Media Criticism

I’ve been reading the libertarian magazine Reason a lot recently. I pick out plenty of magazines every month that don’t fit exactly with my political views though I don’t know that there are any publications that hit every one of my points. Reason does a good job of covering the entirety of American politics with a libertarian lens. This month’s Reason had an interesting interview between Bill Kauffman and former Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) president Carl Oglesby.

This interview started with Kauffman asking Oglesby about his rise to a position of prominence in SDS as well as the nature of leftist politics in the 1960s. Reason interviewed Oglesby for several reasons including his libertarian stances and his connection to a college student named Hillary Rodham. The interview moved smoothly until Mr. Kauffman asked the question, “Had Kennedy not been shot, do the ‘60s and the New Left Happen?�

Mr. Oglesby is an intelligent man and a symbol of grassroots growth in adverse political environments. His response was telling of the mythology surrounding John F. Kennedy and the promise of New Frontier politics. Oglesby said that Kennedy’s assassination led to a diminished effort put into civil rights as well as an escalation of involvement in Vietnam. I understand that Oglesby lived during this time but it is important to look at both contentions from a historic perspective.

Kennedy’s rhetoric about civil rights was lukewarm due to the large contingent of Southerners in the party as well as the desire to consolidate power after a close election in 1960. America’s involvement in Vietnam goes back to the fall of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the effort to prop up Ngo Dinh Diem until his death in 1963. My greatest fear is that we will search for politicians who fit into the mystique of John F. Kennedy without examining their qualifications. It seems that even Carl Oglesby was enraptured with the glow surrounding Kennedy without considering the pragmatism of the entire Kennedy family.