Fifty Years In, The Myth Persists

If you weren't already persuaded that Lee Harvey Oswald was not the lone assassin of President John F. Kennedy, this should convince you:

Lee Harvey Oswald was a communist. We know that a leftist, a communist assassinated JFK. That is the official Warren report conclusion. And yet the media cannot let go of the fact that because there were a lot of white Republican businessmen in Dallas, that it was a climate of hate, a climate of fear, a climate of extremism in Dallas that led to Kennedy's death. Every conspiracy theory that you have heard that makes you think Lee Harvey Oswald was not the assassin was started by the Democrats. Every one.

You go back and look at these wacko movies that they made with all the focus in New Orleans and you will find wacko leftist filmmakers who started all of these conspiracy theories.

As it happens, however, Rush Limbaugh is not the only one in possession of The One True Explanation.™ Politico recently asked of Robin McNeil, Jim Lehrer, and Bob Schieffer  "what do you make of the findings of the Warren Commission?"  Here are the responses, of McNeil in full and exerpts of Lehrer and Schieffer:

(McNeil): It satisfied me because I never had the time or the inclination afterward to become an assassination student or an assassination buff. I have yet to see a bit of evidence that convinces me otherwise. I thought the Oliver Stone movie was ridiculous.

(Lehrer): But I didn’t have any theories that replaced the single-man theory, shooter, and for the last 50 years, I’ve been waiting to hear that story that, OK, somebody on their death bed makes a confession that they were Lee Harvey Oswald’s driver or they helped him get the gun or whatever. That’s not happened and 50 years later, I’m pretty well satisfied that, with the absence of any provable information to the contrary, it was true that it was just one guy, Lee Harvey Oswald. And it was just unbelievable, but it happened that one man did it.

(Schieffer): .I always try to keep an open mind as to whether there may have been someone else involved in some other way. There’s no question that Fidel Castro knew that the Kennedy administration were trying to kill him and sabotage things in Cuba, but there’s never been any evidence that has been shown to me that I found conclusive that there might have been anyone other than Oswald involved.

Actually, Jim Lehrer is correct- it is unbelievable that one man did it.  Politico, as has become the norm, queried interviewees about the findings of the Warren Commission, implying that Chief Justice Warren's group has presented the official government finding.  But as Kennedy assassination scholar Bob Katz reminds us

The House Select Committee on Assassinations, headed by Robert Blakey, a former Justice Department prosecutor, was a two-year probe that included hundreds of interviews, the discovery of new evidence, scientific tests on new and old evidence, plus the most extensive review of available FBI, CIA, Secret Service and Warren Commission files. The HSCA final report stated bluntly that President Kennedy "probably was assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

Didn't know that, huh? Not mentioned in your American history textbook? Well, why would that be?

Rarely (if ever) is anyone asked to comment on the House Select Committee on Investigations, as if the public is to assume that the Warren Commission conducted the official, and only, government investigation. The HCA in 1978 concluded

Scientific Acoustical Evidence Establishes a High Probability That Two Gunmen Fired at President John F. Kennedy; Other Scientific Evidence does not Preclude the Possibility of Two Gunmen Firing at the President; Scientific Evidence Negates Some Specific Conspiracy Allegations.

Perhaps nothing is any more remarkable that, after the Warren Commission- its findings and the committee itself- has been repeatedly debunked over the past half century, its supporters have been given a free pass while the burden of proof has been placed upon conspiracy theorists. The respondent is then expected to summon up a serious demeanor and remark that there has been no evidence presented to suggest a second gunman. And he or she does so without any hint of doubt, suggesting that all evidence has been released and put on public display. But David Talbot, founder of Salon and author, explains

We need the facts – as Jefferson Morley, one of the few journalists to devote serious effort to the Kennedy case, has demonstrated. Morley has been pursuing a lengthy Freedom of Information battle with the CIA to pry loose more than 1,500 documents that the agency is still concealing in defiance of the 1992 JFK Records Act. At long last, we need the government to come clean and provide the American people with what is legally theirs – every piece of classified information relating to the Kennedy assassination. Failing that, if the CIA continues to defy the law, the nation needs another Edward Snowden.









