Today marks a dubious and solemn occasion: Forty-seven years ago, a Dallas deranged gunman -- some contend that there was more than one -- assassinated the country's first Cool President, John F. Kennedy.
Thomas Jefferson was an 18th-century Renascence American, Abraham Lincoln was legendary, and Theodore Roosevelt was rugged. Elected to White House in 1960, Kennedy offered a stark and welcome contrast to the older men who occupied the oval office. As Kennedy only served 1,000 days in the White House, historians and political scientists can only speculate as to the long-lasting impact of the New Frontier programs. How influential was Kennedy in the enactment of the Civil Rights bill, Medicare, food-stamp programs?
One issue is indisputable: Kennedy blazed the trail for Presidential Cool. Sure, he sports the conventional curriculum vitae for cool. A World War II Navy officer who skippered patrol torpedo (PT) boats near New Georgia and the Solomon islands, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, Purple Heart Medal, American Defense Service Medal and the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with three bronze service stars. The World War II veteran -- no doubt with the assistance of his father's financial and political clout -- was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1948 at age 31. Massachusetts voters elected Kenned to the U.S. Senate in 1952. Dubbed by the media as "Washington's Gay Young Bachelor", Kennedy married drop-dead gorgeous debutante Jacqueline Bouvier one year later.
When younger sister Patricia married British actor Peter Lawford, Kennedy gained access to the Rat Pack, the hippest gang in 1960s Hollywood: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Lawford. The Rat Pack actively campaigned for Kennedy, whom Sinatra dubbed "chicky baby", during the 1960 election. Sinatra sang a campaign song to the tune of "High Hopes". Although Kennedy outpolled (303) Richard Nixon (219) the vote in the Electoral College 303, the popular vote was much closer: The elecorate preferred Kennedy (34,200,984 votes, 49.72%) to Nixon (34,108, 157, 49.55 percent) by a much closer margin. Less than 100,000 votes spelled the difference between the New Frontier and Tricky Dick.
One can discuss politics, which is a topic for the New Republic of the Atlantic Monthly. This post is about cool, and JFK had style, baby. No America's Cup captain looked as commanding while skippering a boat as did the commander and chief. Don Draper finishes a pale second to JFK in sporting early 1960s style and chiuc. No American man -- then or now -- looked as fashionable donning a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarer sunglasses.
When Kennedy was elected in 1960, an aide observed, "This administration is going to do for sex what the last one did for golf." This prophecy may have proven the understatement of the decade.
Kennedy enjoyed the luxury of a presidency that predated smartphone cameras, YouTube, blogging, talk radio, instant messaging... and, most importantly, a White House press corps that adhered to a code of silence by declining to investigate and report longstanding rumors of presidential indiscretion. Kennedy's dalliances included trysts with with Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Angie Dickinson, Judith Campbell and Mary Pinchot Meyer.
As Bill Clinton demonstrated two-and-a-half decades later, conducting an Oval Office extramarital affair does not personify sex appeal or cool. Wearing sunglasses while playing the saxophone does not make you a hip cat: Zoot, the Muppet Show saxophonist, will dissuade one of this image. Barrack Obama is discovering -- contrary to what Huey Lewis and News once professed -- it's not "hip to be square."
A cynic might conclude that Presidential Cool perished with Kennedy on November 22, 1963. The optimist suspects -- and hopes -- that Presidential Cool takes more than a couple years to cultivate.
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