Replies

1. It matters because the direction of the dem party and US politics changed with the death of kennedy. The dem machine left over from FDR adopted the rabid street theater of protest as its new centerpiece - and remains in that form today.

2. It matters because our foreign policy fell into chaos and remained there until Reagan came along.

3. It matters because the turmoil left behind when JFK decided to escalate in Indo China (by way of assasination) resonates today whenever hollywood, welfare pimps, or potential dem candidates have the opportunity to open their mouths.

4. Finally, I watched the coverage all that day and I had a chance to review it on tape several years later. Virtually everyone on site was focused on the grassy knoll. There were photographs and sightings on the knoll. There may or may not have been a shot recorded from the knoll.
(If anything comes from the sound/direction talk on this thread it would be that the echo of a grassy knoll shot could have bounced off of the repository - not the other way around.)
(Internal PS: all the talk about which direction K's head would move when hit seems to ignore that hitting a skull is NOT like hitting a watermelon - the deformed round would push and any 'jet' caused by impact should have been overwhelmed.)
And, one of the most unlikely elements of the whole affair was that while they were still picking up pieces in the plaza, someone was already tracking Oswald down, and, Oswald managed to shoot a cop dead, in a theate, across town, just to make darn sure he was known as the bad guy.

Oh, yeah, and then there was Ruby, botched autopsies, lost coffins, lost photographs, sealed evidence, and national gnashing of teeth over a lost prince. What's to doubt in all that?

It does matter. It matters because IF there was a conspiracy and a cover-up, then the United States of America had a change in the Office of the President that is not prescribed in The Constitution of the United States.

It matters not what kind of President he had been or would have been or what you or I thought of him.

Indeed. It"s almost as accurate to say that it doesn't really matter whether president Kennedy was murdered with the foreknowledge of those who replaced him in office because whether true or not, if more than half of the American people believe that they are governed by the inheritors of such a government, it's certainly unworthy of defense at any personal cost or sacrifice.

The conspirators and those others who profitted from the murder and who find it in their best interest to try and perpetuate the *one lone gunman* fiction must find considerable amusement from such noble but misdirected efforts.

-archy-/-

Leadpenny: It does matter. It matters because IF there was a conspiracy and a cover-up, then the United States of America had a change in the Office of the President that is not prescribed in The Constitution of the United States.

Archy: Indeed. It"s almost as accurate to say that it doesn't really matter whether president Kennedy was murdered with the foreknowledge of those who replaced him in office because whether true or not, if more than half of the American people believe that they are governed by the inheritors of such a government, it's certainly unworthy of defense at any personal cost or sacrifice.

The Constitution worked perfectly in November 1963, and would have worked perfectly even if there had been a 100% proven government conspiracy. The document is quite clear: If the President dies, the VP becomes President, period. If it were to turn out that, say, it appears the VP had the President offed in order to become President himself, then the new President would then be impeached (and then probably put on regular trial afterwards like anyone else for murder, conspiracy to commit, or whatever charges the evidence supported).

The two issues, constitutionally speaking, are entirely separate, thus rendering irrelevant the sort of unanswerable, meaningless Möbius Strip questions about the "legitimacy" of all post-conspiracy/coverup administrations, such as the one postulated above. LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 were, and are, as legitimate as JFK and all Presidents before him. And that will never change.

As a sidenote, I'll point out that to those of us for whom JFK was before our time (who already make up a large percentage of the American population and whose numbers are growing by the second as the numbers of those on the other side are shrinking by the second), the events of November 1963 are but ancient history. They are occasionally fascinating to discuss, but we consider them of ZERO relevance to today's government. That 2/3 of the public thinks there was a conspiracy is just barely more meaningful than the data as to how many more people drink Coke than Pepsi. It is not something that makes us think our entire system of government and our nation itself is some kind of fraudulent house of cards that is both deserving of and doomed to collapse.