I’m pretty sure I saw stars in her eyes as she summarized her privilege to serve in the Congress as a U.S. Senator in those storied halls. It’s where the likes of “U.S. Senator and 35th President John F. Kennedy served and walked these halls,” she enthused.
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar was reporting at Donald Trump’s inauguration as part of the Inaugural Committee’s report on the appropriateness of having this year’s ceremony in the Capitol. She apparently had a vision of Kennedy’s Camelot from afar. There are many star-struck admirers of the late President who haven’t the slightest idea of what JFK actually accomplished, but he is the King Arthur in their Washington Camelot.
I lived during that presidential administration and was in my college dorm room listening to the 1 p.m. news on the day the news bulletin came across, “President Kennedy has been shot in Dallas,” and later learned the shot was fatal. We were all in a state of gloom for the next four or five November days, classes called off, glued to our black and white televisions—some longer—and some still there. He had served only 3 years of his term and was actually on a campaign visit to Dallas for his reelection the following November.
I have read several books about his term of office and his assassination. Kennedy was president for only a thousand days. But about three years ago, with a new generation of star-struck people all around who, like Klobuchar, have imbibed the myths, I looked for and found the kind of book I wanted: a book by a reputable Democrat.
Robert Dallek, one of the most highly respected historians today, winner of the Bancroft prize, and many other distinctions for his history writing, wrote that book. He wrote also a two volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson and taught at UCLA, Oxford, and Boston University. Dallek, a man of the left, sang a few stanzas—his voice caught in a few—but mostly did the true work of an objective historian in his An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy 2917-1963 (2003).
Given the date, post-40 years, Dallek concluded that pretty well all the relevant documents and facts about Kennedy’s term were in, while some new documents were available to him, especially regarding Kennedy’s medical history. Those about the actual assassination are irrelevant here; that’s a different story.
From this massive book of 838 pages, we can look at only few gleanings of the epilogue to see what Dallek took to be Kennedy’s accomplishments and legacy. I want to do this under some of the hot button topics and issues of our day: economy, civil rights, foreign affairs, personal morality, and immigration. As a congressman or senator, Kennedy left “no especially notable marks.”
Immigration can be dropped immediately because it was never an issue in Kennedy’s era. The border agents and ICE took care of it by following normal, sound procedures, which is what President Trump wants re-instituted; however, Trump favors some new laws restricting children born in the U..S of non-citizens.
In foreign affairs, Kennedy principally dealt with the Soviet Union over Cuba and the extension of communism in Asia in Vietnam, over which he was self-restrained—he had combat experience in WWII–and was later to become a full blown war under President Johnson. There was the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba which was an armed and failed coup attempt mainly by Cubans to root out Premier Fidel Castro. Kennedy’s “greatest achievements” were his “management of Soviet-American relations” and his avoidance of the possibility of nuclear war with Moscow.
Kennedy’s economic policy was supply-side and tax-cutting. He stated his trickle-down approach with a sailing metaphor he was familiar with out of his pastime: “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Very simple. A strong economy is good for everyone in all classes.
Civil rights were an issue that was really pressed on Kennedy and not an issue he sought at first, as some might imagine. Some today would probably call him a racist given his lack of an affirmative spirit in that realm. He and brother Bobby, his Attorney General (his proud “wingman” like Attorney General Eric Holder to President Obama—I wonder if little brother could ever tell big brother “No”) handled the issue gingerly at Ole Miss in 1962. There was then Governor Ross Barnett and Lt. Governor Paul Johnson, and many citizens and also armed students protest—to put it mildly. Kennedy was a “cautious leader” in this realm and “was slow to recognize the extent of the social revolution fostered by Martin Luther King.”
Sadly, health was a major issue in his life from his teen years, a fact belied by his youthful, healthy appearance. Medical records, carefully researched by Dallek, and unavailable earlier, reveal a very unhealthy boy and man all through life. Dallek believes that given what we now know, Kennedy would “almost certainly,” as “(Kennedy) believed, been barred from the White House.” Kennedy, with his doctors, carefully guarded this secret from the media and “was less than open” about his Addisons disease, colitis, back troubles, and prostatitis and “repeated hospitalizations in the 1950s.”
We can’t overlook Kennedy’s “reckless” relationships which made him “vulnerable to mob influence and national security breaches.” He was confident that “the mainstream media was not going to publicize his affairs,” just like the MSM media today with their typical look-the-other-way practice regarding the Democrat leadership. (More dogs that didn’t bark like those today. What is that breed?)
“Most of Kennedy’s intended reforms had to come to fruition under President Lyndon Johnson.” Often, I see lists of both the best and worst presidents and Kennedy is a regular and pretty high on the best list. Now these lists are usually in MSM which of course is mainly made up of Democrat operatives disguised as journalists whose news media are shedding readership like autumn leaves. There’s a good reason, given their less—much less—than honest reporting on who was running the country of late. Or, to state it plainly, the reporting on the diminished capacity of President Biden that was known as early as 2019. (Brace yourself in the years ahead for a lot of tell-alls and former staff revelations.)
Dallek pitches Kennedy as at least “better than average” President—who would be average? What’s average? Inferior to the extreme Democrat agenda? In the years to come, President Biden will be listed at the bottom or near there, or should be, given his presidency was no doubt a staff effort. Or maybe Jill’s term.
Democrat leadership already likes to speak of the fresh “chaos” arriving today in Washington because they don’t like Trump’s agenda nor his cabinet appointments that the New Republican Majority of November installed in January. Trump’s direction has Democrats really so discombobulated on their Yellow Brick Road that leads to the make believe Democrat Oz. (It’s really amusing to see and hear.) Jealous of Trump’s accomplishments of less than 30 days, Democrats find Washington so unlike their favorite Democrat make-believe metaphor taken from the popular Broadway musical, also made into a movie:
Now say it out with pride and joy. Camelot. Camelot. Where once it never rained till after sundown. By eight a.m. the morning fog had flown. Don't let it be forgot That once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot.
Robert Penny is a Northsider.
