The Divine Miss K - A Pandomag.com Column by J. Kim

News of John Kennedy Jr.’s death made its way into all media, including Sports Illustrated, so Pandemonium had to join the fray. Raised in Massachusetts post-Chappaquiddick pre-William Kennedy Smith, I dreamed of marrying a Kennedy someday. As the nation morphed into the land of voyeurism and the Kennedy flaws became exposed, that glory tarnished. Yet they fought eclectic and noble battles: Ted fought for women in the Senate while Joe, fought for the elderly and bike trails in the Massachusetts Legislature.

In this genealogy of alpha males, JFK Jr., without any effort on his part, stood out from the pack. Simultaneously the most normal and the most unique of all the Kennedys, he represented the hope and vision of his father, a man that threatened to lead this country to greatness. JFK and Martin Luther King Jr. were the embodiment of the Constitution; their deaths marked the most vile time in our history in that to protect their wealth, the ruling elite knew no boundaries. We looked to the son to almost reconcile ourselves with a revolting history.

However, JFK Jr., unmarked by scandal, may enjoy a legacy of being even more endearing than his father. We saw him fail but persist in a time when our generation follows the adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, screw it.” Raised by the classiest lady alive, he conducted himself with sophistication, so much so that we even forgave him for dating Madonna. The overconfident sense of invincibility and immortality, part of the Kennedy blood and heightened in his generation by technology, led to his destruction. In classic Greek tragedy, the hero must fall due to a character flaw; Homer could not have scripted his death better.

Tears filled the gaps where breaths should have been as I watched news coverage of divers searching for his plane a few miles from my father’s home. I kept my home up until they found the bodies; my training as a Mets fan prepared me for this eternal optimism. As the news coverage continued, I found myself disgusted and proud of our nation’s reaction. The media insisted on calling him “royalty” and used the word “prince” to describe the man. The Revolution was fought against a monarchy, and around the world we insist that other countries embrace democracy, despite what the citizens of those nations want. We still have a severe identity crisis in the United States, we race to compare ourselves to England and to Europe as a wayward child still seeks the approval of an estranged parent. We insist of hyphenating our descriptions, as if the word American is meaningless. Kenneth Brooks, in African Americans and Other Myths, advocates embracing the American race and taking pride that we are an ethnic group. Someday, perhaps, but in some ways, we never truly severed the ties with England and still look to England for our identity.

To describe him, I would have used Plato’s term “philosopher king”, as in theory we based our government system on Greek philosophy. As the press interviewed the “common man” about Kennedy, many said they would have voted for him for president. He had ambitions and George did provide, in a trendy hipster fashion, decent coverage of politics. We all knew Kennedy had an interest in politics, and though he spoke at the Democratic Convention in 1988, he remained fairly neutral. Everyone assumed he shared the ideology of his father, but he discussed politics in a more abstract manner and maintained breathing room between himself and the Democratic Party. The public reaction confirmed people do not vote based on rhetoric and philosophy but rather on how the candidate looks in a tux.

Before I slam the public entirely, their reaction also inspired me. I have heard accounts of New York City in terms of a police state under Guiliani, a friend who has shuttled between The City and every other city in the world for 30 years described a palpable tension and predicted that if the current heat wave there persists, we will see riots. In this climate, I welcomed the site of people of all colors and ethnicities lining the streets to mourn Kennedy’s death. His father had connected with minorities, particularly Hispanics, in part because he was a proud Catholic. For one day, Kennedy brought an entire city together, few people can do that today.

Like everything today, the news coverage of his death brought a shame on the press once again. News magazine shows even focused on Lauren Bessette. Probably a lovely person and important to those who knew her, she died with a famous person and suddenly became a celebrity. We did not need to know the ins and outs of her life and did not need to know the date and place of her memorial service. The coverage of her life was inappropriate and intrusive. Gossip constitutes newsworthiness today. We should be allowed to mourn what we knew about Kennedy prior to his death, instead, the issue becomes a national trivia contest as the media plays a sick game of Jeopardy with its viewers. Over and over, broadcasters told us what a private man he was, then proceeded to dissect his life and the life of Caroline. Saddened by the loss of a contributor to our society, the media performed a great injustice.

Kennedy founded George to invigorate interest in politics and inspire my apathetic generation to become informed voters and participants in our leadership. He attempted to spark debates on real issues, but instead, the media clamors for the trivia, the banal and the pedestrian. We have learned nothing from the man, and that is perhaps the greatest tragedy of his death.