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| Hitchens Won’t Mourn the Passing of the Kennedy ’Aura’ |
| 2003-11-22 |
| EFL I am taking just a few passages from the article which give some sense of what it is about, but I strongly recommend reading the article itself. Very eye opening. Another inheritance from that period, the Berlin Wall--which he did not oppose until well after it had been built (having again risked war on the proposition but not felt able to follow up on his punchy short-term rhetoric)--did not disappear from our lives until a quarter century later. His was the worst hard-cop/soft-cop routine ever to be attempted, and it suffered from the worst disadvantages of both styles. On the civil rights front at home, by contrast, even the most flattering historians have a hard time explaining how the Kennedy brothers preferred the millimetrical, snail’s-pace, grudging-and-trudging strategy. But at least this serves to demonstrate that they knew there was such a thing as prudence, or caution. Every smart liberal of today knows just how to deplore "spin" and "image building" and media strategy in general. Quite right too, but does anyone ever pause to ask when this manner of politics became regnant? Which Kennedy fan wants to disown the idea that the smoothest guy wins? Yet this awkward thought is gone into the memory hole, along with the fictitious "missile gap" that the boy wonder employed to attack Eisenhower and Nixon from the right. As I said at the beginning, I am glad that this spell is fading at last. But I wish its departure would be less mourned. The Kennedy interlude was a flight from responsibility, and ought to be openly criticized and exorcised rather than be left to die the death that sentimentality brings upon itself. I guess Christtopher can forget about being invited to one of Teddy’s shindigs... Oh wait: that’s a good thing |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #13 Clinton thinks he is Kennedy. All the similarities exist; skirt chasing, inept foreign policy. I'm still trying to figure out how JFK was dumb enough to get his p.t. boat rammed by a Japanese destroyer. He was responsible for the Bay of Pigs and for the deaths of several Air National Guard Pilots from the state of Alabama (I believe) who participated in the BOP. Their families never received any benefits after their demise. I believe they were still petitioning the gov't to this day. The Hersch book (former pullitzer prize winner) uncovers all the dirty laundry about the whole Kennedy family to include ole' man Joe's fiasco's as U.S. ambassador to the UK. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-22 11:02:04 PM |
| #12 ..the truth about Clinton will eventually be known and documented. Probably won't even take 25 years for it to happen... And with any luck, he'll still be around to see it. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-11-22 10:13:08 PM |
| #11 Dittos dittos. We are still living with the Castro legacy, which Kennedy left in place after the missile crisis. Let's face it the man was disaster like every other democrat to make to the oval office. |
| Posted by: Douglas De Bono 2003-11-22 9:44:04 PM |
| #10 Do'h......thank you Fred. |
| Posted by: Mark 2003-11-22 8:13:52 PM |
| #9 Hey fellas, check out "The Darkside of Camelot" by Seymour Hersch, awesome account of the Kennedy fantasy........ |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2003-11-22 6:49:17 PM |
| #8 The missles that were withdrawn from Turkey were obsolete, liquid-fueled IRBMs that we intended to withdraw anyway (Jupiters or Thors, I believe)... Articles like this encourage me about the "legacy" of the Clinton presidency. If the truth about Kennedy came out eventually (even with all of his family wealth and connections), the truth about Clinton will eventually be known and documented. Probably won't even take 25 years for it to happen... |
| Posted by: snellenr 2003-11-22 3:04:55 PM |
| #7 Unfortunately, the worst thing John Kennedy did was get killed, and left us with that half-wit Roosevelt wannabee, Lyndon "Lying Breath" Johnson, a mess in Vietnam, and a totally failed "War on Poverty" that's cost almost a trillion dollars and done nothing but make the problem worse. Johnson alone is responsible for a third of our Vietnam deaths, and most of the tragedy. Between the two, they've created a mess that will take another generation to get a handle on. Reagan undid the Berlin Wall fiasco, but only the death of Castro will end the Cuba mess. Vietnam is finding Communism unworkable after all, and the past 30 years of pain and agony an unnecessary evil. The last of the Kennedys, Teddy baby, is proving to be the biggest threat to honest Americans of the lot, being a total idiotarian, but able to do great harm to individual freedom from his citadel in the Senate. The People of Massachusetts should be ashamed, deeply ashamed, of this "man". |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-11-22 2:56:47 PM |
| #6 Mark - Just click on the title. It links to the original. |
| Posted by: Fred 2003-11-22 2:49:08 PM |
| #5 He deployed exiles to topple Castro, but gave them no backup. True, because he had pulled the backup at the last minute. He precipitated the Cuban missile crisis, and ended up withdrawing American missiles from Turkey, and promising non-interference with Castro's regime. Weren't some monitoring stations in Turkey removed as well? |
| Posted by: Pappy 2003-11-22 2:40:52 PM |
| #4 Can anybody direct me to where I will find the Hitchens' article? I'd like to read the whole thing, but don't know where to look to find it. Thanks... |
| Posted by: Mark 2003-11-22 2:22:31 PM |
| #3 JFK was no Ghandi and the press acts like it was the military running these shows What the press wants is a mediagenic martyr who has McGovern's views on foreign policy. The problem is that Kennedy was a hawk, not a dove. The funny thing is that he was a half-assed hawk, kind of like Clinton. He deployed exiles to topple Castro, but gave them no backup. He precipitated the Cuban missile crisis, and ended up withdrawing American missiles from Turkey, and promising non-interference with Castro's regime. All in all, a pretty mixed record, despite some fine speeches - kind of like a Hollywood production. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2003-11-22 2:16:06 PM |
| #2 Crimony! "...this spell is fading at last." I hope so, but I don't see it. The last week and a half has had one or two "Kennedy Specials" on television every night. You can't escape it. This will fade only when the people who are 50+ years old are no longer in positions of power and influence. |
| Posted by: LeftEnd 2003-11-22 1:01:54 PM |
| #1 I hate to 'Dog-Pile' but I really hate the way they spin so Kennedy looks like some freakin 'peace loving' man. HE was the one who sent troops to Vietnam in force. HE is the one that plotted the overthrow AND assassination of Castro. HE was the one that called for a blockade and (if necessary) invasion of Cuba. I am not saying any of these are wrong but JFK was no Ghandi and the press acts like it was the military running these shows. |
| Posted by: Cyber Sarge 2003-11-22 10:36:39 AM |