JFK On The Challenges Of The Presidency

It was 45 years ago today when American was shocked by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jr. Americans who were alive then can remember exactly where they were (I had just finished a speech running for student council at Amity Regional Jr. High School in Bethany, CT when the assistant principal got up and said something and everyone loudly gasped and quietly filed out of the auditorium to the buses. I asked a math teacher what happened and he told me).

In the ensuing years JFK has become an image — an image wedded to a motorcade in Dallas whose voice is only heard in short excerpts from his inauguration speech.

But here via MSNBC is a clip that reminds us of the JFK Americans knew at a time…a clip in which he talks about what he learned about the challenges of the Presidency…a clip as relevant now as it was then. To readers who never really watched and heard JFK, it will be a revelation of what the country really had and lost:

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UPDATE: Be sure to read THIS short post.