Peggy Noonan: Camelot on Painkillers

Opinion Journal ^ | 11/22/2002 | Peggy Noonan

[Pokey78]

The big things to say about the recent JFK allegations--amazing, isn't it, that "recent JFK allegations" is still an operative phrase in 2002?--are obvious.

But other thoughts arise. When the brilliant journalist Dorothy Thompson watched JFK's inauguration she--a longtime liberal and FDR supporter--fretted to a friend: "There's something weak and neurotic about that young man." She knew his story, knew of the charming monster of a father who was an isolationist in foreign affairs and a constant interventionist in all other spheres, especially his family. In Clark Clifford's memoirs, the old Democratic Party warhorse-in-lawyer's-pinstripes wrote of his first meeting with Sen. Kennedy, in the 1950s. JFK was pliant, pleasing, needed legal assistance. During their meeting old Joe called to bark instructions and yell at the senator and the attorney. Clifford found it chilling. JFK handled his father coolly. To read the scene with recent revelations in mind is to wonder what toll the facts of his life took on JFK, and to ponder a paradox. Old Joe's blind ambition probably made his son president; old Joe probably made his son sick, too.

[Pokey78]

Pinging the Peggy list.

[FairWitness]

Someday a bright and diligent historian will take a look at the spectacle of JFK celebration in the media that commenced upon his death and has never fully abated. The endless magazine covers, the made-for-TV movies, the pictures, the poems, the bestsellers. All of this involved not just manipulation of the media but enthusiastic and over-the-top media complicity, which created a still-weird dynastic myth that continues in the Democratic party: Kennedys are gods.

I hope I live long enough to see the end of the Camelot myth. I was 19 when Kennedy beat Nixon, and will never get over the way all the co-eds thought Kennedy was a god.

[Russell Scott]

Kennedy fell into a ditch, thats why he was so sick. Read Proverbs 23 for full details. Here is a slice.

27 For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

[nickcarraway]

He cut taxes and fought communism, the drugs didn't stop that.

[goodnesswins]

Well I'm surprised the liberals aren't saying that "he cut taxes and fought communism" BECAUSE he was ON drugs....LOL.

[goldstategop]

Liberals hate cutting taxes and fighting communism. Then again today's Democratic Party is not your grandfather's Democratic Party.

[beckett]

The last 200 words comprise one of the best distillations of the WWII generation and the last 60 years in American life that I've read in many a day. Each image sparkles like a jewel. Noonan is truly brilliant when she is on.

[line drive to right]

I was 8 when JFK ran against Nixon, and I became pretty interested in politics. My Dad is an old union guy, so Kennedy was a favorite. I was 11 when JFK died. Mostly because of how I felt about Kennedy, I think, I bought into the lies that more and more have become what the democrat party is. After Watergate, I lost interest in politics; not so much because of Watergate, but what was going on in my life. So, I remained pretty much sympathetic to the democrats and remained an easy mark for the media brainwashing. I began to wonder about the democrats during the 1984 campaign, when we were hit with the embarrassing spectacle of Geraldine Ferraro running for VP (let alone Mondale at the top of the ticket). Then, the watershed moment for me was the 1988 democrat convention, which seemed to be nothing more than a celebration of baby-killing (known to some as abortion) and homosexuality. I was appalled. I finally realized that the democrats stand for almost everything that God is against, and they stand agsinst almost everything that God is for.

[x]

The revelations also underscore that JFK was very much a man of his time. He was of the Sinatra generation; they got through the Depression, fought the war, and came home too hip for the room. People think the boomers discovered sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but it was their parents, really--second-generation Americans home from Anzio and the South Pacific, beginning to leave the safety and social embarrassment of their immigrant parents' religion, informed by what they'd been taught as children about World War I and what happened at Versailles, influenced by Scott and Ernest and the lost generation. Add some Marx and the man in the gray flannel suit, throw in some Vat 69, and some pills. Put that all together, shake it, add a pinch of Freud and pour it out; what you get is party. The greatest generation on Saturday night.

Well, she's right about JFK and a culturally significant part of his generation. But from what I've seen it was a small part. Most people of that generation, especially those from rural or immigrant parents were conservative family people.

For the most part it certainly wasn't second-generation Americans who went in for Marx or Freud or Hemingway and Fitzgerald. There were a few high flyers: Kerouac and the New York intellectuals, Howe, Kazin and Kristol.

A lot of marriages did break up around 1970. But in general, it was only a small, though vocal, group of Ivy Leaguers who took the path Peggy Noonan describes. For every ten people who loved Sinatra or Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe or Johnny Carson, I can't think that more than one or at most two imitated their lifestyle -- unless my parents lied to me big time.

