead of simply saying "This story sucks because I am a liberal and I don't agree with it."

And the "Kennedy was a man and all men are mortal" cop-out does not count. The author accepts the flaws of other presidents. His completely accurate point is that, lacking a more deserving icon, liberals have built up Kennedy to be something he was not. And it irritates the hell out of you. Good.

[MissAmericanPie]

Oh please, Kennedy, the entire Kennedy clan, was a pox on this nation, not to mention a pox on Cuban freedom fighters. That crummy family of rapists and murderer's is still a pox on this nation and have committed incalculable harm against America.