It doesn't make sense to even talk about JFK without considering the context in which he served: part of the FDR liberal Democratic tradition that ran from FDR to Humphrey, imprisoned by the equally traditional segregationist Southern Democrats, finding political avenues only by compromising with those Southern Democrats or the liberal wing of the Republican Party, or both. There was no other way. Kennedy tried to find one, but he had to die to get it -- without his assassination Johnson could never have passed the Civil Rights Act that split the party for good -- and Kennedy, whose bill it was originally, had no freaking clue how to go about passing it himself, because Kennedy never understood the legislative process at all, and indeed had little but contempt for it. In this way he (and his death) were more harbingers of change rather than the change itself, which came after (and because of). Johnson was the change agent, not Kennedy; Johnson is the one who broke the deadlock and freed the Democratic Party (and, as he feared, cast it into the wilderness for thirty years, as that Southern wing switched sides and took their racism to the GOP, where it is now the core philosophy of that party as it never was with the Democrats).

And the next person who tries to tell me that "Camelot" was "a simpler, less complicated time" is going to get a smackdown. It most certainly was NOT. I'll admit, for me it was indeed a simpler time --BECAUSE I WAS FIVE YEARS OLD.

[i]If JFK saw today's America.... young men snap on a monthly basis and shoot up public spaces across the country... he'd have to assume it was some sort of a bad joke[/i]

Perhaps you haven't thought about the 24 year old that made sure JFK was unable to laugh or live any longer. I don't think young men deciding to end their lives in pursuit of something radical is anything new.

FWIW, Mr. Oswald was a student of Marxism and Socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Harvey_…
By age 15, he claimed to be a Marxist, writing in his diary, "I was looking for a key to my environment, and then I discovered socialist literature. I had to dig for my books in the back dusty shelves of libraries." At 16 he wrote to the Socialist Party of America for information on their Young People's Socialist League, saying he had been studying socialist principles for "well over fifteen months."

The NRA of 1963 is totally different from the NRA of 2013. In the late 1970s a bunch of extremists took over the organization and turned it from something that was innocuous and sensible into something that was radical and dangerous. But it's no surprise Grover Norquist won't tell people that detail.

If JFK saw today's America—where we throw people to the streets rather than provide basic mental health care

It's worth noting that JFK started the path to de-institutionalization that was completed under Reagan.

@6,

Of course not. He's on the board.

JFK's time was unique because it was probably the peak of centralized media in the United States and the world. People were glued to their TV sets, yes, because there were only 3 networks. No Internet. No cable. Information flowed from top to bottom.

However, the assassination was a unique disruption. It began a phase of live reporting and investigative journalism that had not been seen before. Suddenly a whole lot of regular people, like witnesses, and people in the street, were being asked their opinion...and they put it on TV.

I don't think the 1960s economy was a great as everyone says. For one thing, all I remember growing up was hearing about what I was going to do for a job. There were already tales of the Ph.d's driving taxi cabs. The problem was the tremendous population growth of the Baby Boom flooding all of societies institutions. While say a science ph.d. in the early 1950s was like being a computer programmer in the 1980s with multiple offers dangled from around the county, by the 1960s everything was resource shortages. Split sessions in schools. Lack of opportunity. Having to do more with less.

If anything, the high imagery of Kennedy was kind of a faux wealth. Back under Eisenhower, the middle class was getting real gains, the kind of gains that made them wealthy. By Kennedy's time, illusion had begun to take over from reality. TV royalty for personal ascendancy.

It is this type of dissonance between what people were told to what they experienced, that lead to much of the protest and rebellion.

If JFK ever met Grover Norquist he would have the Secret Service strap him down and pry his mouth open while JFK shit down his throat.

Delusional asshole.

@11, yeah, the Peace Corps is great and all, Dr. Schlesinger, but it kind of pales next to Civil Rights, don't you think? The Act of 1964 was Kennedy's bill, indeed, but had zero chance of passing, because Kennedy didn't know or care how to work the Senate.

And breaking the stranglehold of the Southern senators far outstrips any of the things on your list in long-term importance.

The internet? You're grasping at straws. And your Vietnam analysis is just plain crazy. Kennedy was an ardent Cold Warrior and ramped up early war operations. And he supported the coup that killed Diem (orchestrated through the bungling of Henry Cabot Lodge, Averell Harriman, McNamara, and the rest of the geniuses, whose copious butt-covering you appear to have fully invested in. Kennedy was never getting out of Vietnam.

