I have said all that I wish to say about November 22, 1963, as a
political event, and about JFK's
performance as president. My purpose here is simply to mark what ranks as the third-most shocking day of my lifetime. The most shocking, because
I remember it all too well, is September 11, 2001. The second-most shocking, which I remember not at all (because I was so young), is December 7, 1941.
JFK's assassination was a mighty shock for two reasons:
- It had been 62 years since the assassination of a president (William McKinley, 1901).
- There was, in the early 1960s, less of the intense political polarization that would now render a president's assassination almost unsurprising.