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Don't Ask About That


John Dickerson of Slate notes

Mitt Romney is coy about his running mate. He’ll only speak about the topic in the broadest terms. His staff won’t talk about it at all. To be fair, they don’t know much about the subject. It’s something very personal to Romney.

I am talking about his religion.

In a speech at the Bush Presidential Library in December, 2007 to address concerns among GOP voters about his religion, presidential candidate Romney remarked

There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths. 

Similarly, when asked last year by CNN's Piers Morgan about homosexuality, Romney remarked "I'm not a spokesman for my church. And one thing I'm not going to do in running for president is become a spokesman for my church or apply a religious test that is simply forbidden by the constitution, I'm not going there. If you want to learn about my church, talk to my church."

When John F. Kennedy appeared before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in October, 1960, he asserted "Whatever issue may come before me as president — on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject," he would base his views solely on what he believed to be in the best interests of the nation.

Romney sees things differently.   After he delivered a commencement address in May at Liberty University, the college founded by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, the New York Times reported he "made the case that he is bound theologically and politically to the same belief and value system as Christian conservatives, though he never explicitly mentioned his Mormon faith."     As can be seen in the transcript, Romney hit all the Christian sweet spots with references to:  the "purpose driven life," popularized by right-wing minister Rick Warren; "to God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever," drawing on Hebrews 13:8; "the grace of God,"; the modern Christian figures C.S. Lewis and Chuck Colson; and "heroic souls like (John Wesley), (William) Wilberforce, (Dietrich) Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham" (what, no Presbyterians?).

While the candidate does not address his religion or even his spiritual faith when he's questioned by a member of the media, he's not above sending a dog whistle to partisans, whether at a famous evangelical educational institution or telling supporters in Ohio “As I’m sure you do, I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired. I believe the same thing about the Declaration of Independence.”  

Barack Obama never has made the extraordinary suggestion that the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are divinely inspired, which puts those two doctrines peculiar to one nation on a par with the Bible.    Yet, his faith was addressed by the Gas and Oil Party and the mainstream media in the context of his pastor, a scary figure to many Americans.

But there are additional reasons journalists should not be so intimidated as to sidestep the religious belief of a presumptive presidential nominee, particularly one who suggests to supporters that it plays a role in approach to secular matters.    As Taylor Marsh observes

It would be great if no politician had to do the faith walk, but since no atheist is allowed near a national ticket it’s pretty clear that there is a litmus test for candidates, so knowing something about what informs them matters.

Dickerson summarizes

But there’s more to Romney’s religion than the theological side. As Joanna Brooks, who writes frequently on Mormonism, argues so persuasively, “It is important for readers to know that Romney developed his leadership style in a non-democratic, patriarchal, hierarchical church culture where he rarely encountered open challenge.” Romney has been a leader in several different arenas: in government, in business, in helping organize the Olympic Games, and in his church. The campaign asks us to examine and approve of three of those four areas—and then walls off discussion of Romney’s religious leadership.

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Doubters Need Not Apply

State your case, defend it, then blow it up.

That wasn't Chris Matthews, who on Monday evening engaged in conversation with Clarence Page and Mother Jones' David Corn and asked, nearly rhetorically

Well, what about going to that 20 percent or 23 percent we showed in the "New York Times" poll that doesn`t know, they just want evidence? Is that a group that has a right to get more documentation? And would Abercrombie`s position here be the right one, David?

Matthews was responding to the report that

Neil Abercrombie, who took over the governor's office in Honolulu this month, is pledging to burst the birther bubble. "I'm going to take care of that," he told the New York Times.

For Abercrombie, the dispute is personal. He was a friend of Obama's parents, Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama the elder who was studying at the University of Hawaii on an exchange from his native Kenya.

Though Abercrombie was not present at the birth of the younger Barack at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynaecological hospital on 4 August 1961, he did get to see the baby thereafter. He regards the ongoing background noise of doubts surrounding Obama's US citizenship as an insult to his late friends.

