Grief-Mongering

     We were once again treated to the outpouring of horror and magnificently-simulated grief over the assassination of John F. Kennedy, most of it from journalists who were unconceived, unborn or in diapers when it happened.  (But oh, they've got People Who Were There to interview -- yet again.)

     Once again, we're told that it was the worst, the most terrible thing that ever happened to a U. S. President, in all of history--

     And that, as H. L. Mencken might've said, is utter buncombe.  While no President -- or any other law-abiding citizen -- deserves to be shot down, especially as long as there's an independent press and the process of impeachment available, it's an amazing coincidence that the only one they've got on film and tape is somehow the very worst.

     Yeah, right.  Consider Lincoln, who was assassinated in the actual (defective) course of an actual conspiracy, for which eight people were eventually convicted and four were hanged.  Consider James A. Garfield, suffering though eleven weeks of increasingly dire infection before dying in agony, or William McKinley, lingering for days before sucumbing to gangrene.  If there's a scale of terribleness, someone else is going to have to rank these untimely deaths -- but not on the basis of which one offers the most compelling video.

     Perspective: it's a terrible thing to lose and a worse thing to never have had.