John F. Kennedy

Tuesday morning the pageant of democracy began in earnest.  At 6:15am on West 120th street off Morningside Drive, I stood with my neighbors in the longest polling line I have seen in more than two decades of voting on the Upper West Side. Reading about the death of Barak Obama’s grandmother as I waited in line, I thought of my own grandparents, long gone, and the journey that took all four from Russia and Poland to Ellis Island and the shadow of the Statue of Liberty nearly a century ago.  America is a great country because it is, as John Kennedy once termed it, “a nation of immigrants”.  read more »

It seems like only a few glandular cases are obsessed with the fact that Barack Obama knows Bill Ayers, the vintage '60s "revolutionary" and former mad bomber, with everyone else including the New York Post dismissing the charge as a low blow.

But the Ayers controversy is only the spearhead of a massive Internet campaign by McCain supporters to brand Senator Obama a "socialist," the timing of which is exquisitely (if unintentionally) comic.

It goes like this: Sometime in the distant past, Obama won the endorsement of the Chicago chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or D.S.A.—a rather moderate group of activists by left-wing standards, who have always believed in advancing such radical concepts as universal health care, green technology, union jobs at decent wages, as well as many other worthy ideas that are now boringly mainstream.  read more »

Only one half of the Democratic ticket is actually set. With this afternoon's acclamation vote, Barack Obama is now officially the party's candidate for president. But Joe Biden, his handpicked running mate, must still win the convention's formal blessing. Technically, the party could go through another time-consuming roll call of the states to nominate Biden, but there's no need for that. Instead, Biden will be nominated just after 10 tonight (after Bill Clinton's speech) by Quincy Lucas, a Delaware woman and domestic violence activist. There will be no seconding speech; to save time, delegates will simply be asked if anyone seconds the nomination -- and hundreds of them will shout back "I do.  read more »

Theodore Sorensen, who was John F. Kennedy's speechwriter and one of his closest advisers, approves of the speech Barack Obama delivered yesterday to 200,000 Germans in front of the Victory Column in Tiergarten.

"I thought it was a magnificent, historic speech," said Sorensen, who helped draft Kennedy's famous 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. "It was a comprehensive declaration of new American foreign policy which will close the chapter on the nightmares of the last seven and a half years and hold out hope for sensible Europeans that America will once again be a collaborator."

Asked how Obama's speech echoed Kennedy's decades earlier, with its tone and repetitive references to freedom and Berlin, Sorensen said, "Of course there are parallels between two, young, aggressive internationalist-minded Democrats speaking in that historic place.  read more »

President of NBC Universal, Jeff Zucker, will file a defamation suit against Harvey Weinstein if he calls him his friend again in public. [P6]

Not-yet-fired Elle fashion director, Nina Garcia, has been asked to take a lesser title at the magazine, but was also told that if she leaves all together, she will no longer be a judge on Project Runway. [P6]  read more »

Nothing is original in late-capitalist America!

Before Pamela Anderson, Rob Lowe, and Paris Hilton paved the way for sex tapes, apparently, there was a black and white video of Marilyn Monroe performing oral sex, which just sold to "a New York businessman" for $1.5 million, The New York Post reports.

The silent, 15-minute reel of 16 mm footage "appears" to have been shot in the 50's and shows Ms. Monroe performing the act on an unidentified man, who for a long time the F.B.I. tried to prove was John F. Kennedy or Robert F. Kennedy.

In the tape, Ms. Monroe is on her knees and never looks at the lens, while the man’s face is out of the shot, according to the Post.  read more »

After studying the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, linguist Mark Liberman found that their speaking styles are “radically different.”

Then there’s Barack Obama.  read more »

Steve Kornacki thinks the strategy behind Mitt Romney's religion speech owes more to George H.W. Bush than to John F. Kennedy.

Also from the Observer, Jason Horowitz reports on the reaction to the speech from two prominent Catholic commentators.

Upon tuning in for Mitt Romney’s much-hyped speech on religion Thursday morning, many viewers probably asked the same first question: What’s George Bush doing there?

The former President invited Mr. Romney to deliver the address at his presidential library in College Station, joined him on stage and even offered a personal introduction.  read more »

It has taken over four decades, but the time may once again have come for the Democratic Party to run on defense and foreign policy. They have good reason to do so.  read more »

Chuck Schumer wants to see a presidential debate at Hofstra. The Nassau-based school applied to host one of the presidentail debates recently which, if successful, might bring Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani back to debate in front of their home crowd.

In letters to the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, and the Commission on Presidential Debates, Schumer said:

Hofstra University is one of only two candidates in the Northeast. In fact, New York has not hosted a debate since 1960 when John F. Kennedy and then Vice-President Richard M. Nixon met in a Manhattan television studio.

The letters are after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

I knew that one day I’d be reading in the paper about Arthur’s death, but never really believed  read more »

I just got off the phone with a legendary spy. Well, let me amend that: a legendary counterspy.  read more »

This Year’s Position, Last Year’s Position, Name, Total Mentions  read more »

This Year’s Position, Last Year’s Position, Name, Total Mentions    read more »

Eliot Spitzer has treated the J.F.K. Rail Link cooly, and even the Port Authority board, half of whose members were appoitned by the project's biggest champion, Gov. Pataki, is not expected to try to change his mind. An ally of the Governor told us, in reference to today's article on state boards and authorities: "There are mixed feelings about doing that link anyway, so it may not be that difficult to dissuade people from following it up." -Matthew Schuerman

In reading Dershowitz's rebuttal to Mearsheimer and Walt, I noticed something else he said:

"It is rightfully considered vile to suggest that American Catholic politicians such as John F. Kennedy and John Kerry owe their primary allegiance to the Vatican over the United States."

