A Day of Remembrance and Thanks
In Thanksgiving and JFK at the Moderate Voice, Robert Stein notes that today is the anniversary of John Kennedy's death, as well as our national day of Thanksgiving, observing:
For anyone over 50, today is not only Thanksgiving but the day JFK died 44 years ago. He has been gone now for almost as long as he lived and, in these times of White House infamy, not nearly as much in the national mind as his antagonist, Richard Nixon, whose all-time low approval ratings have just been eclipsed by George W. Bush.
A few years after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy wistfully told me that her husband was being remembered too much for how he died rather than what he had lived for. She was right. It was too soon then for Americans to appreciate what they had lost.
He also provides some interesting thoughts about how JFK would look at the world today, in an earlier post at this blog, Connecting the Dots. In JFK: Bush, War and the Web, Stein speculates how Kennedy would respond to the challenges and changes of the world today, with the caveat:
This could go on like one of those montages on the Daily Show, but the difference between the President we lost too soon and the one we have had in office too long is as simple and as complicated as poetry.
But Taylor Marsh makes another point as she notes the 44th anniversary of JFK's assassination, in He Couldn't Get Elected Today:
Indeed. Democratic partisans would throw John F. Kennedy to the wolves. So would this country today. Not long ago people were popping off about some rumor about a new Clinton sex scandal. This juvenile nation couldn't handle a consensual affair with an intern. Candidates squeal on each other about every little thing, while the issues that matter are ignored or exploited.
She mentions not only the women, but the various physical ailments and medications that he took. And then there was Jackie. Think John Kerry's wife, Theresa Heinz, times three. How would that go over with the Family Values crowd today?
I have had that thought on occasion as well. JFK would have problems both for his personal life as well as for his politics. I think John Edwards is a politician in the Kennedy mold, and look at how well he's doing. He too espouses traditional liberal values, he's wealthy and has the same boyish good looks and charm. If you read Kennedy's inaugural address at Shakesville, you can hear many of the same sentiments voiced by Edwards. Yet he has not caught on with the country in the same manner that Kennedy did.
As Taylor Marsh concludes:
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, but also the 22nd day of November. History forever haunts us, with so much left undone from that great era and so much of what Kennedy began having been destroyed. It's like his speech on Pax Americana never occurred at all.
“What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war… Not peace of the grave or the security of the slave… not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women – not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy
And because we can't talk about the death of Kennedy without discussing the manner of his assassination, Nov. 22, 1963: A Magic Bullet, a Grassy Knoll, an Enduring Mystery, I would point you to a long, but interesting article in Playboy (yes, Playboy) by former Washington Post editor and writer, Jefferson Morley, The man who didn't talk.
(Photo from Wired: Bettmann/Corbis)
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