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Why No JFK 50th Anniversary Post? Why Celebrate Corruption?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unless you are living under a rock, you’ll know that everyone is commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. I have not posted a thing about it until now. Why? Because I don’t want to celebrate the corruption that is the Kennedy family and the failed President that is their most famous son.

The fact is, if JFK had not been assassinated, he’d be remembered as a do nothing President that was high on soaring–but empty–rhetoric and a bit light on action. Worse his many sex scandals and his inability to do anything consequential.

But worse than a middling President that had no real signature success on his account, celebrating his family is the worst thing that could happen to this nation.

The Kennedy fortune was built on law breaking, no one can deny. Joseph Kennedy made his billions selling illegal alcohol during prohibition. Then he bankrupted nearly every partner he ever had. He was a criminal. Plain and simple. Worse, he supported Hitler in the ramping up of WWII!

The rest of the family’s history is no better. Teddy Kennedy, who became a famed Senator, murdered his pregnant girlfriend. Extended family member Michael Skakel murdered a neighborhood girl. There are rapes, mental disease, addiction, drug use, drunk driving, law breaking of every kind, and one Kennedy was even lobotomized because her parents didn’t want to bother with her mental disorder.

You may be reading this and asking why we should be assigning sins of the family to a fallen president. OK, let’s talk about JFK. He was a rapist of underage girls, a serial philanderer, a drug addict, a liar, and quite ineffective as president.

First of all he never won a fair election in his life. Like his Vice President he and his family and their operatives stole every election he was ever in–including his winning the White House in 1960.

His entire family is filled with cases of vote fraud.

He didn’t take the lead in the signature civil rights issue of his day and distanced himself from the equal rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He didn’t attend the “I have a dream” speech and kept the civil rights movement at a far off, arms length.

And this isn’t to even mention his horrible decision with the Bay of Pigs and his decision to get us involved in Vietnam without a clear mission.

Then there was his failed handling of the Cuban Missile crisis. After the fall of the Soviet Union it was discovered by researchers who were looking at the Soviet archives that the Soviets were shocked at how Kennedy caved in nearly to their every demand and gave away so much in Europe.

JFK failed miserably in the Cuban missile crisis. Beyond doubt.

Of course, my friend Paul Collier does make a good point that the whole assassination came at a time when TV as ubiquitous, when this particular President really did spark the imagination of the country. What he had to say on my Facebook bears repeating.

“Whatever you feel about JFK, the fact is that the assassination of JFK was a monumental moment for America. It symbolizes much, including the rising influence of television. The fact that an American President was murdered during the awaking of the modern media age is what makes this day so historically significant. He was radically different in appearance from all the past Presidents, he was vital and energetic in appearance. He didn’t look like an old man like all past presidents. He is a symbol more than [flesh and blood man], but symbols speak at existential levels to who we really are or who we really hope to be.”

Very good points, I agree.

But in response, I must note that this “modern media age” created the mythic “Camelot” era, a time that never existed>/i> JFK’s “Camelot” is just as fantastical as King Arthur’s. What we “celebrate” today is a false legend made up out of whole cloth by a self-indulgent, self-reverential media.