Great article, though.

[JohnHuang2]

Thank you for the ping, friend =^)

[JohnHuang2]

Peggy Noonan MEGA PING!!

[EternalVigilance]

As you know, my friend, I love Peggy Noonan...she's one of my heroes. Her speech writing for President Reagan was brilliant, and I love her columns.

I also share her disdain for the manufactured myth of 'Camelot', and the negative impact that has had throughout our lifetime on American political and cultural thought.

The 'Greatest Generation'; the 'Sinatra Generation'; is illustrated here very well. My Dad kinda came in on the tail end of all that, being born in '32---he was too young for WWII, but served and was wounded in Korea.

I have all of Dad's photos from that time of his life, and he was definitely a partier...the booze and the beer flowed for sure...and his subsequent life continued that Sinatra-ish lifestyle. He tended bar for many years, and spent the last 25 years of his life as the proprietor of a small town beerjoint...the Corner Bar in Plattsmouth, NE.

One of the marks of a great writer is that they manage to dredge up parallels to our own experiences---and Peggy Noonan did it again for me with this piece. Bless her heart.

EV

[JohnHuang2]

Bless her heart.

Amen, my friend. She's absolutely brilliant.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

****People think the boomers discovered sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, but it was their parents, really--second-generation Americans home from Anzio and the South Pacific, beginning to leave the safety and social embarrassment of their immigrant parents' religion, informed by what they'd been taught as children about World War I and what happened at Versailles, influenced by Scott and Ernest and the lost generation. Add some Marx and the man in the gray flannel suit, throw in some Vat 69, and some pills. Put that all together, shake it, add a pinch of Freud and pour it out; what you get is party. The greatest generation on Saturday night. They were a great generation and they were more than that, and less. They created the boomers, the welfare state, the world we live in. They were one rocking group, and JFK was very much of them.***

Very interesting.

Thanks for the ping (Hi JohnHuang2) and the Post.

[MeekOneGOP]

Here's another one, fyi.....

[prognostigaator]

Well, Kennedy left one sage piece of advice present day demos never followed.

"Ask not......"

[TexasNative2000]

As always, thanks for the ping.

[ricpic]

Let me say this in the coarsest language possible.
The Kennedys were, and are, nothing but a TOUGH MICK CLAN!

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Old Joe Kennedy was a slightly less than honest hard core democrat politician from the Chicago machine. Anything justified the ends. He was a womanizer, family dictator and was recalled from his Ambassador Assignment in the UK
because of his Nazi leanings and his embarrasing affair with
Gloria Swanson, or another actress of that magnitude. Rose had her daughter whisked away by old Joe and lobotomized so that she would not embarrass the family with emotional outbursts, without Rose's permission or knowledge.

It was Joe, Jr,who died during the buzz bombing of London that Old Joe had set his sights on to be the President. Joe,Jr.,fell in love with a divorced Brit and Joe was in the process of killing that relationship off when Joe,Jr.,
loaded his plane with mega explosives, flew across the Channell in a thunderstorm, planning to bail out and let the plane hit(they hoped)a buzz bomb missle sight. Only lightening hit his plane first.

With Joe, Jr. gone he turned his sights on JFK, recruited the Giancanno organization and Chicago Dem machine to help him sell Jack "like soap suds" to the American people as first, a senator,then the Presidency. Jack married Jackie for her blue blood, he had the money. She gave him "class" which the Kennedys lacked, big time. Rose and the kids did not like Jackie, but old Joe loved her. She was too refined for them. She was just what old Joe had in mind.

Jackie was kept cash poor by the clan, that's why she would buy clothes and immediately sell them in a second hand rose store for CASH. She never had money of her own, it was how they controlled her. Even after Jack's death she was kept on a shoe string and Rose held the laces. I believe that's why Jackie married Onasis, it got her rich and free of the Kennedys. She also wanted Onasis to become the President of Greece. See a pattern here?

During Jack's senate years and into his presidency he and his drinking buddies would descend on Florida and have hijinks on yachts owned by rich important politicians and mafia members. It was quite a scene. Hubert Humphrey had a yacht down here called the "Humpin' Hubie" cute no?

The Kennedy boys were all about "winning", after winning they weren't quite so clear on what came next. Old Joe's
stroke probably saved us from having our first "twofer" and Bobby covered Jack's back when he could not function. I suspect Jackie did too. Did you know Jackie was a chain smoker? She was never photographed with a cigarette.