The Second Fall Of Camelot (There NEVER was a first!)

This week marks the 47th anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination which took place barely two years into his first term.

The myth of a fallen Camelot created in the wake of his murder fed the illusion that America had lost out on a chance at ennobling itself and solving all its social ills. Yet had he lived, his real legacy would likely have been that of LBJ, blamed for disastrous social and military policies, and disavowed by the same young liberals who had once embraced him.

As the second coming of JFK, Barack Hussein Obama has no Camelot to escape to. His myth has been broken, not by a bullet, but by reality. Nor can his supporters take refuge in the imaginary wonderland that might have been. Because there is no wonderland. No world in which we were ennobled and uplifted to be better people. Just the grim reality of defeat abroad and economic disaster at home. And that second fall of Camelot is the one that hurts the most.

With JFK, liberals were able to reinvent the New Deal, not as a paternalistic Big Brother response to an economic crisis, but as the New Frontier of progressive striving. If the New Deal was materialistic, the New Frontier was idealistic. It did not foist government intervention on us in order to feed and clothe us, but to make us better people. To turn America into the country that it was "meant to be".

Hope and Change tried to combine both themes, with Hope reflecting the New Frontier's plan to transform American society into a beacon of social justice, and Change gesturing to the New Deal's economic controls and crisis management. But that only made it an awkward fit. Obama talked Hope and practiced Change, but unlike the New Deal it was a change disconnected from the economic concerns of ordinary Americans. And Obama's own borrowed JFK mythology only made him seem more distant from those concerns.

Like JFK, Obama was a glamorous myth with a seedy truth hiding underneath. A shiny new car with mud on its wheels and far worse on the undercarriage. We already know some of it now. We will likely have to wait decades to learn all of it. But it paradoxically that very seediness that seems to give rise to myth. JFK, Clinton and Obama were horrifyingly corrupt in their personal lives and their political associations. Yet they were able to wear a glamor of youthful idealism and promise a new and better era convincingly enough for large numbers of people in America and across the world to believe them. And believe in them.

With the passing of time, that glamor fades. It winks out and it becomes hard to even understand the appeal. Seen across the march of time, they seem tired and insincere. Matchstick men waiting for the night to come. Moths drawn to the flame of fame. Con men messiahs performing for an audience that they fear is always on the verge of getting bored with their tricks.

And so they juggle more balls, recite more speeches and draw more imaginary cloaks across their naked bodies, hoping to delay that final terrible moment when even a child will know enough to cry out, "The emperor is naked."

JFK never witnessed that moment come in his lifetime. The grave and the myths that haloed over his resting place kept some of it at bay. But even in life, he had to know that moment was coming. With death, LBJ implemented his policies with the savvy streak of a born dealmaker, but without the charm. JFK went down in history as the idealistic martyr and LBJ as the ugly car salesman, the man who finally gave liberals what they wanted, and nearly torched the country doing it.

And it is the martyred idealists that liberals love to remember. That is why Obama will always be a hero to them, a martyr not to a bullet, but to his moral superiority to the American peasant who shops at Wal-Mart and clings to his shotgun and his bible. "He was too good for us", is the myth that liberals have already drawn like a long white cloak over the second fall of Camelot. What they really mean is, "He was too good for them."

The blame will fall on Rahm or Biden, on Hillary Clinton and Timothy Geithner, and all the other wonks, nerds, yes men and hit men, the LBJ's around Obama who actually did all the dirty work of policymaking, but weren't nearly as good at inspiring liberal college students to feel like they could do anything-- even with a Philosophy major. Of course a good deal of the blame will also fall on the Republicans. The ignorant and superstitious lot, rallying the peasants to torch Frankenstein's tower. And whose fault was it really, that behind that easy smile, the good doctor had given his Monster in Chief, a criminal's brain.

Time marches on and men such as these are merely the avatars of policies. It is easier to sell America on a man, than on a policy. Especially when the policies are written up in bills thousands of pages long that no one can actually read. It is easier to put forward a man, to cozen the public with yet another progressive messiah, another fresh face of socialism to paste over the moldy halls of bureaucracy behind his policies. And both parties need their image men. Their political avatars.

For Democrats, the messiah is the college student frozen in time, idealistic without being judgmental, cool and self-aware enough to be a peer, but vulnerable enough to echo their inner child. He enjoys traveling to foreign countries and reading all the right books. He is pretentiously unpretentious and sophomorically inspirational.

He speaks so well that no one notices that he knows not what he speaks of. This is the mold from which JFK, Clinton and Obama were cast.

