Crying Real Tears For JFK
Dotty Lynch is the Senior Political Editor for CBS News. E-mail your questions and comments to Political Points
Last Sunday morning on "Face the Nation," Sen. Edward Kennedy talked a blue streak about Iraq, prescription drugs and jobs. His aides were in the green room working the phones, planning meetings about Medicare strategy. The atmosphere was super-charged Washington politics.
And then something happened. CBS News' Bob Schieffer turned to topic of this week's fortieth anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination. Ted Kennedy, prepared for the question, launched into an oft-recited answer about his brothers' ability "to bring out really the best in terms of our ideals and our values and the importance of trying to give something back to the country." And then his voice cracked. "They were my heroes," he said quietly.
There was no doubt that the emotion was real and that the senator is still in great pain over the loss. With other politicians, it's not always that easy to decipher real feelings from the contrived. The public has become so jaded by emotional manipulations of political campaigns and the media that all public figures whose lips quiver and eyes moisten are suspect.
In an interview with CBS News' Dan Rather for "60 Minutes II" this week, Gen. Wesley Clark brought along a prop – a book showing pictures of a slain five-week-old baby in Bosnia. Rather did the obvious thing and asked him about the book toward the end of the interview.
Clark showed the dreadful photos and got teary. The viewer was left to determine whether the reaction was true or whether the general was acting out a made-for-TV moment to show his compassionate side to those liberal women in New Hampshire who aren't sure about a military man.
The barrage of media attention to that awful event of 40 years ago brings home the contrast of then and now; of unvarnished media and sincere emotions compared with today's highly produced slick variety. A new PBS documentary, "JFK: Breaking News," made by KERA in Dallas/Fort Worth, shows how live local and national television covered events surrounding the assassination in a raw and unedited fashion. Print reporters are interviewed carping about television stations putting out uncorroborated, immediate information and realizing that TV was about to eclipse newspapers as the dominant mode of communication in a crisis.
Alessandra Stanley, reviewing the documentary in the in The New York Times, wrote that it also showed how "live television allowed an entire nation to mourn along with the President's widow." The presentation was so genuine that we let down our guard. Forty years later, emotions, so under-control and dulled by the repetition of the familiar footage, came to the surface in our living room.
My husband and I told each other again our stories of that weekend. His high school prom was held because the class decided they should be together. My school dance was called off and we all filed into the chapel and watched flags being lowered as we set off for home. The rest of the weekend was spent in front of the television with our families.
My dad cried that weekend and my husband cried last night. Real tears, real sadness. Despite the years, the story is griping and the shock and horror are still close to the surface.
Real men cry, not on cue, but when they are deeply touched. And television, at its best, has the power not only to connect but to separate the real deal from the cheesy.
By Dotty Lynch