Clinton is cool, but Kennedy is cooler
When it came to naming America’s coolest president, I used to go with Bill Clinton. A teacher I know agreed with me. She said that several years ago, when she was discussing Clinton’s impeachment with her seventh-grade history class, one student asked, “Just what did he do, exactly?”
She told him as best she could, while considering junior-high sensibilities. She told me the class reaction was unanimous. It was a loud, “Wow! Cool!”
It was typical, we now know. An accurate reflection of the America attitude toward achievement. Thus a hero was born. Again, the Democratic party had a legend in the making. After some three decades, the party began to forget Jack Kennedy.
But Kennedy supporters remain, and as could be expected, we have begun to hear from them. One fan, a Mimi Alford from New Jersey, recently appeared on television and made it clear that she knew Jack Kennedy, and when it comes to presidential-class feats, Bill Clinton is no Jack Kennedy.
Clinton had the incident with an intern in the Oval Office, certainly worth notice. But as we have just learned from Mrs. Alford, Jack, 43 then, had an incident with an intern, Mrs. Alford herself, then 19, in the White House bedroom of Jack and his wife.
I think any impartial observer would say that is way cooler than anything Clinton, or any other president, ever did. Even historian Doris Kearns Goodwin showed up on MSNBC last week taking notice of Jack’s vigor.
No other president, not even Lyndon Johnson, could match that. Mrs. Goodwin should know. According to a best-selling book by Victor Lasky, LBJ once proposed to her. She obviously said no. However, if Franklin D. Roosevelt had been doing the proposing, I’m sure Mrs. Goodwin would have had a different answer, even if hers was only platonic love.
I myself was a big JFK fan. He was my first political hero, even though my entire family is Republican. Almost all of us switched over to vote for JFK against Richard Nixon in 1960. Jack had a great smile, he was a dedicated family man, he was a Catholic, as we are, and he was cool.
But we wondered about my dad, a strong Republican and a strong Catholic. It wasn’t clear if he would vote for the Republican or the Catholic. We look at it now as his Colin Powell moment.
When he admitted he voted for Nixon, the family felt good. We thought, and he obviously agreed, that voting should be political, not religious. It was good all around. JFK, our choice, turned out to be called by the press one of the greatest presidents of all time.
And he always kept his cool. There was one incident reported by the press about his not providing air cover to support an attack by Cubans against Castro’s Cuba. The attack failed, and the press took the occasion to ask him about it. He explained that victory has many fathers, but defeat is an orphan. The press really liked that. The consensus was, “That Jack. He’s always coming up with a good line.” They kept asking themselves in wonder how he could come up with all those great sayings.
So with all that and with the latest first-hand information, I now think JFK is No. 1. It’s too bad he’s not here now. I’ll bet he could show Clinton some real explaining.
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George Hunsucker
Northland
3 months agoIt is indeed a sad commentary on our educational and religious education that it is seen to be “cool” that a sitting President disgraces the office by getting oral sex in same.
People should feel sorry for these people who mustbe very sick to allow themsleves to be “serviced” by someone the age of their daughter… how sick is that?
Kay Fox
Kansas City
3 months agoWhy did the Star publish this article?
Grow up, as adults we do not need to focus on a Presidents adultery and it should be called exactly what it is, cheating on their wives, being unfaithful, etc.
If a man will cheat on his wife he’ll cheat you as he has not values, morals, or loyalties.
Disgusting.