Chris Matthews Plays Loveball With JFK In New Biography
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/26/chris-matthews-jfk-biography_n_1033273.html
Chris Matthews -- current host of MSNBC's "Hardball" -- was a 15-year-old working as a paperboy for the Philadelphia Bulletin when he found his political loyalties shifting.
Like the rest of his immediate family, he considered himself a Republican, but something about John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign had inspired him, made him question what he stood for. Not only did he find himself suddenly rooting for a Democrat, but he had grown enamored with the entire Kennedy dynasty, and momentarily cheered the possibility of a two-term JFK presidency, and a Lyndon Johnson presidency to follow.
Thus began a lifelong fascination that hasn't ever let up. In 1996, while still the D.C. bureau chief for theSan Francisco Chronicle, Matthews published "Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America," and on Nov. 1 he'll release "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero," a wide-ranging biography that focuses on the life and dual natures of the 35th president.
Jackie Kennedy famously called her husband both "elusive" and "unforgettable," and in this new work, Matthews seeks to elucidate the conflicting shades of Kennedy's character, while also celebrating a leader who he believes united the American people more than any other president since the 1960s.
In an interview with HuffPost, Matthews reveals the Kennedy traits that caught him off guard, why he made everyone feel "included," and a few essential qualities he thinks Obama -- and other American politicians -- could pick up from Kennedy.
Was there any significance to releasing this book now, or did it just work out that way?
I've been working on it for years. I started back in the 80s, looking at the Nixon/Kennedy rivalry, but since then I've been working on this for a long time. I guess I was thinking about the 50th anniversary [of the assassination], sure, and I didn't know what the current zeitgeist would be. But I think it's the perfect time for it. The country wants to be reminded what a leader is. A hero. We haven't had a hero since Kennedy, really -- a guy who proved himself in battle, a hero in war who had a rite of passage like that. This guy was the guy. He was it.
What surprised you most to learn about him?
How sick he was. I say in the book how he was a greater hero than he wanted us to know. He was sick all the time, had a terrible stomach injury, blood counts all through high school, it went on and on and on. He was always in a hospital. He must have had a record in Choate for the number of days he was in the infirmary. Also, he was always reading. Always. He was a reader, and a hero worshipper, and he became who he became because he was incessantly studying King Arthur, Churchill, the history of World War I, the Times every day in high school. I got this from his classmates.
You repeatedly discuss how much Kennedy loved politics, in general, and how he was proud to be a politician. What about politics appealed to him most?
He loved meeting people, loved campaigning, loved the competition, loved the zest of it. He loved building a party and punishing his rivals. It's all there, what a politician has to be. Even the day he was killed, he was going to the airport in Fort Worth, asking people what the difference was between Dallas and Fort Worth politically. He was always asking questions, always trying to learn more about it.
Was Kennedy feared?
You can't be loved for long if you're not feared. Kennedy did not hold grudges, but he dealt politically with people. I think he'd make Eric Cantor fear him a little if he were [president today]. He was tough on his enemies, he always was. Look at everything he did: He beat Nixon, he beat Johnson, he beat them all. He didn't join those guys, he beat them. You think Johnson wanted to be his running mate? He had this stick, this ability to enforce. He wasn't moved by those emotions around him and he could stand up to people.
You write in the book that Kennedy knew, more than anyone, "that nations die or thrive on the ability and judgment of their leaders to stir them at perilous times." How was Kennedy able to stir people?
Everyone was part of his mission. There was always this inclusion of bringing people in and making everybody participate. It was never, "Let's see how smart he is," it was always him bringing other people in, making people a part of it all. Ask anybody from that generation, they felt included. I think the big Kennedy distinction was the ability to make everybody part of the effort. "We're all in this together."
How did he do that, specifically?
He was all about relationship politics. It wasn't about transactions -- "Once you're with me, you're with me." He stuck with them. Obama's sort of like, "You elect me now, I'll do the job, and watch me do it." The Clintons were all about relationships, too, but the entire Kennedy party -- that was everything. He was always building a team around him, and people trusted him. He had 12 kids in the mud, 12 guys in the military, he saved his crew. When you go out and you carry your 42-year-old engineer on your back for four hours, the strap of his life jacket in your teeth, it creates a certain competence. Those guys loved him.
Because he was strong on the battlefield.
He was a leader! It's not about the ability to give a good speech or to be smart, it's about a talent to really lead people. I don't know if Romney or Obama have showed that kind of leadership, someone who men and women want to follow into battle. "We want to go with him. I want to go with that guy." Kennedy could walk into a room and men and women both would just melt. He was very impressive in terms of personal chemistry.
Have any politicians since Kennedy possessed similar qualities?
Scott Brown got a bit of it in Massachusetts, he connected with that anti-establishment thing in Boston. But that's more parochial. Jimmy Carter in '75, '76, he picked up on the country's mood for a while. I think Reagan picked up on some of it in his time.
Does Obama possess some of those qualities?