"[Obama's] a big boy; he can take sticks and stones. But there's no reason on earth to have the memory of his parents insulted by people whose motivation is solely political. Let's put this particular canard to rest," he said.

The governor is working with Hawaii's attorney general and health department to find ways of producing definitive evidence of Obama's Hawaiian birth. Full disclosure is restricted under the state's privacy laws.

The idea that Obama is not a natural-born American first surfaced in 2008 during the presidential campaign. In an attempt to kill it, the Obama campaign released his certificate of live birth and allowed it to be closely studied by fact-checking websites who declared it authentic.

Birth notices were also confirmed from the time in the local Honolulu Advertiser.

But at every stage, the birthers have responded with further demands and additional objections.

If not diabetic, or driving on New Years Eve, lift a toast to Governor Abercrombie for wanting to lay all the evidence out. And (on this matter), to Chris Matthews, who asked- really, commented-

Because we`ve got the poll that shows that only 58 percent are confident of his birth in this country. So what do you do about those other 43 percent? I`m just asking you. Why isn`t Abercrombie on the right trail here to at least go to the 20 or 30 percent -- you can`t -- obviously, the nutcases on the far right who hate this guy aren`t going to ever admit that you`re right, but why not get to the people who are confused?

Ignore Matthews' reference to "the nutcases on the right." More telling was his acknowledgement- all too infrequent in the mainstream media- that some Americans may not be "nutcases," or stupid, or racist, but simply confused. And that their views ("why not get to the people") are worth talking to.

But on the same network, MSNBC, a little later, Slate's Dave Weigel would tell Countdown guest host Sam Seder

....the Obama campaign put out the short version of the birth certificate that you can get if you lose yours and you don`t want to go through a lot more fuss. The one that`s public, the one that says born here, Island County Hospital, all of the information is basic. But it doesn`t have a baby`s footprint on it.

And they really thought that was the end of it. They put this on their website. That is what started the Birther movement. So feeding this frenzy -- well, I just completed my own sentence. That feeds the frenzy. Acknowledging that you need to prove something else just lets them prove -- argue that they need even more.

This is not how conspiracies usually end. The Warren Commission did not convince people that -- who want to believe another theory of JFK`s assassination that there was a -- that their theory was incorrect.

To Weigel, skeptics are in a "frenzy," so weak of mind they want to "believe another theory" and are cooking up "conspiracies." Curious, then, that the willfully ignorant better describes Weigel himself. He argued

This is not how conspiracies usually end. The Warren Commission did not convince people that- who want to believe another theory of JFK's assassination that there was a - that their theory was incorrect.

Gee, could that be because the Warren Commission's theory is not, contrary to what Weigel evidently believes, the official explanation of the assassination of President Kennedy? Given that a later, more thorough investigation found otherwise, the Warren Commission report lacks not only definitiveness but also the imprimatur of the U.S. government.

The idea that the question in the mind of a fair number of Americans about their President's birthplace should be ignored is not one held only by Weigel, of course. And it is not confined to the birther controversy, inasmuch as he wanted the media to give little attention to the ludicrous death panel charges propagated by former vice-presidential, and possibly future presidential, nominee Sarah Palin.

The analogy between the birther and Kennedy conspiracy theories is far less defensible. Many people believe, contrary to most evidence, that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed John F. Kennedy, that there was no involvement by La Cosa Nostra or other organizations. But alleging a parallel between people who believe Barack Obama was born outside of this country (a very long shot) and those who believe the Warren Commission was wrong (arguable, but extremely likely) is astonishingly naive and remarkably ignorant.

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Sarah Palin, You're No John Kennedy

It appears unfair, prejudicial, and obsessive, but really isn't. And Mrs. Palin herself, if asked, would probably play the victim card she favors and blame it on sexism if people continued to refer to the exchange she, had in September, 2010 with Katie Couric of CBS News:

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where it’s kind of suggested, “Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?” Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.

