Camelot has seen better days. No, not the legendary court of King Arthur, which supposedly faded away after its ruler departed to Avalon. Rather, “Camelot” as a shorthand for another legend: that of the Kennedy family in American politics. That the future hopes for relevance of this once-dominant political dynasty may now reside in a 31-year-old self-described “silly goose” who briefly addressed the Democratic National Convention speaks to its present fortunes. It also ought to make us wonder how credible the Kennedy myth ever really was.
We owe the association of Arthurian legend with Kennedy politics to Jacqueline Bouvier, the widow of slain president John F. Kennedy. The understandably grief-stricken Jackie impressed upon political journalist Theodore White, writing in the wake of JFK’s assassination for Life magazine, the connection between her assassinated husband and the then-popular Broadway musical Camelot. “There will be great presidents again,” she told White, “but there will never be another Camelot.” Manhattan Institute senior fellow James Piereson recounts that White regretted helping transmit this myth. It took off quickly; by November 1968, William F. Buckley Jr. was calling “the dynastic assertiveness of the Kennedys” a “wonder of the world.” And it has persisted.
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