March 14, 2007
Hillary Clinton and Peter Pace Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 10:55 PM EST It’s fashionable in many political and academic circles to take a dim view of John F. Kennedy, whose media-made image as a Camelot knight in shining armor almost demanded an over-correction. In the years since his assassination and apotheosis, JFK has undergone substantial historical revision. He now comes across as a man who was as glib as he was poignant, and as cynical as he was idealistic. Certainly in the realm of civil rights, he and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, earned low marks for their tepid response to the great moral problem of their day. In the first installment of his three-volume study of the postwar civil rights movement, Taylor Branch paints a picture of a young President who was more concerned with preserving the peace than promoting racial justice. Thus in 1961 the Kennedys brokered a deal with Mississippi state authorities by which Freedom Riders would be peaceably arrested upon crossing into the magnolia state, even though they were fully within their constitutional rights (as per a Supreme Court decision) to demand the integration of facilities servicing interstate bus passengers. But people have the capacity to grow. During the darkest days of the Birmingham campaign, John Kennedy admitted that newspaper images of black schoolchildren being attacked by police dogs made him “sick.” On June 11, after two and a half years of steady procrastination, Kennedy took to the airwaves to demand a comprehensive civil rights act barring segregation in places of public accommodation and in the workplace. Just minutes before his live broadcast, the President received the finished draft of his speech. He made extensive edits and ultimately ended up extemporizing—on live TV—what was arguably his finest public address. Referring to the events in Birmingham, Kennedy said, “I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. . . . It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal. . . . It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case. . . . We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. “The heart of the question,” he continued, “is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?” Forty-four years later, it is dispiriting, to say the least, that one of the front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination seems to have absorbed not a single word of Kennedy’s historic and influential address. When asked whether she agreed with Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently declared that “homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts,” Sen. Hillary Clinton responded that it was a matter for “others to conclude.” I’m all for crediting John Kennedy with intellectual and moral growth. The same applies to his brother, Robert Kennedy, who failed miserably at promoting civil rights during his tenure as attorney general, but who emerged as an important and deeply compassionate champion of racial minorities and the poor in the short time he had left in this life. So how much leeway should we afford Hillary Clinton? She has been a United States senator for more than six years. She has been in public life for well over two decades. She is 59 years old. How much more time does she need to get right with history, and with the scripture she claims to hold dear? John Kennedy spoke of nothing less than the Golden Rule. Surely, Senator Clinton understands this. “The heart of the question,” John Kennedy affirmed, “is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.” Substitute “gay” for “black,” and we are grappling with the same question today. Hillary Clinton’s answer is unsatisfactory. It is unbecoming of the junior senator from New York State, and altogether inadequate for someone who wishes to carry the Democratic party’s standard in the next presidential election.
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