Tonight’s ABC special on the JFK shooting is promoted with two debatable sentences. The host, Peter Jennings, is called “one of the most respected reporters.” (For anyone who doesn’t blink at that, see here.)
The shooting is called “one of the greatest crimes.” Is this crime greater than the Holocaust, the Ukrainian famine, the Khmer Rouge reign, Rwanda, name your genocide? I don’t know how you write that sentence without suggesting Kennedy was a giant, a great man and a great president. Wouldn’t that be confusing media fascination with merit?
I know (because my friend two doors down keeps telling me) that JFK would look much more politically desirable today than the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates — only I doubt that if he were plopped into today’s race at his 1960-campaign vintage 43, he wouldn’t be right in the thick of today’s DNC political fads. It’s just sad that as historians (notably liberals like Dallek and Reeves) are piercing the Camelot propaganda, some are using the latest Dealey Plaza rerun for another round of myth-promoting.