Given the ostentatious way the nation is marking this 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, one could be forgiven for thinking that he was the only president assassinated in office. In fact, there were three others, most notable among them Abraham Lincoln, who seems far more worthy of this kind of national tribute than JFK.
Yet I can’t remember there being even a mention in the media to mark the anniversary of the assassination of any other president. I would bet my life savings, for example, that the nation did not mark the 50th anniversary of Lincoln’s in 1915, James A. Garfield’s in 1931, or William McKinley’s in 1951 in this fashion….
Of course, I fully appreciate why a “selfie” nation would indulge in this ostentatious show of remembrance for a president who was effectively the father of the “image-is-everything” social media that has come to define our lives. But, given this showing, it will be very telling indeed to see how the nation marks the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination in 2015.
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Remembering JFK
* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Friday, at 5:12 pm