Dershowitz is saying, Don't you dare bring up Jewishness in politics. But his statement about Catholic politicians is wrong.  read more »

Mac vs. PC

MAC: Hi, I’m a Mac!  read more »

PC: Hi, I’m a PC!

A few years ago, supporters of a new train to J.F.K.  read more »

Already tired of Le Cirque coverage, you say? Well, there is a lot more than just the red carpet sightings here! Tom McGeveran and Michael Calderone head up to One Beacon Court's 55th floor penthouse, marvel at the technocratic wonderland of Bloomberg LP headquarters, and head downstairs to a couple Le Cirque opening parties.

Matthew Schuerman discovers why New York's big developers have been giving their dough to an upstate Republican Congressman: it's all part of a strategy to make sure the one-seat-ride to J.F.K. Airport gets federal funding. And the Jivamukti yoga center has just opened around Union Square. Sting, Uma, and Russell are all hanging out there. They're eating odd things like "reality sandwiches" and "salvation salads."

James Carroll claims to have left the priesthood in the early 1970’s.  read more »

James Carroll claims to have left the priesthood in the early 1970’s.  read more »

His ratings in free fall, President George W.  read more »

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, long a supporter of the Second Avenue Subway and resident of the Lower East Side, is now saying the J.F.K. Rail Link is more important, according to the new Downtown Express. This is a big deal, especially because Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Eliot Spitzer just made fairly clear this morning that he has the opposite priorities. A number of civic groups like the Regional Plan Association think the airport rail link is just too expensive, at $6 billion, to justify a the few thousand riders would take it each day to J.F.K. each day. But Silver's pitching the rail link as a means to get Long Island residents downtown, not downtowners off to the airport. -Matthew Schuerman

Eliot Spitzer, speaking this morning at a Regional Plan Association conference, suggested the present Governor's political patronage had led to labor-management strife at the M.T.A., if not the actual strike in December:

For much of their history, organizations such as the M.T.A., the Port Authority, New York state's own transportation department and the Thruway Authority, were world class leaders in their field. Sadly, this is no longer the case. We must restore these organizations to their previous standards of professional excellence. We'll appoint individuals to executive and board positions based on professional excellence and experience and not based on political patronage. ... The transit strike illustrated the depth of labor-management conflict at the Transit Authority. The fact that 23 percent of all TWU employees faced disciplinary charges in 2005, a truly astonishing figure, indicated the problems go much deeper than just the single contract dispute.

Also noteworthy, his tepid support for the $6 billion rail link from Wall Street to J.F.K. Airport, another favorite of the current Governor. While saying that ensuring the vitality of Lower Manhattan should be the top economic development priority in the region, he said:

We should complete the draft environmental impact statement for the J.F.K. Rail Link so we can better evaluate the cost of the project as well as the expected economic benefits.

Calling for completion of a D.E.I.S. that is already in progress (and which will be finished right about when the new Governor's term begins) is like saying that a jury should be allowed to reach a verdict.

-Matthew Schuerman

Other than a possible hiccup in the volume of telephone sex, did the revelation that the National Se  read more »

When Richard Reeves set out to explain Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, he ran the risk—no, the certa  read more »

When Richard Reeves set out to explain Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, he ran the risk—no, t  read more »

The erudite professor of practical politics, Roberto Ramirez, wasn’t wrong when he told The Ne  read more »

The erudite professor of practical politics, Roberto Ramirez, wasn’t wrong when he told The New Yo  read more »

I, obviously, wasn't the only one puzzling over the rather subtle tag line to Freddy's latest TV spot: "It's a great city. It could be greater."

Anyway, as close as I could come to an explanation was the opening statement John F. Kennedy gave in his first debate with Richard Nixon in 1960:

"This is a great country, but I think it could be a greater country," Kennedy said, listing the national flaws that left him dissatisfied and concluding, "I think it's time America started moving again."

It's a subtle thing Freddy's trying to do: To convince people to revise upward their expectations of a city that many consider on the right track. And television advertising is a tough medium for communicating subtlety.  read more »

(via John Kerry. Really.)

What does it mean that our culture entertains two conflicting narratives of Marilyn Monroe’s d  read more »

What does it mean that our culture entertains two conflicting narratives of Marilyn Monroe’s death  read more »

When people think of air safety these days, what most often comes to mind is how travelers can best  read more »

When people think of air safety these days, what most often comes to mind is how travelers can best  read more »

The devastation in South Asia defies description, but it cannot lead us to the fatal lethargy of des  read more »

John Kerry did have a childhood.  read more »

No more Mr. Nice Guy.  read more »

On Monday, Feb.  read more »

My favorite Jewish homosexual socialist playwright, Tony Kushner, is on a roll, and we are glad.  read more »

It's being touted as the missing link in the city's transportation network-the train to the plane, o  read more »

Two news events that broke on the same day in mid-November summarized what we as Americans and New Y  read more »

Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture , by Thomas Doherty.  read more »

Some of the city's most influential preservationists are vowing to block plans to build a huge new t  read more »

I was sorry when I learned that Michael's, the well-known children's hair-cutting salon at Madison A  read more »

Scotty: James B. Reston and the Rise and Fall of American Journalism , by John F. Stacks.  read more »

As we continue this relentless trudge toward election day, I find myself in a dissonant frame of min  read more »

President John F.  read more »

It was 3 o'clock on the muggy afternoon of Saturday, July 24, and the author C.  read more »

PARIS-As hope here faded that CNN would interrupt its global broadcast with the image of John F.  read more »