The JFK Assassination

I've been writing blogs for more than three years now, and I have written about the John F. Kennedy assassination every year on the anniversary of that terrible event.

Tomorrow will be its 47th anniversary, and most of the people who were in Kennedy's entourage in Dallas on that day are gone now.

When I was growing up, I often wondered if the mystery of who actually pulled the trigger — or who arranged for the assassination to take place — ever would be solved.

But as the years have gone by, I have become less convinced that that will ever happen.

I still believe there was a conspiracy, and I could recite my reasons for believing that, but I also believe that solving the mystery no longer matters.

As it approaches the half–century mark, the Kennedy assassination is the Great American Mystery. It has become a cottage industry of sorts, and solving the mystery would eliminate the goose that laid the golden egg.

Go into any bookstore. You will find shelves devoted to the Kennedy assassination. Look online. You will find site after site dedicated to someone's theory, no matter how outlandish it may be, of what really happened on Nov. 22, 1963.

Folks in Dallas long ago learned there was money to be made from the Kennedy assassination, even many years after the fact. Oliver Stone came here to make his film "JFK" 20 years ago, and many people in the area made money from the cast and crew, providing food and lodging.

Long before that time, the Texas School Book Depository — which the Warren Commission told America was the place where Lee Harvey Oswald fired all the bullets at the Kennedy motorcade — was transformed into a museum that primarily exists to promote the Warren Commission's version of what happened.

A few blocks away, a museum dedicated to alternative theories opened its doors.

But it's been years since anything resembling a serious investigation into the events of Nov. 22, 1963, was undertaken.

And today, on the eve of the 47th anniversary, the only thing related to it in the Dallas Morning News is an article that reports that the man who came across Officer J.D. Tippit's body and reported to the police that he had been shot will be publicly honored tomorrow for his actions.

The man's daughter told the Morning News that her father never spoke about that day in the years that followed. "Maybe this will finally be the end of it," the man told the Morning News' reporter.

Well ...

Ironically, the man once worked for Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed Oswald.

Everything connected with this case seems to go in circles.

The Day She Whupped Him

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"The public does not like you to mislead or represent yourself to be something you're not. And the other thing that the public really does like is the self–examination to say, you know, I'm not perfect. I'm just like you. They don't ask their public officials to be perfect. They just ask them to be smart, truthful, honest and show a modicum of good sense."

Ann Richards

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It was 20 years ago tomorrow that Ann Richards won a wildly improbable victory in her campaign to be Texas' governor.

I didn't grow up in Texas, but I was living here during that election.

If I had grown up here, I might have studied Texas history when I was a boy. And I might be acquainted with other gubernatorial races in Texas that were more noteworthy, more memorable, more historic.

In 1990, after all, Texas had been a state for nearly 150 years. There must have been some wild, if not notorious, gubernatorial elections here in all that time.

Nevertheless, I will always remember the 1990 campaign — for many reasons.

First, I had been living in north Texas for a couple of years, residing in Denton and working on my master's degree. I wasn't living in Texas when Richards burst onto the national scene with her keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Like most Americans, it was the first I had heard of her.

But, when I had the chance to vote for her for governor, I didn't hesitate.

And while I wasn't always happy with the campaign she ran, I always felt Richards was the best choice for the job.

That brings me to my second point. The campaign for the 1990 Democratic gubernatorial nomination in Texas was, perhaps, the nastiest I have ever witnessed — and I witnessed some pretty nasty campaigns when I was growing up in Arkansas.

Richards' main rival for the Democratic nod that spring was a veteran politician named Jim Mattox, and, in the runoff for the gubernatorial nomination, he accused Richards — who had acknowledged being treated for alcoholism 10 years earlier — of having had problems with other substances in the past as well.

He made the accusations in ads and on Face the Nation.

"[Richards] avoided answering the charges and began to slip in the polls," wrote Michael Barone and Grant Ujifusa in "The Almanac of American Politics 1992."

So she questioned the integrity of her rivals. "I have been sober for 10 years," Richards said. "Have Jim Mattox and (former Gov.) Mark White been honest for 10 years?"

"[H]er feminist base was enough to enable her to lead the first primary," wrote Barone and Ujifusa. "Her support in cities, where liberal women cast far more votes than ever before in Texas, was critical in the runoff against Mattox where she won 57%–43%."

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In hindsight, I guess, Richards' race for her party's nomination was a picnic, a stroll in the park, compared to her general election campaign against the Republican nominee, Clayton Williams, a successful businessman but a political novice who quickly earned a reputation for making offensive comments.

Yep, Williams was really an amateur at politics. Mattox, on the other hand, was a pro. He'd been around the block a few times, and he knew all the tricks, both clean and dirty. But Williams had something in his favor that Mattox didn't have. He was the Republican nominee.