Palin brings the opprobrium onto herself. A 44-year old governor of a state and nominee of a major political party for Vice-President of the world's leading superpower could not name a newspaper or magazine she read. Later, she would claim she reads "USA Today, yes, and New York Times." In her new book, "America By Heart," the woman who was unable to finish her term in statewide elective office addressed Senator John F. Kennedy's approach to his religion, as reflected in his speech (text here; partial video here and below) given to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association during the Democratic nominee's presidential campaign in 1960.

I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party's candidate for president, who happens also to be a Catholic.

The Associated Press' Jocelyn Noveck writes

Palin writes that while growing up she was taught that JFK's speech reconciled religion and public service without compromising either. But revisiting it as an adult, she says, she realized that Kennedy "essentially declared religion to be such a private matter that it was irrelevant to the kind of country we are."

She praises former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, a Mormon, for not "doing a JFK" during his campaign for the 2008 GOP nomination. "Where Kennedy seemed to want to run away from religion, Mitt Romney forthrightly embraced it," she writes.

In fact, Kennedy's reference to being "not the Catholic candidate for President" but a "candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic" was an acknowledgement, not a denieal, of the role of religion in American politics" (and an accurate statement). But if she were accused of being aware of nuance, or sensitive to complexity, Mrs. Palin probably would vigorously deny the charge. And attack the accuser.

But Palin's more serious charge was "Kennedy seemed to want to run away from religion..."

The charismatic Republican may be unaware Kennedy's speech to the Houston ministers came in response to the following fears of a non-Protestant president:

.... the editor of Eternity magazine argued that although Kennedy pledged to abide by the separation of church and state, the Catholic Church would not allow him. It was “unmistakably clear” that he must be a Catholic first and president second in matters involving their church.

An article in Christianity Today, widely distributed as a pamphlet by the organization Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State, predicted that if Catholics became a numerical majority and gained political control, they would make Catholicism the nation’s official religion, restrict Protestant worship, prohibit evangelistic services, and forbid criticism of the Catholic Church in print or on the air. The National Association of Evangelicals, the Church of God, and the Southern Baptist Convention expressed similar fears.

Even liberal Protestants such as Charles Clayton Morrison, the long-time editor of Christian Century, insisted that contemporary democratic societies faced “two powerful monarchical” competitors—“the Communist Dictatorship and the Infallible Papacy”—and argued that Kennedy’s allegiance to the Constitution “would be qualified by his prior and equally sacred allegiance to another State.”

A group of 150 Protestant ministers espousing varied theological perspectives, including Norman Vincent Peale, well-known author of “The Power of Positive Thinking,” and Daniel Poling, editor of Christian Herald, issued a public statement on September 7 questioning whether a Catholic president could successfully resist pressures from the Catholic hierarchy

The Baptist Pastors' Conference of St. Louis issued a statement in which

With deep sincerity and in Christian grace, we plead with Senator John F. Kennedy, as the person presently concerned in this matter, to appeal to Cardinal Cushing, Mr. Kennedy's own hierarchical superior in Boston, to present to the Vatican Mr. Kennedy's sincere statement relative to the separation of Church and State in the United States and religious freedom as represented in the Constitution of the United States, in order that the Vatican may officially authorize such a belief for all Roman Catholics in the United States.

Sarah Palin evidently cannot imagine an America in which someone could be denied serious consideration as President because of his/her religious affiliation, though given the attitudes of many in her party toward American Muslims, a little humility is in order.

No reputable candidate for president should be unaware that the United States of 2010- or 2008, given the ex-governor's reference to the Romney campaign- is not the U.S.A. of 1960. The Democratic nominee was facing a virtual religious test for office, notwithstanding Article VI, Section 3 of a constitution which Palin claims to hold dear. Even Mrs. Palin's failure to name a magazine or newspaper that would have kept her up-to-date on current events can excuse her from a basic knowledge of fairly recent American history.

Someone might wish to remind Mrs. Palin that Mitt Romney was originally the favorite for the Repub nomination for President in 2008, an arguably stronger general election candidate than his party's eventual nominee, and formidable vice-presidential option with extensive access to money from proud and affluent Mormons. But he was unable to land a spot on the 2008 ticket. And if she believes that had nothing to do with Romney's religious affiliation, she might be hankering to buy a bridge in Nebraska.

