Light On Dark Water

JFK: SOB

Harsh words, I know, but on the basis of this piece by Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic, they seem justified. I've seen references in other places to most of the ugly stuff related here, and no one seems to have denied very convincingly that it's true.

I have always been completely immune to the fascination the Kennedys in general and JFK in particular seem to exercise over so many people. That was true even when he was president, and throughout my youth, when I shared many of the political views that went along with Kennedy-worship. Maybe I was just always too cynical.

At any rate, I'm glad I didn't fall for it. Caitlin Flanagan did, and still does when her guard is down. My father used to tease my mother about voting for Kennedy, saying it was only because he was good-looking. It seems he was on to something, though looks were only part of it.

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22 responses to “JFK: SOB”

  1. Janet

    I’m thinking that maybe bad Catholics are the worst people. I think it’s because they are receiving the Eucharist in mortal sin and that is a very dangerous thing to do.
    AMDG

    Reply
  2. Mac

    A sobering thought. You’re probably right.

    Reply
  3. Paul

    She quotes Christopher Hitchens as an expert on history and/or world affairs? Seriously?

    Reply
  4. Mac

    Yeah, I took that with a grain of salt. But I don’t think he’s the only one who questions the standard version of that story.

    Reply
  5. Marianne

    I was a teenager when JFK became president, and I was besotted with him. The three things I remember from that time that took away the shine for me were his making his brother attorney general, Jackie Kennedy’s White House tour for television, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The first just didn’t seem right, even to a kid who didn’t follow politics; the second was an eye-opener, in that Jackie, with her breathy-debutante speaking style, came across as way out of touch with at least the world as I knew it; and the third so terrified me that I never felt comfortable with JFK again.
    I’m not a Hitchens fan, but that quote in the Caitlin Flanagan article comes from a well-written long piece reviewing several books on the Kennedy years that he wrote for the London Review of Books in 1999; you can find it here. Some of the details of the kinds of machinations that take place in D.C. make one shudder.

    Reply
  6. Mac

    I wasn’t quite old enough to have well-defined opinions–only 12 when he was elected and 15 when he was shot. I do remember the fear during the missile crisis. But somehow I just remained immune to the whole Camelot deal that became conventional wisdom in the following years. I’ll definitely read that Hitchens piece. I mean, he wasn’t always wrong.

    Reply
  7. Marianne

    Another old JFK memory just popped into my head. Sometime around 1983 or so, I did some volunteer work teaching English to new immigrants to the U.S. from what was then Czechoslovakia, which was still under Soviet rule. Once I said something a bit disparaging about JFK during a lesson and one of the immigrants, a middle-aged man, jumped all over me, saying Kennedy was a wonderful, great man and that I should be ashamed of myself for insinuating he might be anything less than that. It really hit me then that JFK had given tremendous hope to those in Soviet-dominated lands.
    Long-winded way of saying charisma is a strange and mysterious thing that can bring both good and bad results, and that it places great burdens on those who have it, in that the pressure on their sense of equilibrium is a mighty constant they have to battle.

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  8. Anne-Marie

    My background and childhood were very similar to Caitlin Flanagan’s, so I’m always interested by the similarities and differences in our outlooks. This is one area where we differ wildly. JFK never hooked me as he did Flanagan. Those pictures, for the sake of which she will overlook his betrayals, are to me just a sign that his betrayals were worse than we’d realized.
    As my philosopher husband is fond of saying, one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.

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  9. Mac

    Scratching my head a bit over the logic. But if I just take the Latin as-is, I understand.

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  10. Mac

    Re your last comment, Marianne: as with artists, one can separate the man from the work. I honestly don’t have a good sense of whether Kennedy was, on the national and international stage, an influence for the good. I’m reading that Hitchens piece, btw, and might have something to say about it.

    Reply
  11. Louise

    Ewwww. I feel ill. I couldn’t read much of it.
    SOB

    Reply
  12. James K.

    There were other womanizer presidents, but JFK seems to be the one who most thoroughly based his whole life on having sex with as many women as possible with no concern whatsoever for potential consequences or ramifications or for how it affected others. He was simply not a good man.
    In response to Janet, though, I will say one thing, not quite in Kennedy’s defense, but for the sake of historical context. He (like the average Pre-VII Catholic) likely received communion only a few times a year. Maybe at those times he did make (obviously feeble and failed) attempts at repentance. I can only imagine the shock of being a priest hearing horrific sins being confessed in the unmistakeable voice of the President of the United States! But now the whole world knows these secrets, of course.

    Reply
  13. Mac

    I wouldn’t have thought that about the average Pre-VII Catholic (receiving communion only a few times a year). But I wasn’t around. But either way it’s sort of hard to imagine JFK going to confession. I hope he did.

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  14. Janet

    I’m sorry, James, I’m a pre-Vatican II Catholic and I received Communion every Sunday and Holy Day and First Friday.
    AMDG

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  15. Janet

    As did everyone I knew.
    AMDG

    Reply
  16. Mac

    That’s sorta what I thought, but I didn’t know. I thought the days of receiving very rarely were in the 19th c and earlier.
    Here’s a question which I don’t have time to investigate now: was JFK a regular Mass-goer? Surely he would have been, for his image. You can see where that question leads.

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  17. Janet

    You know, I could never say that anyone just went to Mass for his image because I just don’t know why anyone goes, but I should think that a Catholic politician in those days would have to go to Mass. I think any politician in those days would have to go to church some place.
    AMDG

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  18. Mac

    Yes, I meant “if only for his image.” I think that’s true–that any politician would have felt obliged to go to church somewhere.

    Reply
  19. Janet

    I see now what you meant.
    AMDG

    Reply
  20. Louise

    Not in Australia. Nobody gives a rip if our pollies go to church or not.

    Reply
  21. Janet

    Well, the US in the late 1950s and early 60s was a very different place.
    AMDG

    Reply
  22. Mac

    Right, it doesn’t really matter much here anymore, either, although it’s still useful for some constituencies.

    Reply

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