NOVEMBER 22, 1963 : HOW THAT DAY IN DALLAS CHANGED THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY PERHAPS FOREVER...........

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America, was assassinated as he rode through the streets of downtown Dallas, Texas, on this day forty eight years ago, November 22, 1963.  The first and only Catholic President of the United States, to be elected to the White House until now, President Kennedy was in Texas that week in November 1963, to help bring political reconciliation between the conservative and liberal wings of the Democratic Party, with his own re-election campaign coming in 1964.  At a pinnacle of popularity and charismatic leadership at that point in his Presidency that autumn, his sudden and tragic killing not only ended his Presidency, but led to more than a decade of presidential distrust and skepticism in some of his immediate successors actions, President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the Vietnam War; and Presiden Richard M. Nixon, and Watergate; that has had a lasting long term affect on how well we appreciate, respect, or have supported, subsequent American Presidents for the past five decades. President Kennedy faced his own share of political opposition with Congress that stalled some of his proposals, including Medicare and Civil Rights legislation, which went on to pass following his assassination.  But outside of  substantial first year, half term, legislative victories, most of the successor Presidents to Kennedy, from Johnson through Obama, have had their greatest effectiveness then and mostly then, before skepticism and dissatisfaction sets in.  Whether the Kennedy Presidency was a unique thousand days in American governing history, or the culminating moments of accepting and experiencing without the same degree of scrutiny and media coverage that is now the 24 hour, 7 day. a week norm; or have we as Americans become more demanding and exacting of our Presidents ?  Camelot, or not - the two years, ten months, and two days, of the Presidency of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, had and continues to have a lasting, memorable, affect on our country and the world.  The promise and hope, he and his Administration posed for  better, greater, times did not die on November 22, 1963; but continues to live on, just as he will forever be recalled on this day, for who he was, and what he brought to the substance, civility, and style, of President Americans yearn to embrace..........."Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Your Country",   Fr.  Troy