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Privilege

Governor David Patterson of New York is in an enviable position. He will be deciding upon the replacement (who will presumably run on his/her own when the position is up in 2010) for Senator Hillary Clinton, nominated for Secretary of State. The list of qualified candidates is long, includingat least Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Kirsten Gillibrand, Steve Israel, Brian Higgins, Nydia Velazquez and Jerrold Nadler; Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown or Tom Suozzi, a Long Island elected official; New York State Secretary of State Andrew Cuomo; and Bill Clinton.

But a small boomlet has formed for Caroline Kennedy, the 51-year-old niece of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy. Ms. Kennedy endorsed Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, likening him to her late father, John F. Kennedy of Camelot fame. She campaigned for Obama in California (which he lost to Clinton) and was part of the vice-presidential search team which, to its credit, apparently settled on Joe Biden.

Taylor Marsh, an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter who strongly supported Obama against McCain, supports Kennedy, noting "We don't penalize people in this country for coming from a famous family, especially one whose members have given their lives in public service, which certainly applies to the Kennedys."

No, we shouldn't "penalize people in this country for coming from a famous family." But neither should it push a job applicant to the top of the pack, whether for a position as a teacher, accountant, police officer, sanitation worker, or United States Senator from New York. And neither should we be impressed with the "public service" of someone who wants to serve as one of a select group of 58 or 59 Democratic members of the the legislative body, who didn't see fit to lend her famous name in support of any Democratic presidential nominee- not Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or John Kerry- before Barack Obama came along. (Though this isn't surprising, given that one searches her statement of endorsement in vain for anything concrete she thought Obama believed in or would do for the country.)

This isn't to suggest that Ms. Kennedy is as unqualified to serve as United States Senator as, say, Sarah Palin was (and is) to serve as Vice-President. Unlike the Governor of the Peoples Republic of Alaska, Ms. Kennedy, a lawyer who with Ellen Alderman wrote In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action and The Right to Privacy, appears interested in the world beyond her world. But that's setting the bar awfully low. Choosing Caroline Kennedy, though not nearly as cynical and irresponsible as John McCain's selection of Palin, would ignore the importance of reaching for the very best when your country is involved in two wars, in severe need of health care reform, and possibly careening toward a depression.

McCain Happy For The Canadians

"Let them come to Berlin."

And what would John McCain have in common with these words from John F. Kennedy in West Berlin, Germany on June 26, 1963?

Really, nothing, but that's the problem. Senator McCain recently traveled to Ottawa to deliver to a receptive audience at The Economic Club of Canada a paean to the (1994) North American Free Trade Agreement and unfair trade. But instead of fleeing to another (albeit friendly) country, perhaps McCain should have brought his ironically named Straight Talk Express to the midwestern U.S.A.

The Ohio News Network, which bills itself as "Ohio's 24-Hour News Channel," reported in 2004 of a report issued by the nonpartisan think tank, Policy Matters Ohio. Evaluating job dislocation reports filed the the federal Trade Adjustment Assistance Program, the study found that 15,000-16,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Ohio from 1995 to October 2003 due to the NAFTA. For just the first seven years of NAFTA, according to the Economic Policy Institue, net job losses in the Midwest in the electronic equipment and automotive sectors were severe: nearly 12,000 in Illinois; nearly 17,000 in Indiana; and nearly 25,000 in Michigan in the automotive sector alone.

If John McCain were to bring his Express south from Canada to the states, he would find the engine of economic progress has stalled, due in no small part to the failed promises of trade which is neither free, nor fair, to middle-class Americans.

A Clarification On Obama

On February 3, 2008, two days before Super Tuesday, I posted a blog explaining my (reluctant) preference for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama- or, rather, my preference for the presidential bid of Hillary Clinton, rather than for the individual herself. I believed, and still believe, that she would be the better president, notwithstanding her recent reprehensible comment implying that John McCain is more qualified than Obama to be president.

