Perceptions
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

Perceptions have the power to camouflage truth and obscure common sense. In the political arena, it comes down to who has the power and means to silence and shape the news narrative. That is why politicians invest a lot in media management, and the courtship and appeasement of media influentials.
The patriarch of the Kennedy clan, Joseph Kennedy, understood that. His Hollywood connections purportedly enabled him to influence a movie, “PT-109,” glorifying the wartime service of his son John F Kennedy. Speechwriter Ted Sorensen admitted he ghostwrote JFK’s book, “Profiles in Courage.” Joseph Kennedy reportedly then leveraged prize committee connections to engineer a Pulitzer Prize for the book in 1957, even though it wasn’t originally short-listed among the finalists.
The Washington Post, which mercilessly hounded Nixon out of office, was quiet on the escapades of JFK in the White House. There was personal friendship between later-to-be Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradleeand JFK. Bradlee even wrote a book in 1975 called “Conversations with Kennedy.”
The Kennedy-Marilyn Monroe nexus was once the subject of a “20/20” TV investigative news report that was quashed by ABC News president Roone Arledge shortly before it was to be aired on September 26, 1985.
Now comes the April 6 released movie, “Chappaquiddick,” which explores the role of Senator Edward Kennedy in the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne nearly 50 years ago that, luckily for Kennedy, coincided with the moon landing. Laid bare is his calculating inaction in not reporting the accident for 10 hours, while the girl lay submerged in the car likely fighting for her breath for hours. Instead of saving the life of the young woman, who was riding with him when he drove his car off a bridge into a pond, he is shown solely thinking of himself and of salvaging his Presidential ambitions. More importantly, the movie reveals the reach of the Kennedy network in concealing inconvenient facts and then releasing, to cite the movie, “our version of the truth.”
President Lyndon Johnson, for all his Vietnam failures, was an effective domestic legislator with a formidable pro-poor record, including but not limited to landmark laws on Medicare, Medicare, Economic Opportunity, Head Start, and food stamps. With the help of Pakistan, President Richard Nixon crafted his China breakthrough and laid the groundwork for easing America’s exit from its Vietnam misadventure. President Jimmy Carter was a humanitarian and his open empathy for a Palestinian homeland incurred animosity from influential quarters. All three were dogged by negative perceptions. But not the Kennedy clan.
Those who remain enamored by the Kennedy glamor would do well to see “Chappaquiddick,” which may serve as a useful corrective. This earlier has been amply explored in an investigative report by Joe McGinniss in Vanity Fair magazine (September 1993), excerpted from his book, “The Last Brother,” widely panned at the time.
The Kennedy clan suffered terrible tragedies. But it also benefitted handsomely from myth-making. It goes to show the malleability and vulnerability of the masses, who tend to swallow what is fed to them and then join the chorus of uncritical acclaim without independent verification of facts.