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I’m Sick of Hearing about JFK
I know, Friday is the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. It was a pivotal moment in many people’s lives. It changed the course of the 1960s and cruelly cut short the young life of a charismatic politician.
Got it.
It is impolitic to say, if not downright rude, but I am sick of hearing about John F. Kennedy.
When JFK is mentioned on cable news, I jump for the remote. When he’s on a supermarket magazine cover, I swing to the latest checkout-line Kardashiana. A blog’s new conspiracy theory? Off to a different website.
Born in the late ’60s, I have been subjected to the Kennedy myth my whole life. My Democratic mom chose my name in part to honor the 35th president and was horrified that my delivery date was right around Nov. 22. (Luckily for both of us, I was hatched the day before.) I can understand the deeper personal connection for Irish and Catholic Americans, but we were lowly Finnish Lutherans.
I grew up assuming Kennedy’s accomplishments ranked somewhere between Lincoln and Jesus, but the more I read, the more that view faded. He seemed a nice enough bloke: charming, educated and blessed with a photogenic family. But the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, and his modest list of successes hardly merited hagiography. And let’s not even mention his horrifying private life.
In retrospect, Kennedy seems a more palatable Democrat than today’s crop of progs. He was anti-Communist, pro-Israel and suspicious of high taxes. He also said the right things about civil rights, though few actions followed.
Considering all the facts, why does Kennedy have such a hold on the American imagination? Why does America need to see story after story, book after book, film after film about a guy who was only in office for two-and-a-half years?
I don’t believe that 1951 was filled with movies on William McKinley’s assassination while Killing McKinley raced up bestseller lists. Some say that JFK’s death was the Boomer version of 9-11, but we don’t even see video of that dark day let alone detailed retrospectives.
Am I just being a grumpy Gen X-er or is the JFK worship completely overboard?
JFK portrait via thatsmymop / Shutterstock.com
Published in General
Jon, I agree with every word. That does not make me a Kennedy-hater. I am a Kennedy realist. I actually have some respect for the guy, despite his obvious flaws. To understand the cultural reason for the perpetuated myth, all one needs to do is recognize the fact that when a young girl or woman goes missing, the likelihood of her story and likeness being splashed all over the news media is directly proportional to her attractiveness. If Jack and Jackie had looked like Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, Kennedy would be a historical footnote today.
How insufferable would this group be if Barack Obama could trot out a 96-year-old JFK?
I grew up in the 60’s, too, and I remember the idolization of JFK from a young age. At some point I realized he was a Democrat and I knew my parents were hardcore, grass-roots Republicans. I was sure they must have voted for him anyway, because, you know, he was practically a god. One day I asked mom and she told me emphatically NO, they did not vote for him. I was shocked, but learned even at that age that a person can be made a hero through death alone.
I remember the drills.
They began teaching Russian (mandatory) in my grade school during the period of the Missile Crisis–not that I’d ever heard of a Missile Crisis.
Less than three months after the assassination, the Beatles debuted on Ed Sullivan.
That was fairly interesting to me. I could name the Beatles, but I didn’t know the name Khrushchev.
I too remember for drills, they took us out into a hallway that was pretty much all windows.
They were combined nuclear attack and tornado drills. Either way, even when I was 7, I knew I didn’t want to be in a hallway made of glass windows.
But 7 year olds aren’t afraid of nuclear attacks. They’re not afraid of tornados. They’re not afraid of death.
But they ARE afraid of the dark. And what’s under the bed.
Important point — I’m not a Kennedy hater either. He seemed to be a competent president, but certainly not a great one.
I was born in ’76, so I too am puzzled by the adulation. Educated by the state in the Church of Kennedy, I was well into my twenties before I even realized that someone ran against Kennedy in 1960. To this day, I can remember the picture in my high school history book of Kennedy and Nixon debating, and Nixon losing because he hadn’t shaved or something. But it never sank into my head that this was a presidential debate, or that anyone ever actually disagreed with Kennedy when he was alive, or that anyone didn’t absolutely love the guy. The first time I ever heard an argument against the substance of any of his policies was in the wayback machine emails that National Review used to send out.
Born early in 1959, one of my youngest memories is of the Kennedy funeral procession flickering blurrily accross our small black and white t.v. screen. The only reason I remember the occasion is because the ceremony pre-empted my regularly scheduled viewing of the Mickey Mouse Club. I really believed Jimmy liked me, and I loved Annette with all the chambers of my four year old heart. I was inconsolable.
My sainted mother used to say that she hated the Kennedys because they destroyed our ozone. Nothing to do with the space program, mind you, but they popularized the Dry Look that brought us men’s hairspray. Nixon with his Vitalis was more ecologically sound.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve done a home removal of an elderly person and there on the wall would be a fading portrait of John F. Kennedy. And for all you snarky lefties out there…no, I’ve never had a similar experience with Reagan pictures.
I have a painting of Ronald Reagan in my living room. I think the Kennedy ones you are seeing are also indicative of a narrow time when people did that sort of thing. I don’t remember ever seeing any picture of any political figure in anyone’s house, younger than about eighty. But there are a few weirdos like me. 37 years old.
Also, it’s nice to see liberals faced with the fact that Jack was really an habitual conservative … and be reminded that it was a COMMUNIST who shot him.
Someone once asked why it was so important to the left to airbrush Oswald’s communism from history. Surely, they asked, no one in their right mind would associate Barack Obama with the assassination.
I think it’s not that they’re trying to dissociate themselves from Oswald, but that they’re trying not to be dissociated from Kennedy. If a communist killed him, obviously that means the far left didn’t like him. Once that gets out things like “tax cuts” and “pain in Castro’s [expletive]” aren’t far behind.
All that to say, I’m totally on board with your opinion. We as a society tend to make heros out of people for no apparent reason. (i.e., Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize for… what did he get it for again? Being Obama I think.)
For not being George Bush.
Reagan was the Great Communicator, without political peer from a script, but Kennedy was the best off script, and powerful with the sound off, too.
Whatever I may think of Ted Cruz’s tactics and intra-party divisiveness, I gotta give him this: The man talked for 21 hours straight and didn’t say anything stupid.
Amen.