Tuesday, July 16, was the 25th anniversary of John F. Kennedy Jr.’s death. Now that Democrats are even less enthusiastic about Joe Biden than vaccine makers are to see Robert F. Kennedy Jr. receive good press coverage, there will surely be pining for what could have been with JFK Jr.
But journalist Maureen Callahan, in her new book Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, shows that America is fortunate to be spared a JFK Jr. presidency. When he died, the media portrayed him as suave, stylish, and intelligent. The truth is he was a fool with a death wish.
Callahan encapsulates JFK Jr.’s idiocy in an anecdote about one of his business ideas, a rent-a-dog service. He assumed there would be a market for this since people always stopped him whenever he was out walking his dog. He abandoned the scheme when one of his business partners suggested that people probably weren’t stopping him because of his dog.
“John’s habit of being careless with his own things and those of others was his defining character trait,” Callahan writes. “Responsibilities were for other people, not him.” One of his first displays of recklessness occurred in 1986. He insisted on taking his then-girlfriend, Christina, kayaking on the open ocean, despite knowing nothing about it. He and Christina nearly drowned.
“John, we could have died,” Christina said. “Yeah, Chief,” he replied. “But what a way to go.”
Nevertheless, Carolyn Bessette assumed she had landed a prize, “America’s Prince,” when
