Want a Real Fairy Tale for Super Tuesday? Try Camelot!

I like Hillary. And I like Obama. If they don't drive each other's supporters into angry corners of resentment and fatally divide the Party, either one will have a pretty good chance to prevail in the fall. But that requires that voters remember the election is neither about Bill Clinton nor about John Kennedy. Hillary has a husband, but love him or hate him, he already was the President. It's Hillary who is trying to win office. Think of it not as a try for the second Clinton Presidency but for the first Rodham presidency. And stop judging her by Bill.

And how about getting a grip on the Kennedy hysteria afflicting pundits looking for an angle on Obama's campaign of youthful change? Ted and Caroline Kennedy endorsements do not make Obama JFK. Any more than Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's endorsement of Hillary make her Bobby.

Besides, why are fans of the candidate of the future who disparage the candidate of the nineties reaching back to the sixties for comfort? Do they know that, unlike Obama's genuine anti-war position, the fabled story of Camelot was truly a fairy tale? A sentimental Broadway show Jackie Kennedy used to memorialize her late husband's presidency after his assassination?

John Kennedy may have inspired young America and in beating Richard Nixon brought the complacent gray flannel suit nation into the colorful Sixties. But the tie-dyed counter-cultural decade celebrated by oblivious fashionistas today was a decade of urban riots, racial violence, political assassinations, combative foreign policy and escalating war, a decade that ended in profound distrust of all government authority, and just a few years later in the resignation of a President after Watergate.

Kennedy himself launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion and escalated President Eisenhower's nominal military commitment to South Vietnam. And though he deserves credit for defusing it at the last moment, he brought the world to the edge of nuclear war in the Cuban Missile crisis. Worse still - where is this reflected in the myth of Camelot? - he ordered Bobby, then his attorney general, to wiretap Martin Luther King.

If this all comes as news to our myth-prone electorate today, perhaps that's because in Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorenson and Jackie herself, JFK had some of the most talented spinners of all time. But Camelot was a fairy tale, and Kennedy was murdered before he could either realize or bury the dreams he had inspired.

Same for Bobby, who went from being his brother's tough-minded enforcer to becoming an inspiring progressive candidate in the '68 campaign. But he too fell to an assassin, in this case before he could contest the election let alone make a Presidential mark. Teddy inherited the mantle, but squandered it early in a tragic sexual encounter at Chappaquiddick that makes the Monica Lewinsky foolishness seem benign. Teddy's subsequent Senatorial career has been admirable, but Chappaquiddick has become part of a history not recalled.

So perhaps on Super Tuesday voters can put away the mythologies associated with the Kennedy Sixties and the Clinton Nineties, and take a hard look at the candidates and the issues that define this intimidating new Millennium. That way they will be voting realistically for one or the other of two good candidates and not indulging in the spurious myths that have been spun by would-be idealists around their candidacies.

Comments

[ImayAgree]

I would feel more comfortable if the Obama followers would quit using the Republican Talking points to criticize Bill Clinton. Of course back in 1960 the press would not publicize the presidents sex escapades. St JFK was not a saint.

[Kane]

Perhaps it's true that this election is not about Bill Clinton. But that argument wont stop republicans from making the election about Bill Clinton. The mere idea of Bill and Hillary returning to the White House will breathe life into the GOP, and it will bring republicans and independents out of the woodwork to vote against the Clintons. I'm not saying that it's fair or that it's right, it's just the way it is.

[Nutcase]

I don't share your good opinion of either Clinton or Obama. Both are seriously flawed. Both are corporate-owned. They are supportable only as alternatives to what the Republicans offer.

Since I will not be satisfied with either, I am trying to assess which one is more likely to win in the general election and carry with them the most down-ticket candidates.

The Electoral College favors the Republicans. I am not as convinced as you of the likelihood of a Democratic victory. The Democratic candidate must hold the blue states and make inroads into the red states. There are questions as to whether either can accomplish the later.

cognito ergo populistae

[sebocd]

"But the tie-dyed counter-cultural decade celebrated by oblivious fashionistas today was a decade of urban riots, racial violence, political assassinations, combative foreign policy and escalating war, a decade that ended in profound distrust of all government authority, and just a few years later in the resignation of a President after Watergate..."

Mr. Barber how old were you when President Kennedy died in 1963? "Camelot" was a retro afterthought of a grieving nation try to cope. It was about before the fall not after it when all you have lumped together in the above, did take place. John Kennedy had no active part in the convusions that played after he was gone. And yes it was a very stressful time but compared to the apathy that has paralysed us in the last ten years America was a living organism with a social immune system that could react to the noxious and toxic stimuli dumped on her. Obama in a responsible way is rekindling the passion and idealism which had been repressed then activated and exploited as mindless nationalism by the Bush administration. The Clintons are in an ireversable self-destruct mode how much of America they will take down with them is the question.

