Look at JFK's term offers a glimpse of Kerry future
By Peter S. Canellos, 2/24/2004
WASHINGTON -- Long before the Bush "restoration" and the hope in some places for another Clinton administration, the great unrequited yearning in American politics was to replicate the Kennedy presidency. Through much of the late '60s and '70s, the desire burned so brightly that some authors, led by Garry Wills, believed that all American politics was "imprisoned" by its search for a JFK-type charismatic maverick. That quest led to a generation of blow-dried, square-jawed candidates being elected to the Senate, but no Kennedyesque presidents, and no Kennedy family members even close to the White House.
Now that dream is a distant memory, as fragile as the flickering flame on a snowy Arlington hillside. But a candidate who models himself on John F. Kennedy is leading the race for the Democratic nomination.
Though still something of a statue on a pedestal, JFK is a tarnished figure. Connections to the Kennedy family are at least a mixed blessing for John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who idolized President Kennedy while a college student. But there are only a few blazed paths to the White House, and it may be because of the weeds that have grown on the Kennedy myth, not despite them, that Kerry is able to jog so effortlessly down the Kennedy trail from Beacon Hill to the White House.
There is no longer a heroic image to try (and almost certainly fail) to live up to, no longer a built-in backlash from those remembering the dark side of Camelot. And the political clout of the Kennedys is at such a low ebb, compared with rival clans like the Bushes, that there is no fear of a dynasty.
Some of Kerry's Kennedy affectations are laughably superficial, such as his tendency to advertise his initials. But his politics are quite similar to John F. Kennedy's, which emphasized good intentions (civil rights, gains in science, greater pressure on the Soviet Union) over specific policies or ideology.
JFK's charisma is probably not replicable, and in any case would seem as dated today as a Rat Pack concert in Las Vegas. Kerry's style, which carries an almost haunting air of the '60s, from prep-school mixers to Vietnam tragedies, is the most acceptable modern approximation.
What's less clear is whether JFK's politics are fully applicable to the current day. And any effort to understand Kerry's candidacy probably necessitates an
exploration of Kennedy myths and realities. In the Senate, Kennedy, like Kerry, was more comfortable as an inquisitor than as a lawmaker. He put his intellect on display at hearings, but had little patience for either the intricacies of policy or the arm-twisting of politics.
Kennedy, like Kerry, came on the scene in a time of intense worry over national security. He attacked the incumbent administration over its supposed strength, its hard line with the Soviet Union. His image as an electable leader was burnished by repeated references to his PT-109 exploits, celebrated in a book and eventually a movie.
His administration was more idiosyncratic than ideological. His economic policy featured tax cuts without a lot of fiscal discipline, but fewer big-spending initiatives than his two successors, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Day-by-day accounts of his administration reveal that he was basically making it up as he went along, each decision seemingly a matter of first impression.
He stood at the center of his own foreign policy, approving the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion but then distinguishing himself during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Tapes reveal that he had an unusual ability to manage the forces in his administration, finding a clear path between the dangerous impulses of both the hawks and doves. Kennedy's level of engagement is a model for Kerry, who advertises himself as a broker of foreign policy, more informed and inquisitive than President Bush.
The legacy of the Kennedy administration was not in policy but in personal leadership: It created an expectation of a chief executive who fully embodied the national ideal and
energized certain projects, like the race to the moon, by force of his enthusiasm alone. Johnson and Nixon not only failed to fill Kennedy's shoes, they almost killed themselves trying. It wasn't until Ronald Reagan that a different model of leadership emerged -- that of firm, guiding principles that turn even complicated matters like Mideast politics and economic theory into occasions for ideologically simple responses.
It's that model that holds sway today, in the Bush administration, and it's that model that Kerry attacks relentlessly. More than a shift leftward, Kerry represents a return to a sort of self-referential pragmatism, with a memory of the '60s to guide it.
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