Kennedy was not a bad president, just an unfinished and mortal one. His greatness was less than Johnson's, but so too were his flaws. But the only thing you ever hear is "Kennedy bad", because that is the ONLY message you have ever taken away from anything to do with your heroes. It's easy to overlook the messy reality when you're only interested in hagiography. But then, we'll forgive you, because like many deeply religious people you're so obviously damaged beyond repair.

And yet, with all of that, you're nowhere near as wide of the mark as the inimitable John Supreme Bailo, who is 180 degrees wrong in every single sentence @10.

Since nearly every commenter here so far has held up their own personal JFK as the Only True JFK, infinitely superior to everyone else's personal JFK, who lived in each commenter's personal version of the 60s, which trumps everyone else's experience of the 60s as the Only True 60s, this whole GOP-subsuming-the-JFK-legacy thing is pretty unsurprising.

@17 this thread is at least 50% trolls, so I wouldnt read into it too deeply.

@17: Yeah JFK is like Jesus now. We can project what ever atributes we like on him.

@11

That entire first paragraph is hilarious to me. I bet you typed that out without a hint of irony or self-awareness.

Day 296 of your project to sign off SLOG forever. How goes it?

His administration was trending leftward at the time he was assassinated but who knows what would have happened if he hadn't been. Looking back however one thing I do know is his was the first assassination of 4 that devastated the left in 60s. JFK, MLK, RFK and Melcolm.

@7:

Here you go again, with your half-baked conspiracy theories full of vague innuendo, rumor and completely unsubstantiated "facts". Talbot's book is nothing more than fanciful revisionism; he fails to provide a single shred of evidence to support his "theories" regarding JFK's assassination, and instead makes a failed attempt to string ALL of them (Was it the CIA? Was it anti-Castro Cubans? The Mafia? NO! It was ALL of them together!) into some sort of "Grand Unified (Conspiracy) Theory". Likewise DeSocio ("It was the Rockerfellers! EVERYTHING was the Rockerfellers!).

Doesn't the tin-foil hat ever get just a little itchy? You should really try life without it for a few days, let that foggy brain of yours clear up a bit with a good, healthy dose of what we like to call REALITY.

Fnarf has all the facts here, @17.

I'll give them this one just so long as they admit Reagan would have been a democrat.

@17 - JFK would have loved that comment.

"It's worth noting that JFK started the path to de-institutionalization that was completed under Reagan."

It's also important to note that back in JFK's date, a husband could have his wife committed for being crazy enough to want to leave him (That happened to the mother of a friend of mine). There were some very good reasons to "de-institutionalize" to a certain extent. Reagan just did it to be cheap.

JFK DID put missiles in Turkey a few miles away from the USSR. Then the USSR responded by putting missiles in Cuba, a few miles away from the USA. Guess which country nearly lead us into a nuclear war? The "magic" of Camelot ignores the part about Turkey: if you include that part JFK doesn't seem so much a hero, but more like someone who bit off more than he could chew and had to find a way out without wiping out half the continental US.

I wouldn't say that JFK would be a Republican, but I can say that he would not be a part of todays corrupt to the core Democratic party.

@ 27, geopolitics isn't a game of heros and villians; pretty much everyone sucks. Americans of every political persuasion would do well to lose the whole "shining city on the hill" thing we have about our country.

JFK was not as much the liberal as he is being portrayed 2 1/2 generations later.
History confuses Jack with Ted, a much different story.
I addressed this issue in my recent release: Rockefellerocracy.
I would like to thank Sgt Doom for believing in my work so strongly.

JFK was not the liberal he is being portrayed 2 1/2 generations later.
History sometimes confuses Jack with Ted, a much different story.
Johnson was under heavy pressure due to the race riots burning American cities.
I discussed this point in my recent release: Rockefellerocarcy.
Thanks to Sgt Doom for believing in my work so strongly.

Jesus, why do any of you respond to sgt. doom about anything? Are you that bored?

Comte,
it was all of the above.
"Rockefellerocracy" shows that the CIA was fashioned by Nelson Rockefeller while he was the great Coordinator, appointed to that wartime post by FDR . Coordinator meant he was the umbrella over America's various mansions of espionage. He was fired by Truman (circa 1948) and replaced by the CIA. In other words the CIA was created to replace a fired Nelson. But the wily coyote was put back in charge by hand-puppet Eisenhower who was the president of Columbia university which owned the 26 acres of Manhattan real estate upon which Rockefeller Center sits on. Read my book and educate yourself to the truth, instead of showing off your ignorance.