[sickofhypocrisy]

i don't want a president who's a dreamer. i want a president who's a realist.

hillary '08!!!

[vsign]

O Obama is building a constituency in the democratic party who he will pander to - rich white women, black americans and our youth.

Why not let it happen? We welcome new voters.

A person who masquarades himself this much and affects our youth this much has too much power NOW!

"Young people unite and do away with the old people! Tear down the bridge to the past and follow me! I will deliver the power to you, you so deserve. "

Who said this?

I don't think voters should give political power to a person masquarading as a religious leader. Isn't that what voters did on the other side in 2000 and 2004? Isn't the result the same? Too much power in the presidency. Too much hubris.

[EngineerBill]

You don't get it. Obama isn't reaching back to the 60's, pretending to be either JFK or RFK. His campaign is about JFK/RFK like inspiration "Ask not what your country can do for you..." or "Some people see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." As for Hillary being "judged by Bill" than how come with a grand total of 8 years in the senate she claims to be so much more qualified than Barack's 4 years. Was there something magical about those extra 4 years? I don't think so.

[Independent voter]

I respectfully disagree.

This election, for me, has a whole lot to do with bill clinton. The last time he was in office he turned 1600 Pennsylvania office into a whorehouse - screwing interns in the oval office, renting out the Lincoln bedroom like a cheap suite at the Red Roof Inn.

One can only imagine the shame and horror that this serial adulterer, this philandering old boozer will bring to the White House when he is unaccountable and left completely unchecked.

Bush / Clinton / Bush / Clinton / Bull / Shit

[longislandlol]

We all need to believe in Camelot- it is a code word for hope..

[Queenofthedamned]

I agree with Mr. Barber. As a child of the sixties, it was truly exciting to have a president and first lady who were as glamorous as JFK and Jackie, but most of Kennedy's presidency HAS been mythologized. I suspect if Clinton had been assasinated before his term ended, he'd loom as one of the great ones, too--american's having the tendency to elevate the dead to undeserved sainthood.
But while we're at it--the mythology that is Ronald Reagan is also fairytale. He cut taxes and then he raised them. He decried big government and then expanded it. Harped on wasteful spending and took us into record deficit territory. Remind me again, just WHAT was it Reagan was supposed to have given us? Victory in Grenada?

[Rog49Thomas]

Brother Barber valiantly tries to row against the reality of US politics.

Substance?

Fraid not. It's all about image. Sound bites. Slogans. Feelings.

Empty words to fill eager hungry empty minds.

Camelot indeed.

As I read the postings by partisans of this or that candidate, I can't tell if it's an election or the Rapture.

Maybe, if I could get close enough to touch the hem of one of their cloaks, I might be cured of asthma. Or even my cynicism.

[MyThought]

Reagan/Kennedys - what's with bringing back the dead? Shouldn't these candidates be defined as themselves?

JFK was only President for 2 years due to the horrific assissination and Robert Kennedy never made it to the White House due to his horrific assassination - how in hell does anyone really know how good JFK was and Robert could have been as president?

Reagan was even in his right mind part way through his presidency.

This is 2008 - NEW people with their own personalities. Let the dead rest in peace.

[Marrob]

Great article but don't expect the Obama lovers to see it your way. If Obama wins the primary the HIllary supporters will back him and Hillary will see to that. If Obama loses the primary,his supporter will stay home and Obama will be fine with that. He is arrogant to no end and has basically stated it with the comment "Am confident that I'll get her supporters if am the nominee but am not so sure she will get my supporters." I will mention that Edwards and Hillary both are on the record stating that they will work hard support nominee if they lose the primary. Obama hasn't made that statement yet. Makes you wonder if he is in it for himself or the party.

[Yana7]

A major accomplishment of JFK, whether when dealing with the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the continuation of our Military presence in Viet Nam (which began under the Eisenhower Administration), etc., was that he kept from being engaged in an active war.
AnotherMcIntosh

SORRY. You are wrong! Maybe you don't remember Madam Nye going to the White House to plead with JFK to help her husband stay in power by supporting him.
The American media made a joke out of her!

[zumper]

WE LET THE MEDIA STEER US INTO THE BUSH PRESIDENCY........WE LET THE MEDIA GET US INTO A WAR WE SHOULDNT HAVE EVEN THOUGHT OF BEING IN.........NOW THE MEDIA IS TRYING TO SHOVE A CANDITATE DOWN OUR THROATS WHO IS A SENATOR FOR 3 YEARS ........WHO IS A CON ARTIST WHOS TALKS BEAUTIFUL BUT SAYS NOTHING.......ARE WE ALL IDIOTS ????????