Kennedy’s Camelot Over, If Only We Could Go Backwards
When we reflect back on the past decades, as it relates to this story, many might consider how different the times were when John Kennedy first was elected to Congress in 1947. Consider the gentlemen from Massachusetts and then recall this past election cycle when a member of congress was spat on, and a senate candidate had to announce she was not a witch in a television ad.
I am only 48 years old, and I already yearn for a different time in politics. I can only imagine what people older than I must think.
While I read about history all the time, and know clearly there was never a ‘polite’ time when it comes to politics, there never-the-less appears with the long view of history to be more sober-minded people ‘back then’. That is in part due to the fact we know how the story ends on this or that issue. We know how the players fared, either wining in the court of public opinion or being rejected and never heard from again. History has a way of making people larger the father away they get.
The age of John and Robert Kennedy was filled with passion and angst. The Kennedy’s were 100% human, and as such filled with the same conflicts many face. The difference is their srories were played out on the national stage.
And yet it was a political age that I suspect most Americans would revert back to if it were possible.
However we define it, or how it matches up with past examples over time, politics seems more personal and nasty today. The ‘gotcha’ aspect to politics seems in over-drive.
I suspect many hate to know that Camelot is officially over.
Representative Patrick Kennedy stepped carefully around a clutter of half-packed cardboard boxes, overstuffed luggage, and several open bags of potato chips at his Capitol Hill apartment. It seemed more like a scene of a college student heading home than the end of a 64-year political legacy.
But Kennedy’s upcoming retirement will break a bond between the nation’s capital and Camelot. When the new House is seated in January, it will mark the first time since 1947 — the year a 29-year-old John F. Kennedy was sworn in as a Massachusetts congressman — that no member of the Kennedy family will be serving in the House, Senate, or White House.
