The Dark Side of Camelot

[ceebeegee]

So, among other things, I'm reading Seymour Hersh's The Dark Side of Camelot right now.  Can someone tell me, did JFK run over Hersh's dog or something?  It's just so one-sided--unrelentingly muck-raking, one long laundry list of how terrible JFK and all the male Kennedys were.  (On the other hand, he does seem to have a soft spot for Jackie and Marilyn.  It's rather touching.)  Lots of salacious details, lots of anonymous interviews (if you claim to have had a long-term affair with Kennedy and you still refuse to identify yourself after nearly 50 years, it's difficult for me to take you too seriously) and some really shoddy journalism--unsupported conclusions, perfunctory documentary evidence.  It's actually pretty terrible, I find it hard to credit this guy's a Pulitzer winner but he broke the My Lai story so he must have some journalistic skills.  I think that's part of the problem (he's a journalist)--he doesn't really write a good book, there's no arc to the book, even within the chapters.  I'm actually not going to finish it, which is rare for me--I even finished The Daughter of Time and Atlas Shrugged, as dreadful as they both were (hey, at least Atlas Shrugged had some hottt sex scenes ;)

And as fascinating as I find the Kennedys (as I've said before, they remind me greatly of my own family--large, wealthy and lots of teeth), I'm not blind to the faults of any of them.  Jack was a terrible philanderer, a truly entitled man who treated women like props.  My mother and I have discussed it from time to time--she said that my grandmother thought it might have to do with the medication he was on for the Addison's disease, that it made him hyper-sexual.  I'm sure that's part of it, but his disgusting father probably had something to do with it as well.  Joe Kennedy was a remarkable man in many ways, and definitely a better parent than Rose, but he was a P-I-G pig with regards to women--he used to hit on his teenage daughters' friends, UGH!

ANYWAY.  So my point is that even a critical work about the Kennedy family should be interesting--I reread Peter Collier and David Borowitz's The Kennedys every now and then, and Lord knows Hersh's reputation is much better than Borowitz's, who is a total creepy ranter, IMO.  But the book is very interesting.  I think The Kennedys is where I first read the hilarious story about the long-suffering cook/housekeeper/something like that at Hickory Hill, who heard out a long list of Ethel demands and told her flatly "Mrs. Kennedy, you can wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which one fills up first."  You have to admire that kind of salt of the earth fearlessness.  (Especially toward Ethel, whom I can't stand.  I can't remember who it was who referred to her as "more-Kennedy-than-thou" but it is dead on.)