Political Observer.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 15, 2026

The reader need only look to this Esquire magazine issue of 1967 to find the precurosor of the the near adoration of the Kennedy family. Gore Vidal’s ‘The Holy Family’ was, and is, revelatory of the near adoration of the Kennedy Family and the concomitant toxic Mythology!

Editor: Now in vacious Age of Trump, what is left of that once vibrant Kennedy Mythology, in the political present! That de-evolution is expressed in this newspaper headline The Lost Horizon of John and Carolyn, as chronicled by Maureen Dowd in the New York Times. What can the reader make of the demise of once thriving Gossip Columnist, of another time! Maureen Dowd in this instance, now fills that empty space?

Once, in the mid-1990s, John F. Kennedy Jr. called me. He had a great voice, with a seductive thread of mischief running through it. Even on the phone, I could feel the magnetism of the reigning dreamboat.

He wanted to do a Q&A with me for his new magazine, George, which blended politics with pop culture.

“After all,” he said, “you’re the godmother of this form of journalism.”

I really wanted to meet J.F.K. Jr. But I write better than I talk, and I told him I was afraid that I’d be hopelessly inarticulate.

“That’s what editors are for!” he said puckishly, adding, “You’re the only person who has turned me down for this — except the pope.”

I was skeptical about George. Politics and entertainment were merging, and I was worried that the balance would tilt toward the superficial. George was a fanzine for “the giant puppet show” of politics, as J.F.K. Jr. called it — a strange blend of Vanity Fair and C-SPAN. Was it too frivolous, with a glossy debut cover of Cindy Crawford cosplaying George Washington? Was it weird to have a cover with Drew Barrymore vamping as Marilyn Monroe, the paramour of J.F.K. Jr.’s father and uncle?

J.F.K. Jr. was the nation’s magic child: little John-John saluting his father’s casket in a gesture that broke the nation’s heart, now all grown up. He had become a stylish, adventurous man surfing New York City on bikes and Rollerblades, searching for his purpose in life.

Miraculously, despite all his travails, he was a caring soul who tried to make people feel special. I thought he should use that magic for more than persuading Salma Hayek to pose with an elephant. He was considering a bid for New York governor when he died.

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Editor: The Reader can almost hear the voices of Hedda Hopper, Louella Parsons, Rona Barrett, Joyce Haber and Liz Smith? But in the above paragraph, just quoted, she demonstrates a verifiable sympathy, or its distant cousin?

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Editor: A selection from her commentay:

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The cool aesthetics were a means to an end, an ensorcelling engine that put you in a position to change the world.

The Camelot myth has tattered, particularly with the rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a destructive, unhealthy force in Trump world.

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The pair went from an unlimited horizon to a “false horizon,” when pilots get dangerously disoriented. All that promise literally vanished into thin air.

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A legion of new acolytes is emulating Bessette’s chic ’90s minimalism, neutral palette and quiet luxury, while men in Gotham are comically imitating John’s carefree style, biking in suit and backpack, with a Kangol hat or a backward baseball cap.

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Editor: Dowd resorts to Romantic Kitch aimed at the disatisfaction of ‘Women, increasingly dejected by unsatisfying online interactions with men,’

Women, increasingly dejected by unsatisfying online interactions with men, were verklempt about the episode depicting John sending flowers to Carolyn’s office every day until she agreed to go out with him; they can’t get over the way that John, played by the hunky, if not savvy enough, Paul Anthony Kelly, gazes adoringly at Carolyn, played by the lovely, if not lusty enough, Sarah Pidgeon. They want to take cues from Carolyn’s “Rules”-like way of staying elusive.

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Editor: Reader only 355 more words to wade through! Yet ‘unsatisfying online interactions with men,’ might that be corrected by person to person contact, between men and women? Or is that too simplistic an answer?

Political Observer.