I was, though, not fully satisfied with my explanation, not in the reasoning, but rather in the inartful way in which it was expressed. I had been searching for a way to assert my dissatisfaction with a campaign which had downplayed race, but accentuated a generational divide; placed almost mythical faith in "hope"; basked in the mythology of Camelot and implied contempt for the administration of President Johnson; and believed naively in the possibility of conciliation, both in the United States Congress and abroad, rather than in muscular realism.

And then, behind in my reading, I recently read "Forever Young," an article in the February 27, 2008 "Washington Diarist" column in the New Republic by Leon Wieseltier. It is a phenomenal article which expresses far better than I did, or could, the reasons I believe a Clinton Presidency would be more successful than an Obama Presidency. Therefore, I am here not only linking to the piece but reprinting it below, without further comment because anything I might add could only detract from the insight and elegance by which it is expressed.

The New Republic

Washington Diarist
by Leon Wieseltier
Forever Young
Post Date Tuesday, February 12, 2008

What you think of a presidential candidate is in large measure determined by what you think of the world. Different circumstances call for different talents, different sensibilities, different approaches to power. "Leadership" comes in many forms. A sterling individual may be historically inappropriate; and a person whom it is impossible to admire may accomplish significant things. The question of whether Barack Obama will make a fine commander-in chief finally depends on your view of the direction of history in the coming years. I cannot escape the foreboding that we are heading into an era of conflict, not an era of conciliation. I do not mean that there will be many wars, though I cannot imagine that the threat to American security from Al Qaeda and its many associates can be met without a massive and sustained military operation in western Pakistan, and I cannot imagine any Pakistani government ordering such an operation. It is not "the politics of fear" to remind Obama's legions of the blissful that, while they are watching Scarlett Johansson sway to the beat, somewhere deep inside a quasi independent territory we might call Islamistan people are making plans to blow them to bits. (Yes, they can.)

One of the striking features of Obama's victory speeches is the absence from these exultations of any lasting allusion to the darker dimensions of our strategic predicament. He makes no applause line out of American defense. And jihadist terrorism is only one of the disorders in an increasingly disordered world. The most repercussive fact of our time is surely the transformation of China. The "metrics" are all staggering. Quantities, quantities, quantities. China already has the power to wreck the American economy. However many tanks and fighters it has, its hoarding of American dollars is itself a kind of arsenal. And the bounty of wealth that it promises American business, the fantasy of greed-fulfillment that it represents, makes it almost impossible to conduct a serious discussion of the implications of this emerging world power for American principles and American interests--certainly not in Washington, where, when it comes to the art of dodging debate, Beijing is better than Bandar. What China wants, China gets. Not even the gold medal in tyranny that Beijing will win in its Olympics will make a difference. Meanwhile the authoritarian Putin has punkishly succeeded in restoring Russia to its inglorious heritage, reminding the world of the old formula that capitalism plus state power equals fascism. In Iran, none of Ahmadinejad's domestic troubles seem to have modified the state's sense of ascendancy, or its will to nuclearize itself, or its appetite for instability in its region. In Iraq, the streets are safer but the sects are not sweeter. In the Korean peninsula, diplomacy has gone ominously cold. In Palestine there are two Palestines, and one of them belongs to Hamas. In Darfur--well, you know, because everybody knows. In Latin America, the failures of liberal economics have sullied the reputation of liberal politics. And so on.


All this even before we attend to the elimination of poverty. And into this unirenic environment strides Obama, pledging to extract us promptly from Iraq and to negotiate with our enemies. What is the role of a conciliator in an unconciliating world? You might think that in such conditions he is even more of an historical necessity-but why would you think that all that stands between the world and peace is one man? George W. Bush was not single-handedly responsible for getting us into our strategic mess and Barack Obama will not be single-handedly responsible for getting us out of it. There are autonomous countries and cultures out there. The turbulence that I have described is not caused by misunderstandings. It is caused by the interests of powers and the beliefs of peoples. Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, Islamabad, Gaza City, Khartoum, Caracas-does Obama really believe that he has something to propose to these ruthless regimes that they have not already considered? Does he plan to move them, to organize them, to show them change they can believe in? With what trick of empathy, what euphoria, does he hope to join the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds in Iraq? Yes, he made a "muscular" speech in Chicago last spring; but I have been pondering his remarks about foreign policy in the ensuing campaign and I do not detect the hardness I seek, the disabused tone that the present world warrants. My problem is not with "day one": nobody is perfectly prepared for the White House, though the memory of Bill Clinton's "learning curve" is still vivid, which in Bosnia and Rwanda cost more than a million lives. My problem is that Obama's declarations in matters of foreign policy and national security have a certain homeopathic quality. He seems averse to the hurtful, expensive, traditional, unedifying stuff.

