Gets off to a poor start with that fistful of overused Yeats; winds up:
For more than a half century I have heard a plethora of criticisms of the Kennedy clan, some of them well deserved, others not; some true, and some false or unsubstantiated: Jack was a womanizer, and often a careless one at that. He did not really get much through Congress and escalated our Vietnam involvement. One of my conservative friends always told me how ruthless Bobby could be and that he was somehow implicated in Marilyn Monroe’s murder (of course, he offered no proof). And how about Teddy and the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, which ended the life of a young woman in the car he drove off a bridge? How about his drinking problem?
In answer to all these criticisms and questions I can only say that regardless of the truth or falsity of any of them, the proper combination of idealism and realism is necessary and the Kennedys did at times display such a mix. Besides, whoever said nostalgia had to be completely rational?