Obama hasn't clicked into the zeitgeist the way Kennedy did. Does [Obama] feel what we feel the way Kennedy felt what we felt? Does he get us right now? I hope he does, but I don't know. Kennedy connected with the country. We were losing the Cold War, the world's global map was changing from red and pink and we could see it. He said, "Let's get this country moving again." He knew exactly how to brace us for what was [to come] -- that sense of when to strike something. [Kennedy] always had this fear of complacency, and he knew the times, he knew us. Obama hasn't clicked into the zeitgeist. Is there an Obama party? I don't know.
BK: CHRIS MATTHEWS - WHO USE TO SPEND SUMMERS IN OCEAN CITY NJ DURING HIS COLLEGE DAYS, AND WORKED AT THE CHATTERBOX - MAY HAVE ADMIRED JFK - HE CERTAINLY GETS HIS DEATH WRONG.
Here’s partial transcript of Chris Mathews putting his foot in his mouth again, and Jerry Policoff’s response.
'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Friday, April 15th, 2011
Read the transcript to the Friday show
http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/
…MATTHEWS: “Let Me Finish” tonight with the grassy knoll. That was the place in Dallas—near the Texas Book Depository—that the crazies believe people shot at President Kennedy from.
Well, to the conspiracist mind, it‘s important to always have a grassy knoll. It‘s their grotto of denial, a place to travel mentally and find deliverance from reality. Those who don‘t like reality need a grassy knoll to get through the night.
I do not wish to do injustice to these desperados. I know exactly why people need grassy knolls. They need them because they cannot bear the suffering that truth brings to the heart and to the mind.
How could some loser—some misfit who went to the Soviet Union because he thought he liked communism and believed he could find a happy life there, then came home and fall hard for Fidel Castro on the rebound, how could this squirt kill the regal Jack Kennedy? It doesn‘t balance out, does it? How could a nobody kill such a great somebody?
Well, worst yet, how could a man of a hard left—a communist—kill Jack Kennedy. Why wasn‘t it a right-winger who killed him? Then we could blame it on them?
I‘ve got it. We‘ll come up with a conspiracy theory—don‘t actually have to prove anything, of course, that says—just say it. Just say it. It really was a right winger. It‘s that guy - oh, those guys over in the grassy knoll. Don‘t you get it? It was the right wing that killed our hero.
Well, a half century later, we‘ve got a new grassy knoll, another place for retreat for those who can‘t stand a hard truth. The truth is that Barack Obama is the president of the United States. Got it! President of the United States, duly elected leader of the country living right there in the White House.
And they can‘t stand it. They can‘t stand that it is, in fact, a fact. No way around it. No way.
Just look at the history books. Look at the newspaper. Dang it! This guy is president. He was elected president. A majority of the people wanted him president and went out and voted for him.
How do we change that? How do we change that reality?
I got it, with this—it didn‘t happen. You see, he wasn‘t born here. He‘s not eligible to be president.
I read it somewhere that he‘s from somewhere else. Can‘t put my finger on it but he‘s not really an American, you see? Not natural born anyway. He‘s from out there somewhere.
So, last night, the boobs in the Arizona legislature voted to require the candidates for president henceforth approved other documents besides the official document that the state of Hawaii issues as a birth certificate. They want circumcision, baptismal records. They want something that nobody‘s ever wanted before from any candidate before.
What they really want is the same thing grassy knoll people want even now—deliverance from the truth they cannot handle.
Donald Trump—take a bow for giving new hope to grassy knollers everywhere. Wow!
That‘s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42647474/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/
Dear Chris,
I was not surprised by your arrogant and ignorant denunciation of conspiracy theorists who believe JFK was fired upon from the "Grassy Knoll." Of course the last official investigation of the assassination came to that same conclusion, based in part on scientific acoustics tests that virtually proved it (despite claims to the contrary those tests have never been refuted).
I find myself wondering, however, if you ever read your former boss and mentor's book "Man of the House," in which Tip O’Neillwrites:
I was never one of those people who had doubts or suspicions about the Warren Commission’s report on the President’s death. But five years after Jack died, I was having dinner with Kenny O’Donnell and a few other people at Jimmy’s Harborside Restaurant in Boston, and we got to talking about the assassination. I was surprised to hear O’Donnell say that he was sure he had heard two shots that came from behind the fence. "That’s not what you told the Warren Commission," I said. "You’re right," he replied. "I told the FBI what I had heard but they said it couldn’t have happened that way and that I must have been imagining things. So I testified the way they wanted me to. I just didn’t want to stir up any more pain and trouble for the family." "I can’t believe it," I said. "I wouldn’t have done that in a million years. I would have told the truth." "Tip, you have to understand. The family—everybody wanted this thing behind them." Dave Powers was with us at dinner that night, and his recollection of the shots was the same as O’Donnell’s.
So I guess O'Donnell and Powers can be counted among the "crazies," as can Tip O'Neill for passing on what they told him without attempting to refute it."
You are entitled to believe what you want about the Kennedy assassination, but branding people who believe something else based upon eyewitness testimony and scientific evidence as "crazies" says a lot more about you than it says about them.
Jerry Policoff
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