I am too young to have any memory of President John F. Kennedy. Therefore, I shall leave it to others to provide the kind of sentimental commentary this week of national remembrance evidently warrants.
I will say, however, that I see no redeeming political or historical value in propagating counterfactuals about what would have happened if JFK were not assassinated.
That said, I have read and seen enough about JFK’s presidency to appreciate the uncanny similarities between his and Obama’s. Most notably:
- both were presidential pioneers – with JKF being the first Catholic elected president, Obama the first Black;
- both championed civil rights legislation – with JFK ordering federal agencies to end discrimination against women and calling for Black civil rights legislation, Obama ending discrimination against gays in the military and calling for legalizing same-sex marriages; and
- both were beset by foreign entanglements that had many heralding the decline of American power – with JFK trying to recover from the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the face of brazen efforts by Nikita Khrushchev, the pugnacious president of the Soviet Union, to test his nerve by deploying nuclear missiles in Cuba, Obama from the ongoing tumult of the Arab Spring in the face of brazen efforts by Vladimir Putin, the He-Man president of Russia, to emasculate him by seizing credit for forcing Syria to get rid of its chemical weapons.
There were of course some notable differences. But this occasion obliges me to comment on just one. It pertains to the unrelenting attempts by right-wing nuts not just to delegitimize Obama’s presidency, but to demonize him as well. Yet, where JFK did not make it into the third year of his presidency, Obama is in the fifth year of his….
Accordingly, I shall suffice to reiterate:
Let us pray that … his Secret Service bodyguards will redouble their efforts to protect him. Because the last thing America needs right now is another assassination that triggers all of the lost hope and incendiary rage of the killing of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr … combined!
(“Barack Obama Clinches Historic Democratic Presidential Nomination,” The iPINIONS Journal, June 4, 2008)
Meanwhile, for the record, I fully appreciate the conspiracy theories that haunt the assassination of JFK. Indeed, it is noteworthy that those who swear by them include the likes of filmmaker Oliver Stone and no less a person than U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry (yes, he’s JFK too).
But, here again, I have read and seen enough to believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted as a lone wolf when he assassinated JFK in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963; this, notwithstanding investigative oversights in the Warren Commission’s report. What’s more, I believe the forensics. They prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there was only one shooter, despite Stone famously mocking this “single-bullet theory” in his film, JFK.
Using 3D laser scanners to document the crime scene and assess if a single bullet could have killed JFK and wounded Texas Gov. John Connally, [ballistics experts] Luke and Michael Haag feel they have not only debunked the decades old conspiracy theory of the Grassy Knoll shooter, but proven it is indeed possible for a single bullet to have caused two fatalities…
Luke Haag said, ‘We want to think there’s more to it than a loner loser deranged Marxist who hated his country and took an opportunity. There’s got be more to it than that … (Vincent) Bugliosi has a wonderful statement, ‘A peasant cannot strike down a king:’ Think about it — a nobody did.’
(NOVA, ‘Cold Case JFK,’ PBS, November 13, 2013)
Finally, am I the only one who wonders why it was just the Obamas and Clintons who attended the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday? Specifically, where were the Bushes?
No doubt these are acutely polarizing times in American politics. But George W. Bush’s absence stood in stark contrast to his appearance the night before – yucking it up – on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
This seems inconsistent with the non-partisan tradition of all former U.S. presidents showing up for the funeral when a member of their very exclusive club passes on. Even worse, it gives credence to the sectarian view among far too many Republicans that a Democratic president is not their president because they did not vote for him….
Unfortunately, unless we hear directly from Bush or Obama, we will never know if Bush turned down Obama’s invitation, or if Obama never extended one. I’m inclined to believe the latter is the case; not least because, like his father, George W has always shown irreproachable and unfailing deference to “the office.”
Which leaves me with the ironic and disappointing suspicion that Obama used this solemn occasion not only to score cheap political points, but also to play, unwittingly, into the rabid sectarianism that is undermining his own presidency.
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