Assassination is by its nature tragic. But when John F. Kennedy was cut down at just 46 years old, The Post editorialized that the shooting seemed a particularly cruel affirmation of the president’s recent musings about the unfairness of life.
Maybe it was because JFK was not only young and handsome, he left behind young children and a beautiful wife. Maybe it was because he was our first television president, which brought him into our living rooms and made him more accessible than any of his predecessors. Maybe it was because his assassination for some marked the end of American optimism.
In the aftermath came the myth of Camelot. The myth downplayed that Kennedy’s assassin was a Castro-loving Communist. It also led to a presentation of JFK as more liberal than he was in real life.
In truth, Kennedy was an unfinished ledger. He’d had both successes and failures in his 1,000 days. But his murder meant he would never face the severest challenges — Vietnam, civil rights — that lay ahead.
His reputation has also suffered over the past half-century from posthumous revelations about his private behavior, as well as from new analysis of his presidency less compromised by the understandably high emotions of the moment.
So was JFK a liberal or conservative? The answer is he was both. Plainly he was a Cold Warrior. He also understood the power of tax cuts. And we can’t help but observe that today’s Democratic Party would be much healthier if it could find room for a political leader to speak about the nature of America’s enemies abroad and the strengths of private enterprise at home the way Jack Kennedy did.
In the aftermath of the assassination, Bill Buckley wrote that America needed “a period of dignified mourning for a gracious human being who passed through our midst with style and energy.” Part of what made Kennedy so gracious was that he belonged to a World War II generation unashamed of its faith in the promise of America. If this nation still mourns the loss of its young president, maybe it’s because we know the dark decade that followed.