Book- JFK The Man & the Myth

The author of JFK The Man & the Myth also wrote a book called "It Didn't Start with Watergate." Reading Victor Lasky's biography of JFK made me realize political hack jobs of character assassination did not begin with Rush.

There is no doubt that Lasky uses lots of noted sources in this book, and he indexes every one of them. The trouble is, he uses as sources columnists, who are voicing opinions, and many times voicing pure conjecture. But Lasky uses these as "proof" of his opinion of JFK.

Now I want to interject here, I do not think JFK was some kind of god. I am not of that cult who believes that he was perfect, and the best president we have ever had. So I am not beating a purely ideological drum here. But I do get upset when someone passes off opinion as fact, relying on secondary sources, instead of primary, and uses guesses as the basis for judgement. It is sloppy and dirty and manipulation at its worst. (And I feel that way about too many political pundits today too).

Let me give an example. Lasky starts out with JFK's inauguration parties before backtracking into his background. He talks about how so many people were upset by the glamour of the parties. And he quotes a couple of society columnists, who say with chagrin that it was terrible with all those Kennedy women parading around with all those big smiles and teeth. This was my first big clue that it was a hack job. I mean, c'mon, how does a columnist who doesn't like the Kennedy women help support your thesis? It bears no proof, except this female columnist is just mean or jealous or a prig.

Lasky also bemoans many of JFK's elections, from his house seat, to his Senate seat and to the presidency. He repeatedly says that JFK treated elections like popularity contests. Excuse, what does he think elections are? The one who gets more votes wins, don't they? Not who is the smartest, who has the most money, who is the best looking, who is the best thinker...it is who has the right combo of ALL those things to garner the most votes. Mr. Lasky, an election is a popularity contest, there is no doubt.

He also cries foul that in his opinion, he does not think JFK was a great thinker. And he states many times that because he is not, he should not have been elected to higher office. His opinion is that all previous presidents and even senators, were thinkers who only had the greater good on their minds, never political aspirations. This is so blatantly crap, it ignores history (Adams and Jefferson...Hamilton, Burr, Lincoln and Douglas, Grant...I could go on and on), and points out that Lasky is a terrible historian.

Another misstatement of history that Lasky makes a few times in his book: He talks about a speech FDR gave, and notes with derision that it was the same speech that Roosevelt promised to keep us out of foreign wars, (intimating that FDR broke that promise too). Really? The attack on Pearl Harbor that brought us into WW II was a foreign war? Maybe Lasky thinks Hawaii was part of the Orient, or that the fleet destroyed at Pearl Harbor was Mexico's Pacific Fleet. Again, what crap. Utter crap.

Lasky spends a lot of time on JFK's father and early career, all of which lead up to his quivering attack on the 1960 presidential election, which he says was bought, was crooked, and was done by plying out political favors. True, Kennedy had a TON of money, no doubt about that at all. If Nixon had that kind of cash, he would have used it too, and there can be no doubt about that either. But we know money can't by itself make an election (look recently at Mitt Romney). Kennedy forces knew how to use that resource...they outworked and out prepared Nixon.

As an example, I will go to the debates (which Lasky thinks were BS anyway). The JFK people tested him on camera, under harsh lights. They knew what make-up to use for him, and practised what angles looked best, what expressions were best...in other words, they PREPARED! By Lasky's own admission, Nixon people did not do that, they used the wrong make-up on him and were not prepared for how he would look on TV. That is not just about money, it is about preparation and knowing what to do with your resources.

Furthermore, both Nixon and Lasky are elitists, with Nixon saying after the debates that "unsophisticated" TV viewers could not see through the hype, and Lasky calling TV the idiot box. Neither knew the power of the medium...Kennedy had that figured out, and was prepared to use it to reach people that Nixon called unsophisticated.

There are so many other points I could make about this slanted, political hack job that called itself a non-fictional, well documented, authoritative biography. But I think I have gone on enough. JFK The Man & the Myth was a hack job when it came out just before JFK's assassination, and it still is. The author is a terrible historian, and does a equally terrible job of using secondary sources and opinions as fact, the reasserting them time and again, as true. The only thing I enjoyed reading this was waiting for a chance to blog about it, and rip into it.