John F. Kennedy - 100 Years

Born one hundred years ago today, John Fitzgerald Kennedy entered the office of President of the United States with a great deal of promise, with only part of it fulfilled.

Kennedy entered office in 1961, at a time of new possibilities, when new nations were forming in the Third World and the Soviet Union was pushing ahead to explore space.  It was also a time when European countries, more than fifteen years after World War II ended, were re-emerging with established democratic governments and re-affirming their places in the world.  The United States, by contrast, had slipped into a period of complacency brought on by a sense of conformity and contentment in the Eisenhower years.  John F. Kennedy came into office declaring that we could do better - but only if Americans were willing to do better.

Kennedy challenged the nation by talking about what he, as President, expected of the American people, not what he would offer them.  In that respect, he got the nation to start thinking about creating a more just society, bearing the burden of preserving liberty, and building a country that would be second to no one.  The success of the Soviets in sending a man in orbit around the earth inspired Kennedy to lead the country toward putting a man on the moon and returning safely to earth before 1970.  He initiated the Peace Corps to foster goodwill among the newly independent nations of Africa and Asia.  He moved forward on civil rights not only from being offended by bigotry but from being appalled by its lack of reason.  "Kennedy was not a bigot," Richard Reeves wrote in 1993.  "In fact, like many of his generation, he thought prejudice was irrational, a waste of emotion and time." 

Unfortunately, the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963 left his Presidency as unfinished as a Schubert symphony.  His domestic agenda and his commitment to civil rights - manifested in his June 1963 address on the topic - were stymied in Congress, and the space program was only beginning to move beyond John Glenn's 1962 triple orbit around the earth.  The centerpieces of his domestic agenda would be left to his successor, Lyndon Johnson, to push through Congress, and the moon landing would ironically take place six months to the day into the administration of Kennedy's old nemesis, Richard Nixon.  The major question involving Vietnam - would Kennedy have withdrawn American troops and advisers had he lived?  - remains unanswered.  But his cool, deliberative approach to defusing the Cuban missile crisis suggests that he likely would have.

Kennedy's greatest legacy as President was encouraging and inspiring America to do better and not to be satisfied with standing pat.  It is a sentiment has been tapped by JFK wannabes like Gary Hart, a cartoon Kennedy for the cartoon republic that was 1980s America, and sought by politicians too young to remember Kennedy, like former President Barack Obama.  But, in all actuality, no one possessing Kennedy's virtues and values - not even Kennedy himself - could possibly inspire Americans today to pursue public service.  People are too jaded.  Kennedy's questionable personal life would not have survived the scrutiny of today's 24-hour news cycles, and he likely would have withered from relentless criticism on social media.  Indeed, he might have been laughed at by urging Americans to pledge service to country today to provide for a better world tomorrow.  

After all, look what happened to the most Kennedyesque presidential candidate since JFK himself, Martin O'Malley.                      

I supported O'Malley as someone who hoped to see the Kennedy story repeated, but in a more indulgent, more ignorant, and more cynical time, it's hard to imagine anyone repeating the Kennedy story.  The unfinished work he left behind and the squandering in trust in government of Johnson and Nixon left a big hole in this country, but Kennedy's example shows that his faith in public service and what it means to be an American can be revived.

But it's going to take a long time before we regain the ability to revive it.  

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address

It was fifty years ago today that President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. Watching the 13-minute, 43-second inaugural address in its entirety - thus putting it in more of a real sort of context - you understand exactly what President Kennedy was saying on that cold January day. He exhorted Americans and free peoples of the rest of the world to work together and make as many sacrifices as necessary to secure a lasting peace and a greater prosperity for the globe. He offered nothing except his own service, and asked to be held accountable for his service just like anyone else. It may have been the last time a President encouraged us to give of ourselves (though, in 1979, President Jimmy Carter scolded us for not doing so). Of the more than fifty presidential inaugural addresses given since 1789, this is one of only three or four addresses that anyone cares to remember.

You've heard all the quotable lines from this speech, in fact, quoted; I will only repeat one of them. It was the quote just before the famous one about asking what you can do for the country. President Kennedy said the endeavor of the struggle would create a great fire of energy . . . "and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." (The Kennedy memorial stamp issued by the U.S. post office in 1964 included that quote.)

Here is the full speech on video, from a C-SPAN rebroadcast.

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In Search of the New Frontier

Fifty years ago today, a boyish, seemingly vigorous United States Senator from Massachusetts named John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced his candidacy for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. In doing so, he vowed to propose new policies that would ask more of Americans to help get the country moving again and bring about an era of national renewal after eight years of complacency and comfort.

Few paid much attention to this announcement. Kennedy was popular in his home state, he was respected, and he was well liked on Capitol Hill. But not too many people gave him much of a chance to become the nominee. He was too young, a Roman Catholic, and had no experience in an executive capacity. But he beat the odds and not only won the nomination, he narrowly won the election of 1960 and embarked on a presidential administration to re-invigorate the social and economic fabric of the country, restore a sense of national purpose, and move forward into the future. To make America a better place, Americans would be expected to pay any price, bear any burden, comfort any friend, and oppose any foe.

When Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, after overcoming so-called handicaps such as his youth and his biracial background, he asked Americans to ponder what they could do for their country, albeit in different terms. One year into his Presidency, the economy is still stagnant, little seems to be getting done, the body politic is polarized over health care reform, and Americans are bewildered and disillusioned by change they're not quite sure they can believe in. Even the "celebrity" charge against Obama by Hillary Clinton and John McCain seems to be sticking. His star quality got people excited enough to elect him, but the young people who made it happen have largely stayed home. What happened to that sense of purpose? Why is America still pretty much the same place it was in 2008? What happened?

It's worth noting that Kennedy had his own troubles in his first year in office, from the Berlin Wall and the Bay of Pigs to a recession draining the gold reserves, and a disastrous summit with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna. Events - and Kennedy's own sense of how to get something right the second time - moved his Presidency in a more positive direction, from his deft handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the successful pursuit of a nuclear test-ban treaty to the stirrings of the civil rights movement. Kennedy was already well on his way to greatness before his ill-fated trip to Texas.

Can Obama recover from his own foibles - Afghanistan, mistakes in pursuing health care reform, the Wall Street debacle - and rise to greatness by the next election in 2012? Let's hope so.

But he does have big shoes to fill.

If we can't find a new frontier, we have to build a successful society where we already are.

The Worse You Do . . .

David Letterman's admission last week to sleeping with women on his staff to thwart a blackmailer was both shockingly embarrassing and embarrassingly shocking. He not only demonstrated that he's a philanderer, but kind of a creepy one as well. But then Letterman always had a reckless side, as evidence by his tickets for speeding on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. (I've traveled on that road; trust me, it's pretty dangerous to go past the speed limit there!)

But get this. Letterman's actually getting moral support from his audience, and his ratings are up.

Meanwhile, President Obama hasn't gotten a climate change bill through the Senate, the economy is still reeling from last year's Wall Street crash, and if Obama signs a health care reform bill, it will more likely than not lack a public option. That said, his approval rating went up six points from last month, to 56 percent.

These two stories correspond to what I call the Bay of Pigs rule, named for the failed 1961 U.S.-backed counter-coup against Fidel Castro by Cuban exiles. The rule states that one's standing among others increases proportionally to how many times one screws up. President John F. Kennedy, remember, approved the Bay of Pigs invasion. After it failed spectacularly, he admitted the U.S's role in the Bay of Pigs operation and accepted full responsibility, and his poll ratings went up to 83 percent.

"Jesus," he was quoted as saying. "The worse you do, the better they like you."