The reason for bringing the subject up and for my attitude toward it is that it's November and once again, Americans in general, and especially the people here in Dallas, are in the midst of the annual hand wringing and worshipful re-telling of the events surrounding the assassination of John Kennedy. People are publishing commemorative issues of the Dallas Morning News reprising the headlines of "that day", and radio and TV specials are all over the place from NPR/PBS stations to CNN to MSNBC. Included in the liturgy, of course, are tales of the wonderfulness of "Camelot", along with airing of Kennedy family home movies of touch football games at the compound in Hyannis Port, and newsreel footage of Jackie in her beehive hats ("gee, gang, wasn't she just the best First Lady ever?"). And, frankly, I'm sick of it. Certainly it was a tragedy for Kennedy to have been killed. But that was 50 years ago and it's time to stop building shrines, either literal or figurative, to a guy who, although good looking and having friends in Hollywood, in addition to being an OK, but not a great, President, was also an incorrigible womanizer and who has been accurately described as a chief executive whose rhetoric as president far outstripped his actual accomplishments in that office. Specifically, in that regard, it has always been a mystery to me that Black Americans seem to revere JFK beyond all singing of it and see him as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln. Nothing could be further from the truth. If African Americans want to have a president to whom they can give credit for passing the lion's share of Civil Rights legislation, they should look to Lyndon Johnson, not JFK! Johnson got those bills passed because he knew how to twist arms on "The Hill" and had forgotten more about power politics than the Kennedy brothers would ever know. It is ironic that, while he was VP, instead of using him to push legislation, both Kennedy brothers treated LBJ as a rednecked buffoon and shunted him to one side. Had JFK, however, deigned to use Johnson as his enforcer on The Hill, he might well have gotten landmark civil rights legislation through the Congress during his tenure and, in that way, actually deserved the admiration that is showered upon him every November.
'Nuff said.