"False hopes?" Obama told a crowd in New Hampshire. "There's no such thing." How dare he? There is almost no more commonplace trait of human existence (and of African American existence) than false hopes. I want universal health care, but I do not want to be relieved of the little that I have understood, and learned to accept, about the recalcitrance of the world. After Bush, who is not for a fresh start? But there is something unfresh about Obama's movement for freshness. We have been this young before. "She starts old, old," Lawrence wrote, in his discussion of the Leatherstocking Tales, "wrinkled and writhing in an old skin. And there is a gradual sloughing off of the old skin, towards a new youth. It is the myth of America." So can we agree on a ground between cynicism and myth? Or must we have Camelot once more? After all, being young again is also a way of living in the past. There was something mildly farcical about the Kennedys' endorsement of Obama-of this candidacy that is alleged to signify an alternative to the dynasties, and a break with ideological antiquity; but worst of all was its brazen delight in mythologization. (Thanks to the Obama campaign, millions of Americans now hold that John Kennedy was a great president and that Lyndon Johnson was not responsible for making civil rights and voting rights into law.) I understand that no one, except perhaps Lincoln, ever ran for the presidency on a tragic sense of life; but if it is possible to be too old in spirit, it is possible also to be too young.


© The New Republic 2008

Beware establishment figures with a vested interest in maintaining a convenient fiction without revealing their motive.

Consider the February 18, 2008 episode of MSNBC's Countdown. Keith Olberman was interviewing Gary Mack, the curator of the 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas about the release of a transcript (among other documents) of a purported conversation between Lee Harvey Oswald and his assassin, Jack Ruby, approximately seven weeks before the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The documents were kept inside a courthouse safe under the supervision of then-Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade, who prosecuted Ruby and, according to one document, had signed a movie deal in 1967.

The Chicago Tribune reported the conversation as following:

"There is a way to get rid of him without killing him," Oswald says.

"How's that?" Ruby responds.

"I can shoot his brother," Oswald says.

After a discussion of the logistics of shooting the president, Ruby says the money for the operation's coming from the Mafia.

"Are you with the Mafia?" Oswald asked.

"You're asking too many questions," Ruby responds.

Later, Ruby gives a lengthy warning that Oswald must not get caught or say anything, noting that "if you do talk, then the boys will make me follow you, wherever you go, and kill you."

The papers, such as they are, describe a plot by La Cosa Nostra to assassinate the President, which would result in the Presidency being assumed by Lyndon Johnson, enemy to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, a nemesis of organized crime.

Many people, including Mack, have cast doubt on the veracity of the conversation. The curator contended "virtually all the hard evidence leads directly to Lee Harvey Oswald and no one else, at least so far. The problem is that most people just are not convinced of the official story."

One problem, Gary. Although you may be enamored of the Warren Commission report, there is no one "offical story," despite what some experts imply. Perhaps you missed the conclusions of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which in the late 1970's investigated the assassinations of J.F.K. and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The Committee concluded in part that: there were two gunmen, one on the grassy knoll, and the other Lee Harvey Oswald (who may have had ties with Jack Ruby, who fired three of four shots; both Oswald and Ruby had ties to La Cosa Nostra; the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. had misled, and withheld information from, the Warren Commission; and the Warren Commission did not investigate the possibility of conspiracy.

So whatever one may think about the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing John F. Kennedy, clearly there is not one "official" version of the assassination- a fact of which the "experts" are very much aware.