JFK: Media, just sing along

On Nov. 22, and just before, there appeared on the tube one or two well-done documentaries on John F. Kennedy’s life. But on the subject of his death, it was dull repetition of the same ol’ story: Lee Harvey Oswald did it, “a nobody, a failure,” a guy, incidentally, who had a lousy reputation and record as a rifleman in the Marine Corps, and who, if we can believe it, in equipping himself to kill a president, had bought a cheap, mail order Italian carbine, a piece of junk, basically.

We all recognize, I think, that after 50 years the subject of JFK’s assassination has become something of a maze, wending this way and that through a vast array of facts, falsehoods, red herring and trivia. Most of us, understandably, are overwhelmed by it all.

But, surely, in a case as important as this we might reasonably ask more of the media, a little more effort maybe. And a little less conformity? If it has to be the same song over and over again, couldn’t someone hit a sour note now and then, even on purpose? Apparently not. All the TV talking heads, pundits and commentators on this subject appear to know just the one song. They know it well and they’re sticking to it.

For reference purposes, I think it might be called, “The Oswald Song.” If I heard it right, it goes like this:

“A broadcasting band of journalists we,

Reporting the facts consistently,

Deeply offended that y’all can’t see

It was not, was not, was not a conspiracy!”

(a tip of the cap to Gilbert and Sullivan)

DEL CAMERON

Coeur d’Alene