I wrote my senior thesis on John F. Kennedy as President. It did not win any awards, but I was fortunate to take my senior seminar on the American presidency with a gracious and learned man. I worked very hard at reading past the Camelot legend and also at taking the volumes of critical hyperbole with the grain of salt.
Kennedy was a moderately successful president whose tragic death transfigured his legacy of symbolism into substance. He was notable, even vital, to our history not for what he did in the White House but how and when he got there and how it ended. He is the only legendary U.S. president without a substantial record. His legend is his record. Democratic politicians since 1960, including his younger kinsmen, have been inspired more by him than by truly accomplished presidents such as Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. That in itself is amazing.
Ronald Reagan understood symbol as well as any American of the 20th century, and he had this to say about President Kennedy (in a speech drafted by Peggy Noonan):
"He loved history and approached it as both romantic and realist. He could quote Stephen Vincent Benét on Gen. Lee's army—'The aide de camp knew certain lines of Greek / and other things quite fitting for peace but not so suitable for war . . .' And he could sum up a current 'statesman' with an earthy epithet that would leave his audience weak with laughter. One sensed that he loved mankind as it was, in spite of itself, and that he had little patience with those who would perfect what was not meant to be perfect.
"As a leader, as a president, he seemed to have a good, hard, unillusioned understanding of man and his political choices. He had written a book as a very young man about why the world slept as Hitler marched on, and he understood the tension between good and evil in the history of man—understood, indeed, that much of the history of man can be seen in the constant working out of that tension.
"He was a patriot who summoned patriotism from the heart of a sated country. It is a matter of pride to me that so many young men and women who were inspired by his bracing vision and moved by his call to 'Ask not' serve now in the White House doing the business of government.
"Which is not to say I supported John Kennedy when he ran for president, because I didn't. I was for the other fellow. But you know, it's true: When the battle's over and the ground is cooled, well, it's then that you see the opposing general's valor."
The late President Kennedy's brother, host at the event of President Reagan's speech, wrote, as he was apt to do, a gracious letter of thanks. Ron and Nancy Reagan become friends with Senator Ted Kennedy, and she admitted this week that she grieves his loss. President Reagan was the man Senator Kennedy did everything in his power to stop, even delivering the greatest speech of his life to defend an activist, centralizing, federal government dedicated to economic and social results from the conservative and libertarian surge of 1980.
There will be time for opining later, but first I say to Edward Kennedy, Requiescat in pace.
Kennedy was a moderately successful president whose tragic death transfigured his legacy of symbolism into substance. He was notable, even vital, to our history not for what he did in the White House but how and when he got there and how it ended. He is the only legendary U.S. president without a substantial record. His legend is his record. Democratic politicians since 1960, including his younger kinsmen, have been inspired more by him than by truly accomplished presidents such as Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. That in itself is amazing.
Ronald Reagan understood symbol as well as any American of the 20th century, and he had this to say about President Kennedy (in a speech drafted by Peggy Noonan):
"He loved history and approached it as both romantic and realist. He could quote Stephen Vincent Benét on Gen. Lee's army—'The aide de camp knew certain lines of Greek / and other things quite fitting for peace but not so suitable for war . . .' And he could sum up a current 'statesman' with an earthy epithet that would leave his audience weak with laughter. One sensed that he loved mankind as it was, in spite of itself, and that he had little patience with those who would perfect what was not meant to be perfect.
"As a leader, as a president, he seemed to have a good, hard, unillusioned understanding of man and his political choices. He had written a book as a very young man about why the world slept as Hitler marched on, and he understood the tension between good and evil in the history of man—understood, indeed, that much of the history of man can be seen in the constant working out of that tension.
"He was a patriot who summoned patriotism from the heart of a sated country. It is a matter of pride to me that so many young men and women who were inspired by his bracing vision and moved by his call to 'Ask not' serve now in the White House doing the business of government.
"Which is not to say I supported John Kennedy when he ran for president, because I didn't. I was for the other fellow. But you know, it's true: When the battle's over and the ground is cooled, well, it's then that you see the opposing general's valor."
The late President Kennedy's brother, host at the event of President Reagan's speech, wrote, as he was apt to do, a gracious letter of thanks. Ron and Nancy Reagan become friends with Senator Ted Kennedy, and she admitted this week that she grieves his loss. President Reagan was the man Senator Kennedy did everything in his power to stop, even delivering the greatest speech of his life to defend an activist, centralizing, federal government dedicated to economic and social results from the conservative and libertarian surge of 1980.
There will be time for opining later, but first I say to Edward Kennedy, Requiescat in pace.
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