A Year Ago...a little over

Trying to get back into blog writing, I was reviewing entries I had written before. I found the following from last Thanksgiving. I thought I'd post it today while I am still thinking about what I want to write about...

Today is Thanksgiving.  It is also the anniversary of JFK’s assassination. As I watched the CNN news this morning it was all about the current sexual harassment accusations that have come to light this past week. Mostly in the Congress, but also TV news and entertainment. I saw nothing about Kennedy. No one, I think, knows where these are going, but it doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. One wonders if this would have surfaced a year ago what effect it would have had on the presidential election. Or would it have not made any difference? One can only wonder.

What effect would this current atmosphere have had if it existed when John Kennedy was president? Or even before he was elected? Would have the newspapers kept it quiet because he was the president? He was not tremendously popular before he was the candidate. Johnson surely would have tried to use Kennedy’s womanizing to his benefit. Kennedy wasn’t really in the running at the start of the Democratic convention. The only thing that might have helped him, and it actually did, was the unpopularity of Nixon. While Eisenhower was a popular president, for the most part, that popularity did not extend to his vice president. After that first debate where Nixon sweated and looked for the most part swarmy, it was really a lost cause. However, in the end, the popular election was very close. I can’t remember what that the Electoral College results were. What if Nixon had won? Would we have had Vietnam? Would he still have instigated Watergate? Some interesting scenarios could be developed about later events.

I am disappointed that no one seems to talk about the Kennedy assassination. Even talking about him as a president today would be interesting to listen to the various arguments pro and con. But back then even the press was different. Many men, and usually they were all men, were given a pass on what they did out of the view of the public. When did it change? Watergate? That was only a few years later? The Pentagon Papers? That was about the same time. Iran-Contra during Reagan? Or did it hold off until Bill Clinton? Or maybe the press corps just crept along, growing bolder and more investigative along the years.

Just too bad this all didn’t happen earlier.