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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Fifty years after Dallas: Time to see beyond John F. Kennedy's many Camelot myths

“Viewed up close, it's not a pretty picture:
"America's prince" looks more like the imperial presidency's Dorian Gray.”

By GENE HEALY NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Nov. 22 — a little over two weeks from now — will mark the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas in 1963. But unless you’re on a starvation-level “media diet,” you probably knew that already.  Politico notes a looming “media tidal wave,” with more than 100 new Kennedy books, dozens of TV specials and several new iPad apps accompanying the unhappy anniversary.
In a December 1963 interview, the president’s widow gave a name to the Kennedy mystique, telling journalist Theodore White of Jack’s fondness for the lyric from the Lerner and Loewe musical about King Arthur: “Once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot."  Much more than a “moment,” Camelot has proven an enduring myth.
JFK places near the top 10 in most presidential ranking surveys of historians, and in a 2011 Gallup poll, Americans ranked him ahead of George Washington in a list of “America’s greatest presidents.”  Kennedy’s murder was a national tragedy, to be sure, but an honest assessment of his record shows that our lawless and reckless 35th president was anything but a national treasure……To Read More…..

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