So What Happens To Camelot Now?
But with the Democrats taking a break from a hard battle in Congress over health care reform to mourn Kennedy's death, is it finally time to bury one of the enduring political myths of the last half century? After all, it's been quite a while since JFK and Jackie had the run of the White House. And not to get too off topic, but after half a century, romantic memories of Camelot don't always comport with the more prosaic facts about an era in U.S. history that's still open to reinterpretation.
Let's not forget that when he became president in 1961, John Kennedy - ready to> "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty" - was the ultimate cold warrior. Critics rightly point out that his inexperience and missteps led to subsequent fiascos in the Bay of Pigs and Berlin and also set the stage for the later confrontation with Khrushchev over missiles in Cuba. It was only after the world stepped back from the brink of nuclear war that Kennedy found what supporters hoped would be his real voice on disarmament and nuclear weapons- though we'll never really know because of what happened in Dallas five months after giving his American University commencement speech. Ditto when it comes to his record on civil rights. It was Lyndon Johnson, not JFK, who put equal rights for blacks high on the domestic agenda (though, again, one can argue that LBJ was able to get his civil rights legislation through Congress only because of the Kennedy legacy.
As Der Spiegel correctly notes, there's the image and the reality. "And behind the cliché of Camelot used to describe JFK's brief presidency, there has always been the whiff of deception and envy, scandals and intrigues associated with the clan."
For me, Bobby represented the real hope of a generation. I'm 53 and still tear up thinking about how much was lost after he was cut down by bullets in 1968. Bobby Kennedy may have started out in politics as your prototypical spoiled sonofabitch rich boy. But then came that remarkable transformation. After his brother's assassination, Bobby Kennedy was that rare American leader who could deeply could touch people from different backgrounds. We'll never know how that story might have turned out. Sadly.
Complete coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's life and death
CBS News Special Report: Ted Kennedy - The Last Brother
The truncated legacies of the two brothers and the promise of what might have been fed into the excitement surrounding Edward's failed challenge to Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination. But 1980 was not 1960 and a Kennedy could no longer bank on getting a pass for personal lapses (Unlike his elder brother whose dalliances with Marilyn Monroe and Judith Exner remained unreported during his presidency.)
Another sign that America was no longer in thrall to this last great political dynasty: Last December Caroline, JFK's youngest, briefly dipped into the competition to fill Hillary Clinton's Senate seat in New York. But the rough and tumble of politics proved too much and she withdrew her candidacy one month later. It was a reminder for Democrats - and for the nation - that the preferential treatment accorded to one remarkable family for three generations was coming to an end.
Maybe that's better for all concerned. This is a republic, after all.