The general election campaign against Williams was quite different, really, from the party primary and runoff campaigns against Mattox.

While Richards was fending off Mattox and White on the Democratic side, Williams cruised to the GOP nomination against several high–profile rivals. He told voters he was running because his son had had a drug problem, and he promised drug offenders that he would "introduce 'em to the joys of bustin' rocks."

Texas voters were extraordinarily tolerant of Williams, though. At one point, for example, he likened bad weather to rape, saying, "If it's inevitable, just relax and enjoy it."

When I think of that general election campaign, I think of my mother, a Democrat throughout her adult life who always intended to vote for Richards, never considered voting for Williams yet she seethed, usually quietly and privately, whenever he opened his mouth.

Always an optimist, I think Mom would have been disheartened if Williams had won — and I think she, like most people in Texas, expected it. I believe she, and many others, thought Williams' election was inevitable — but they couldn't see how they could possibly relax and enjoy it for the next four years.

Yep, Texas voters were very tolerant of Williams — until, shortly before the election, when he and Richards bumped into each other on the campaign trail and Williams refused to shake her hand.

It was a defining moment, and it was memorably captured on film and replayed on newscasts across the state.

You see, even in 1990 — indeed, still, into the 21st century — Texas lived by an old–fashioned code of conduct. In Texas, a gentleman simply does not refuse to shake a lady's hand, no matter what he may think of her. It is rude, uncouth, socially unacceptable.

Richards, who always seemed to have some sure–footed political instincts, even if she didn't always follow them, "responded with just the right mixture of regret and toughness," wrote Barone and Ujifusa.

And it was the last straw for the sensitivities of many centrist Republicans in Texas. On Nov. 6, 1990, some crossed party lines to vote for Richards. Some simply couldn't do that and chose instead to stay home or not vote in the governor's race.

Whatever they did, they did not vote for Williams.

They had been nudged in that direction for weeks. Richards ran some effective commercials that cast doubt on the ethics of Williams' business practices. And Williams didn't help his own cause when he admitted he didn't know what the only constitutional amendment on the ballot was about or when he confessed that he paid no income taxes four years earlier or when he spoke of his sexual experiences as a youth when he was south of the border.

Until that Kodak moment, when Richards offered her hand to Williams and he refused to shake it, Williams was a tolerable mixed bag for many voters. He was regarded, even by his Republican supporters, as unrefined, boorish, rough as a cob; when the chips were down, though, he was considered acceptable, not exactly the picture of a gentleman ... but close enough.

But refusing to shake Richards' hand was ungentlemanly. And that was unacceptable.

I really believe that, if Williams had shaken Richards' hand, he would have won that election, warts and all.

And, as a result, George W. Bush might never have been elected governor of Texas, giving him a springboard for his presidential ambitions. Because I'm sure that Bush wouldn't have challenged a sitting Republican governor in 1994.

But I suppose that is neither here nor there at this point. Williams lost and has never, to my knowledge, run for office in Texas since. Bush, of course, went on to defeat Richards when she sought a second term in 1994. After being re–elected in 1998, Bush was elected president (in the Electoral College) in 2000 and re–elected in 2004.

Richards, of course, was elected governor in 1990. No Democrat has been elected governor of Texas since that time.

It was not completely clear that a shift was occurring within the electorate in the final weeks of the 1990 campaign. But such a shift was, indeed, taking place. That silent snub was more devastating to Williams than all of his ill–advised comments rolled into one.

When the votes were counted, Williams (who had led Richards in polls by up to 20 points) lost by nearly 100,000 votes.

It may have been the most astounding reversal in Texas' political history.

The Dallas Morning News ran a rather blase headline the next day, something along the lines of "Richards Defeats Williams." I never felt that the headline in the Morning News adequately summed up the enormity of what had happened.

But its competitor, the Dallas Times Herald (which ceased publication about a year later), ran a more appropriate headline — "She Whups Him." I always thought it captured the spirit of the race.

To some, Richards always was an enigma, a contradiction. In many ways, I have to admit that Barone and Ujifusa were correct when they wrote of Richards, "Texas has a governor who is nationally familiar but whose position on issues is not widely known in Texas, a candidate who conducted for months a dismal and sometimes scurrilous campaign and once in office has shown a sure instinct for setting the right tone."

Four years later, Richards lost her bid for re–election to Bush — not because voters were displeased with her job performance (in fact, polls at the time indicated she had the approval of a majority of Texans) but because she had the misfortune of running against the son of a former Republican president in a Republican state in a decidedly Republican year nationally.

