JFK Remembered.

Forty-five years ago today John F. Kennedy was assassinated. We pause to remember his loss and his service to the country.

We also recommend The Dark Side of Camelot, by Seymour Hersh, for anyone who wants to get beneath the carefully-crafted public image and the decades of hero worship.

Let's just say that in JFK's Camelot, there was a new Guenevere every day for the king to play with, at least one, and booze, and lots and lots of medicine for the ups and downs, for sleeping and waking up, and for the president's chronic pain.

When it comes to partying and getting laid, Jack makes Teddy look like a boy scout.

But he didn't go nuclear against Cuba despite a chorus of hawkish advisors clamoring for a show of force, and Curtis LeMay shouting in his ear to take out Cuba - and why not China for good measure?

Kennedy did not succumb to the terrified, paranoid fantasies of a large section of the American population, and launch what we later found out would have likely been a nuclear holocaust.

For liberals, even a gun-toting one, keeping the finger away from the trigger is always the goal. War is Hell, and ought to be avoided, if possible, at all costs.

This sanity of mind, this fearless act of non-escalation in a moment of direst terror, is JFK's crowning achievement, his profile in courage, and the reason the GTL votes a qualified thumbs-up to the Kennedy presidency.

"You know, I get a migraine headache if I don't get a strange piece of ass every day." - JFK