Where we're you when Nixon resigned?

[LincolnToddFan]

JFK's presidency was tragically truncated. No, I agree that he was not a great president even though he had the potential to be one. Knowing what I know now, I think his personal failings would have detonated his second term if Dallas had not happened and made him who he became in death. He had many gifts...a vibrant intelligence, physical courage, mental toughness, charm oozing from his pores. Few people realize that he spent more than two thirds of his life in gruesome physical pain. The fact that he accomplished what he did in only 46 years under the those circumstances seems miraculous.

But his dark side...sexual addiction, recklessness, hedonism...was very dark indeed. Seymour Hersh's "The Dark Side of Camelot" is one of the most shocking and depressing books I've ever read.

I think the exploration of space was a great thing, and the creation of the Alliance for Progress in Latin America was outstanding. The greatest thing to come out of his administration was the Peace Corps. I know people who served and each one of them mark it the highlight of their personal and professional lives. Americans were considered the Good Guys around the world then. Just pull up youtube clips of Jacqueline Kennedy's trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1961-1962 to get an idea of what I am talking about...unbelievable!

I would not be telling the truth if I said I didn't wish I'd experienced the thousand days of his presidency. My mother and both grandmothers adored him. Mom later told me it was an innocent, exciting and exhilarating time to be young and to be an American. The sense of excitement and pride in Jack and Jackie and their gorgeous young family was infectious. The possibilities seemed endless.

We of course know more now, but I still feel kind of cheated just the same.