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AmericanThinker.com |
| By
Bruce Walker |
October 31, 2010
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Fifty years ago, American
government -- even American society -- entered into a
wonderland of youth, prettiness, chic, and charisma.
John Kennedy had defeated Richard Nixon in the
presidential debates (or at least JFK defeated Nixon in
the eyes of the millions of Americans who watched the
debates -- those who heard them on the radio felt that
Nixon had won). The election of 1960 was incredibly
close and could have torn the country apart, except that
mean-spirited Nixon (unlike Nobel Prize winner Gore)
chose to concede and spare the nation a political civil
war.
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glorious age was about to begin! The sophisticates and academicians
-- the aristocrats of the republic -- would now guide us to a new
Golden Age. John Kennedy was handsome, young, and married to a wife
with movie star looks. Television was endemic in American life, and
color television on large screens would very soon replace the small
black-and-white television in the living room. Kennedy inspired us
(or at least we were told that he inspired us over and over again),
but it was hard to put one's finger on exactly what Kennedy actually
did. |
| He
quickly fumbled his meeting in quasi-summit in Vienna with
Khrushchev, showing just how much less our young president knew
about the world than Eisenhower, the balding older man who guided a
coalition of democracies in a crusade against Hitler and then
presided for eight years over a peaceful, respected America. Kennedy
horribly mishandled the Bay of Pigs Invasion, leaving
freedom-fighters to face Castro's Gulag so JFK would not have to
face too many questions. It is ironic that the "highpoint" of
Kennedy in the White House was that he brought the world to the
brink of nuclear war and then "won" (which meant that we gained
nothing but looked as if we did). When Oswald killed Kennedy, he
also killed for decades any serious critique of the calamity which
was Camelot. |
| We now
know that Kennedy consorted with the molls of mafia dons, that his
adulteries -- lying to his wife and to his family -- were almost
endless, and that his personal life was well-hidden by the press. We
know that he used the IRS to hound his political enemies with a
vengeance that made Nixon's "enemies list" seem tame by comparison.
John Kennedy had a magnificent public image but nothing at all of
substance as president. Democrats since then have been trying to
remake themselves into JFK and bring back a "Camelot," which was a
low period in American government and politics, spiced up as
something grand and special. Bobby Kennedy, another self-indulgent,
adulterous, spoiled son of a rich, crooked anti-Semite, is forever
lionized, like JFK, for the nobility of being gunned down by a
fanatic. |
| Teddy
is the clearest example of the full life of one of these Camelot
Kids, and there is nothing pretty at all about this debauch riding
on his family's name and Senate seniority. (Is anyone these
days claiming that he voted for health care in remembrance of Teddy?
That was, recall, part of the original game plan in Teddy's Grand
Political Funeral.) |
| John
Kerry did his best to wrap the soiled robe of JFK around his neck,
but Americans were not impressed. John Edwards was once hailed as
being like John Kennedy, but aside from hideous adulteries and lies
-- and the same surname -- the two former senators had little else
in common. Surely the newest pretender to the throne in Camelot is
Barack Obama. There can be little doubt that his mother must have
worshiped JFK and that the lie he told about JFK bringing his father
over from Kenya was influenced by that hero-worship. |
| Obama,
if asked to compare himself to any other president, would doubtless
choose -- without wasting a second -- JFK. Why? Because Obama, much
more than wanting to actually do anything, wanted to be seen
as doing something. Obamacare, for example, is doubtless his grand
attempt at grimy socialism, but does anyone really believe that
Obama is disciplined or bright enough to actually understand the
law? Perception -- Camelot -- is everything to Obama. That is why
Obama has a photo-op every day, why he offers opinions on
everything, why he wants to be in your living room as much as he can
-- and why this man-child cannot govern anything at all. |
| But
Camelot is dead. We are no longer awed by glitz. We grasp that a
teleprompter-in-chief needs only to read in order to sound clever.
We see, moreover, the debris of Hollywood, the sickness of so much
celebrity, and the grotesque invention of importance in reality
television. Looking pretty in front of the camera may once have
wowed us, but now it bores us instead. Talking in sound bites and
catchphrases once may have seemed smart, but today, it just sounds
small-minded. We see, in retrospect, that Camelot was pure spun
sugar. No one, however, has told Obama yet. (Don't worry: someone
will soon.) |
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