A Child’s Garden of Candidates

President Kennedy has both held his votaries and soothed the uneasy. One hears, it is true, much less about the abrasive stuff of greatness; one feels at the same time the soft folds of comfort. Mr. Buckley and I seem a little restless in the hills; still, each of us has the consolation that, for the moment, the country is safe from the other one.

Theodore White’s history of the 1960 campaign marches through this unresisting air. The Making of the President would, I am sure, be a natural success if Mr. White’s industry were less formidable and his excitement less contagious. Mr. White’s commission is handsomer by the result even so; it would be hard to conceive sales figures this crashing if the crooks downstate had outpilfered the crooks in Chicago and Mr. Nixon were now our President. The Democratic Party is the opiate of the literate.

MK

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Murray Kempton

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John F. Kennedy

Richard Nixon

President Kennedy has both held his votaries and soothed the uneasy. One hears, it is true, much less about the abrasive stuff of greatness; one feels at the same time the soft folds of comfort. Mr. Buckley and I seem a little restless in the hills; still, each of us has the consolation that, for the moment, the country is safe from the other one.

Theodore White’s history of the 1960 campaign marches through this unresisting air. The Making of the President would, I am sure, be a natural success if Mr. White’s industry were less formidable and his excitement less contagious. Mr. White’s commission is handsomer by the result even so; it would be hard to conceive sales figures this crashing if the crooks downstate had outpilfered the crooks in Chicago and Mr. Nixon were now our President. The Democratic Party is the opiate of the literate.