I wasn't living in Texas at the time, but I knew many people who were, and they told me the general attitude of the voters toward Richards was "She's done a good job, but let's give him a chance. He's the Republican."

In hindsight, it is hard to imagine any Democrat doing any better in Texas than Richards did in 1994. She got 46% of the vote; no Democrat who has been on a statewide general election ballot has performed better in the last 16 years, and most have fared much worse.

She never ran for office again. She campaigned for many Democrats after leaving office in 1995 and died of cancer in 2006.

Not the Best of Times in Dallas

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One gets the impression lately that our tax dollars are not being used as efficiently as they could be here in Dallas, Texas.

• I guess the most egregious example has been making national headlines.
  
  NFL running back Ryan Moats was pulled over for a routine traffic offense last week. Moats and the occupants of his vehicle had a good reason for their haste — they were trying to get to a hospital to say goodbye to Moats' mother–in–law, who was dying of breast cancer.
  
  Moats tried to explain the situation to the officer, but he was delayed so long that his mother–in–law died before he could get to her bedside.
  
  The officer has been placed on paid administrative leave until an internal investigation is completed — after which he may be fired.
  
  He may still have a chance to keep his job. It's a good thing for him that the Dallas Morning News' Jacquielynn Floyd is not responsible for making that decision.
  
  And he's fortunate that the Dallas Morning News' editorial staff won't decide his fate, either.
  
  If either of them were charged with that task, the officer might already be on the unemployment line.
  
  But their input may influence the actions of those who will decide whether the officer stays on the force.


• Over at City Hall, they make glossy calendars every year that list all scheduled City Council proceedings, as well as all holidays.
  
  Well, most holidays.
  
  These calendars, which are distributed free to city residents, have a lot of valuable information. But they ain't perfect. Christians won't be able to rely on the calendars to know when Good Friday or Easter are coming up next month. They'll have to turn to their pastors or priests for that information because those observances were omitted.
  
  Well, thank goodness they got International Migratory Bird Day correct.
  
  I pointed this out to an old family friend. She said the omission was probably an "oversight" and told me that the person responsible for the entries in the calendar is "probably a 'good egg' at heart."
  
  I can only hope that person's supervisor is as forgiving as my friend is.

Obama and a Free Press

When I was a journalism student, my professors talked about how important it was to have a free press.

The only way that freedom of the press can flourish, they said, is if it has access to power — even if the person who holds the power wasn't endorsed by the newspaper.

In my experience, the politicians and the newspapers have been mutually respectful, even if they didn't always agree on issues.

Of course, there's always been a certain amount of tension between politicians and members of the media. It was best summed up, I think, in something Thomas Mitchell said to James Stewart in the Frank Capra classic, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

In the film, Stewart plays a naïve political novice, appointed to fill the unexpired term of a recently deceased senator. He feels his arrival in Washington was misrepresented by the newspapers, and he goes on a mission to hunt down the reporters and punch each one in the nose.

When he discovers a group of reporters assembled in a local watering hole, he quickly finds himself cornered by them and confronted with their cynical views of government. Mitchell tells him that reporters are the only ones who can afford to tell the truth. "We don't have to be re-elected!"

Relationships between the media and the politicians aren't always ideal. Richard Nixon, for example, used his position to compile a list of his political opponents, mostly members of the press. Legal counsel John Dean left little doubt what the purpose of the list was.

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"This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly — how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies."

John Dean

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I have no evidence that either Nixon or any of his associates began compiling the enemies list before Nixon became president. (The original list included the managing editor of the Los Angeles Times, Daniel Schorr of CBS and columnist Mary McGrory. The list was constantly revised, but it later included journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post.)

Nixon's successor, Gerald Ford, made an apt observation when the existence of the enemies list was made public. (I don't know the statement word for word, so I'm probably paraphrasing here.) Ford said that any man who has to keep a list of his enemies has too many enemies.

I hope we're not getting indications that such a list is being compiled by the Obama campaign.

Earlier this week, reporters from the New York Post, the Washington Times and the Dallas Morning News were ejected from the Obama campaign bus.

The Washington Times reports today that Obama's campaign insists it ran out of space, for various reasons — and that it wasn't punishing the three newspapers for endorsing John McCain.

You can read what each newspaper said in its endorsement of McCain here:

• Dallas Morning News


• New York Post


• Washington Times

Kirsten Powers, a columnist for the New York Post, calls the action by the Obama camp a "Nixonesque" move.

"This is bipartisanship?" she asks.

I hope that what the Obama campaign says is the truth.

Banning any member of the media from having access to power will bring change, all right.

But if the goal is to punish those who support someone else, it won't be the kind of positive change Obama and his acolytes have been preaching about.