A DATE IN HISTORY – AT 1:30 P.M. ET:  It was 55 years ago today that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.   The nation hardly notices, but the "Kennedy legacy," we are told by shallow journalists, is alive and well in Texas through the person of Beto O'Rourke, who recently came close to defeating Ted Cruz in a Senate election.

Indeed, Beto, whose name isn't Beto but Robert Francis, as in Robert Francis Kennedy (Bobby Kennedy) clearly models himself after the Kennedys, cuts his hair accordingly, and seems, at times, to mimic the style of Bobby Kennedy's speeches, if not Jack's.

Yet, the irony is that Jack Kennedy couldn't come close to a presidential nomination in today's leftist Democratic Party, and Robert Kennedy probably would be seen as a backbencher.  Jack Kennedy's inaugural address would today be delivered by a Republican.   His anti-Communism, and Bobby's, would be scandalous.  Jack Kennedy was a flawed man in many respects, but a leftist or "progressive" he was not.

I was being discharged from the Army the hour President Kennedy was murdered.  I heard the first radio reports while riding back to New York City from Fort Dix, New Jersey, in a Ford convertible.  We were told that three shots were fired, that a couple was seen running up a "grassy knoll" after the shooting.  When we arrived at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, the station was almost silent.  Journalists were actually reporting the story, not giving us their instant opinions or their deep feelings and emotions.   I still have the newspapers I bought that day, with the New York Post headlining PRESIDENT SHOT DEAD.

It was a mature era in America.  We still had millions of World War II and Korea veterans in their thirties.  The presidency was serious business.   The last presidential assassination had been that of William McKinley in 1901, although there had been attempts on other presidents.

The nation, and its press, behaved appropriately.  The dignity surrounding the event was remarkable.

I have no idea how America would respond to a similar trauma today.  I don't want to find out. 

November 22, 2018