R.I.P. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I generally try not to post anything on November 22 because I feel strange trying to find something to say about the late President Kennedy that hasn't already been said. Both my parents were Kennedy Democrats and I must confess that, despite an occasional bout of conservative backsliding here and there, I tend to take after them.

Of course, my mother is now a Republican and my late father managed to find good things to say about both Bill Clinton and G.W. Bush. Then again he did die in 2003 and he usually disliked most Republican presidential candidates so I doubt he'd be particularly pro-GWB if he were alive today. Then again I don't believe that he would be an especially big fan of Barack Obama either. And he certainly would not be a big fan of Donald Trump.

As for me, I tend to lean Democratic more often than not. Sometimes I wonder why I do so but then the Republicans go and do something stupid and then I remember why.

My mother used to tell me not to judge Kennedy too harshly because a lot of the things he said during his lifetime which are considered way too moderate today were considered dangerously controversial in his day. We tend to forget that.

I don't pretend to know how much of an improvement Kennedy would have been over Lyndon B. Johnson but I would have liked to have had the opportunity to find out. Thanks to what happened on November 22, 1963, I never will.

In any event, Kennedy died on this date in 1963 and he obviously has been missed. Even by people like me who are far too young to remember him.