On the Republican side, he is a cowboy, or looks and sounds like one anyway. He's outdoorsy, folksy and more at home on a ranch, than in the White House. It may all be theater, but it's usually good theater. The cowboy who speaks imperfectly but sincerely, who is rough but honest, who values the open frontier, more than the rulebook, who is reluctant to fight but knows when to reach for a rifle, and how to use it-- that is the mold of a Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush or a Sarah Palin.

If the Democratic messiah embodies that hallowed moment of college youth in which the rays of learning broke through into the liberal head, the Republican messiah embodies independence and personal freedom. The vision of an America swiftly passing away.

As Reagan's broad Americanism was the antidote to Carter's narrow anti-Americanism, George W. Bush's echo of a simpler time was the antidote to Clinton's changing America, so too Sarah Palin's mixture of frontier and faith, is the antidote to Obama's insistence on faith in bureaucracy. But the image is not the same as the man or the woman behind it.

Camelot was a myth, because it was carried on by people who needed that myth. Who needed to understand why they had failed, and couldn't accept that it was the policies that had failed. It was easier to believe that the dream had been murdered, then that the dream was never alive at all. Simpler to turn on America, than to admit defeat. To embody a myth in a man is a dangerous thing. It is a sign of low regard for both man and myth.

The first Camelot is dead now. The liberals who once used to ask each other where they were when they heard that JFK died are letting this latest anniversary pass with little notice. The myth of JFK had since been eclipsed by the myth of Obama. It fulfilled its purpose in elevating him. And now the myth has been discarded. And it was the myth that they had always cared about, not the man. JFK knew that and it dug at him. Clinton knew it and reveled in it. Obama hides behind the myth as protective coloration. But the myth is being ripped away. You can fool all of the people some of the time, but never all of the time. The One is dead, long live the One.

When are people going to get over.F.K.?He was noting more than a pumped up pimp as far as Camelot was concerned and the Bay of Pigs proved his foreign ineptness. Has anyone ever read through his whole speech beyond the clever, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country"? There is NOTHING conservative in it. It pushes class envy but of course by one of the WEALTHIEST families at the time. Again, YOU are supposed to FINANCE THEIR utopia! They don't want to.

They're too busy screwing around with woman, getting drunk and taxing you as they live like kings and queens. Then the botched Bay of Pigs came along ... . It was a total embarrassment. yes, compared to Obama it looks like J.F.K. had a brain but his ideology, minus Biblical references was the same. Johnson brought it home with his "war on poverty" and disdain for the military.

It was also Kennedy that helped get the ball rolling for the Viet Nam war. No, Kennedy is greatly exaggerated. If he didn't have his head blown off, he'd be another disaster of a President. His assination, pulled the country together and garnered sympathy and a legacy that isn't too accurate when you really look at it for what it was. It wasn't great.

Here it is:

Vice President Johnson, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chief Justice, President Eisenhower, Vice President Nixon, President Truman, reverend clergy, fellow citizens: We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom -- symbolizing an end, as well as a beginning -- signifying renewal, as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three-quarters ago. The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge -- and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do -- for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder. To those new states whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny.

We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom -- and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside. To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required -- not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. To our sister republics south of our border, we offer a special pledge: to convert our good words into good deeds, in a new alliance for progress, to assist free men and free governments in casting off the chains of poverty. But this peaceful revolution of hope cannot become the prey of hostile powers.

Let all our neighbors know that we shall join with them to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. And let every other power know that this hemisphere intends to remain the master of its own house. To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support -- to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run. Finally, to those nations who would make themselves our adversary, we offer not a pledge but a request: that both sides begin anew the quest for peace, before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science engulf all humanity in planned or accidental self-destruction. We dare not tempt them with weakness.

For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed. But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course -- both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war.

So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.

Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms, and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all nations. Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors.

Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce. Let both sides unite to heed, in all corners of the earth, the command of Isaiah -- to "undo the heavy burdens, and [to] let the oppressed go free."¹ And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor -- not a new balance of power, but a new world of law -- where the strong are just, and the weak secure, and the peace preserved.

All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.

Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe. Now the trumpet summons us again -- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need -- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are -- but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation,"² a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

Can we forge against these enemies a grand and global alliance, North and South, East and West, that can assure a more fruitful life for all mankind? Will you join in that historic effort? In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it.

I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world, ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm

J.F.K. was a failure but Obama magnifies the word failure to new heights. Even the LEFT insults whatever little good Kennedy left behind which was TAX CUTS to get the economy back on track. Obama won't even do that.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.