Though I have an obsession with the obvious conspiracies surrounding the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy back in the 1960s, I’ve never been what you would call a fan of anyone with last name. Well, other than current Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, that is - but he’s from a different strain of Kennedys, the Bayou branch of the family, as it were.
The Kennedys were the Clintons before the Clintons came along, a family of privilege and wealth that had been built on rum running during Prohibition and other illicit, mob-affiliated endeavors of the family patriarch, Joseph Kennedy Sr., who was a Hitler appeasement sympathizer while serving as U.S. ambassador to England during the 1930s. It was a family of political opportunists, a family that had used its political influence to cover up a million affairs - including JFK’s fling with a girlfriend of mobster Sam Giancana while president - Ted Kennedy’s killing of Mary Jo Kopechne, and too many other wrongdoings to chronicle.