Another day, another Obama-as-JFK article.
I almost choked on my cereal the other morning, as I flipped through the Wall Street Journal and came across an article titled "Michelle O Meets Jackie O." My lord, Michelle seems to have been studying Jackie's wardrobe, right down to the flip hair-do and Peter Pan collars. The only thing missing is the pillbox hat.
Before that came the assassination worries, instantly raising Obama to the status of our fallen 35th president. Said The New York Times last week: "There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe?"
And of course there were those endorsements from the remnants of the Kennedy clan, which scattered the dusty glitter of yesteryear on Illinois' golden boy: "I've never had a candidate inspire me in my lifetime like people talk about how my father inspired them," declared Caroline from an Ohio stump.
Americans are lapping it up; many are in a palpable frenzy to revive Camelot, and the Obamas are happy to oblige. Who can blame them? They'd be fools not to cash in on the Kennedy mystique being offered up to them, like crown jewels that have been stashed away for the rightful heirs. They'd be remiss not to capitalize on the strange irrational American urge to manufacture, project, and worship charisma.
Yes, indeed, Americans are in the mood to canonize again. As a country, we've always had a complicated relationship with royalty. On one hand, we're iconoclasts, fierce lovers of liberty, enemies of inherited privilege. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby, "Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry."
But on the other, given the opportunity, we love to bow down. Our fascination with the British royals runs deep and our celebrity worship has reached shameful heights. The fierce Fiorello LaGuardia once recounted a visit of the deposed Romanovs to New York City, where he was mayor at the time. "People clamored and paid admission for the purpose of curtseying and kissing the hand of these pretenders in a manner so un-American that it would have been shocking were it not so ridiculously stupid," he said with scorn.
But never has America worshipped as it did during the reign of Jackie and Jack Kennedy. Our reverence was deep and thorough, and cruelly cut short with the delivery of Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet. The unused worshipping has remained dormant for all of these decades, bottled up and aging like a robust wine, waiting for just the right occasion to be uncorked.
Our need to worship appears to come in cycles. Sometimes we're ornery; we just want to tear people and institutions to shreds. But not these days.
These days: We. Want. Charisma.
But isn't it curious: we're reaching for that bottle of Camelot while all the time hankering after freshness and change. We insist that we're forward- looking, but we're sipping from an old vintage. Let's face it: nostalgia is the opposite of newness. One cannot charge into the sunrise and the sunset at the same time.
Another strangeness: no one seems to question the desirability of erecting a Camelot II. After all, the salacious underbelly of Camelot I has been documented to the point of triteness.
For example: JFK's countless affairs, which, according to biographers, included lunchtime skinny-dipping sessions at the White House with two young female staffers dubbed "Fiddle" and "Faddle" by the Secret Service.
Another example: JFK's reliance on a Dr. Feelgood, who reportedly shot him (and Jackie) up with amphetamines and all sorts of other goodies. "I don't care if it's horse piss," Jack told an alarmed RFK, who wanted to have the concoctions analyzed. "It works."
Oh, and this example too: JFK nearly sacrificed the entire southeastern United States in a mine-is-bigger-than-yours stand-off with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Please note: this is certainly not to imply that an Obama White House would be similarly scandal-laden, morally dubious, or trigger-happy. It is simply a warning that derivative charisma requires a highly selective narrative, one that invariably omits the untidy details.
So, as we beg Barack to become Jack, let's whitewash the hell out of the latter. Camelot fever must spread at all costs. Charisma must be wrung out and applied and it must triumph.
It would be easy to blame the media for perpetuating this Obama-as-JFK euphoria, to take it over one's lap and spank away. But let's try to be sympathetic. After all, it's been a long seven years for the press corps. The Bush administration has been like a frigid, controlling lover. And the press adored JFK. They gave each other love bites. It would be nice to have that amorous sparring again.
But that's not supposed to be how the fourth estate is supposed to function. Things are no good when the press is shut out. But reporters beware: charisma also shuts the press out, keeps it at bay, in a very different way. Because, as Saturday Night Live has been pointing out, love often forgives and overlooks things that it should not.
The bottom line: many people love to hate Hillary and they are desperate to love Barack. Historically, persona has almost always trumped policy. When people are in this wild mood for charisma, they don't give a hoot about experience. They don't care that charisma is a cumulative myth, more projected than exuded, a very particular sort of marketing, in which the targeted consumers are selling something to themselves.
Electing someone based on a cult of personality is stupid.
Substance abounds in both of the campaigns right now, and that's what counts.
But charisma can be a chimera, and should be regarded appropriately.
With great wariness.
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Posted March 4, 2008 | 09:36 AM (EST)