JFK in a different time

Column

History is a funny thing.

Unless you look closely — and even then you wonder what critical factors you're missing — it is, at best, subjective.

I think writing a biography is equally perilous. There is no way the biographer can capture all of the inner workings of his subject, the subtleties and processes that determine which direction he or she will ultimately go.

Mark Twain wrote that biographies are "but the clothes and buttons of a man — the biography of the man himself cannot be written."

Which gets us to Chris Matthews, who is in town for a few days, visiting friends, covering the national presidential primaries and talking about his newest book, "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero."

Kennedy was not just a president of the United States, he was a pop culture icon. His story was as much one of a generation going to a New Frontier as it was of politics.

His research, for example, came up with the origins of JFK's memorable line delivered during his inaugural address in January 1961: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

Matthews says the phrase goes back to Kennedy's headmaster at the Choate School in Connecticut, who apparently used the phrase often.

There is the story of the Nixon/Kennedy debates of 1960, back when the idea of having presidential contenders debate live on television was a new idea.

Kennedy, who had developed skills as a prankster, had his camp insist the candidates not use makeup — and then did it anyway. To add to Nixon's misery, they secretly turned up the temperature in the studio.

Matthews, host of "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on MSNBC, has been around Washington for decades. He was a press secretary for the late House Speaker Tip O'Neill, D-Mass., and presidential speech writer in the Carter administration.

For political junkies, it should be a treat, although my guess is it would be better if you could get Matthews at some Irish pub over a few pints to tell his tales, not just from Camelot, but about the current campaign trails from Iowa to the political swamps of Florida.

I asked him if he thought Kennedy could have survived a presidential campaign today, with its 24-hour news cycles on cable TV and the need to know everything about someone's personal life.

Kennedy, Matthews said, rose to power at the end of a period of celebrated leaders "who had done things, especially those coming out of World War II."

Matthews didn't answer the question but suggested we still would like to find a leader who can lead, and there may not be any in this crop of wannabes.