No, no sympathy. I'm just saying that things which either didn't matter much in the long range scheme of things or were not pertinent to the actual running of the country were ignored for a long period of our history. Reporters saw things, but they didn't see things because it was the PRESIDENT. They were censoring certain facts, such as FDR's wheelchair.
I don't know why it was, but that was how it was. Somewhere along the way it changed. Things that were sacrosanct no longer were.
Are we better off knowing this stuff? Would it have mattered if we all knew JFK was getting it on with Norma Jean? Well, most of us my age would get upset, because we all wanted her for ourselves, but that's another story, one of teenage testosterone. (OTH, would the Russians have been better off if we knew JFK and MM were an item? I think, looking thru my retrospectoscope, they would have put the pedal to the metal, and might have been able to keep their missiles in Cuba because we were distracting ourselves with Marilyn.) Were we better off knowing Carter "was fallible because I lust in my heart"?
I'm not defending anybody. I'm bemoaning how much we have dumbed down this whole thing. I wish I knew how we got there, and I wish I knew how to get back to the old days. The hell with making these guys out as role models for our kids. I don't want them to be my kids' role models, anymore than Joe Montana, Barry Bonds, or Charlie Barkley. I want them to have me for a role model. We need to raise the bar above character assassination.
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