Let's take another look at that Kennedy presidency.

From perhaps another make-believe Sullivan reader:

These current Dems would have nominated Adlai Stevenson over Kennedy in 1960.

Now far be it for me to betray mythology, or speak ill of the dead. But truth be told, even many loyal Democrats understand that much of Kennedy's reign is myth: conjured up after his terrible assassination leaving the young family behind, helped along by Jacqueline's Kennedy's choreography that her husband be remembered appropriately.

It was her hand, and the inspiration to achieve concrete results carried on by the politicians and people after his killing that helped define what we think of as the Kennedy legacy. Had he remained alive, who knows how history would have evaluated and what would have been accomplished? It's no sure thing he would have even earned re-election, in fact.

The moon achievement in the space race (with emphasis on honest competition in the math and sciences, and considerable help from foreign-born scientists), the civil rights acts (emphasized and passed only after President Kennedy was dead), the extraction from the more dangerously active moments of the Cold War (Bay of Pigs) to settle for a policy of communist containment ... If you evaluate the JFK presidency alone, many in the know rate him as a mediocre president in the short time he had to demonstrate his skills. His inspirational legacy, that's what many now credit him for greatness. Particularly the Boomers, who were only children when he was alive.

So let's not belittle Adalai Stevenson. Who knows -- if he had gotten the nod ahead of JFK; if there had been no assassination -- how things would have turned out? We can't rewrite history any more than we should gloss over the truths in our hero worship.