The ultimate paradox in media and public life is that when we most ardently seek information, we get the most bullshit.  This anomaly is unavoidable: competitive non-stop media outlets MUST respond to our anxiety-fueled need to explain what often times can’t be explained ultimately, and certainly not in the near run.  For as soon as real information becomes available, all outlets immediately seize and broadcast it.  Until then, all we get is skuttlebutt or what those who actually are in the know choose to reveal. (Think about how the real story of the assassination of Osama bin Laden took years to leak out.)

In place of real information, we get law enforcement, homeland security, and political figures in front of microphones and on podiums doing their thing — that is, aggrandizing themselves.

This phenomenon was evident in every press conference and interview following the Boston Marathon bombing, taking as its epitome the press conference led by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick the day after the tragedy.

Misinformation.  In the mayhem following a tragedy, all sorts of information is broadcast on no other basis than that each media outlet, struggling to outdo the others, wholesales any rumors it gets wind of. Much of this information — if not the whole narrative – is bound to be false. Thus, we heard there were additional explosives that law enforcement detonated in addition to the two that maimed and killed bystanders to the race.  This turns out to have been untrue.  So several speakers at the next-day, “definitive” news conference were able to take up good time dispelling this misinformation.  With what relief they were able to say this information was false!  Of course, this simply left us where we were after the first news broke — two bombs were exploded at the race.

Vamping.  “Vamping” is the term for the circumlocutions speakers use when they have nothing to say.* You can always tell when media people are doggie paddling — they say the same things over and over again, report there is no new information but that when any appears they will surely let us know (thanks!), and use as many words to say nothing as possible.  Thus, the single phrase that best indicates you are participating in a kabuki theater media exercise is “at this point in time,” as in, “We don’t know that at this point in time,” when “We don’t know that at this point,” “We don’t know that yet,” or — most succinctly — “We don’t know” would all suffice.

Back-patting — law enforcement.  Tragedies are great times for public officials to pat themselves — and those whose asses they want to kiss — on the back.  Which is funny, when you think of it, since the attack that just ocurred in some sense bespeaks a failure of the law enforcement, homeland security, and politicians who stake their reputations on preventing these events.  Thus, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino lauded all levels of law enforcement for their coordination following the attack at the marathon.  Is this true — who the hell knows?  But we may suspect that the typical interagency competition and backstabbing that go on remain in full force.  And, anyhow, we’re glad they’re cooperating now — but isn’t it a little bit late?

Ass-kissing — political.  Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren — who has as much guts as anyone in American government – began her press conference appearance by lauding President Obama (of whom she has been critical around his proposed cuts in Social Security and with whom she needs to mend fences) for reaching out to EVERYBODY in the city and state — the mayor, governor, members of the legislative delegation — following the bombing.  Am I the only one who thinks — “So what?”  (The “so what,” of course, is to let people know that the President is a deeply involved and concerned political and human figure — which will presumably get more Democratic votes somewhere down the line.)

Political point scoring.  The most reprehensible activity conducted during these media events is scoring points for political positions that people might otherwise challenge — but who can do so in the midst of a tragedy?  Thus, New York Republican Congressman Peter King was interviewed about preventing the recurrence of such tragedies.  King is one of the most visible members of Congress on these occasions, since he is a member of both the Committees for Homeland Security and for Intelligence.  As the chair of Homeland Security, King famously held hearings on the radicalization of American Muslims, to the dismay of average Muslim-Americans.  In the current case, King asserted the rightness of filming every moment of Americans’ lives in public places: “Just ask the parents of the eight-year-old who was killed whether they mind being videoed!”  (Although the child was horribly murdered WITH all the cameras in place in downtown Boston near the finish of the world-famous Boston race.)  And, while we’re at it, let’s just set up cameras in everyone’s house too, so that we can see when people may be creating bombs at home.

And, at the end, if everything claimed by political and law enforcement and homeland security figures is realized, and the murderer or murderers are apprehended, will we really have any better explanation for why three people senselessly died and scores were injured and maimed?  Or, at least, any that we are willing to hear.

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Alcoholics Anonymous is a decentralized collection of support groups for alcoholics attempting to quit drinking. The groups are not professionally run or administered. Indeed, this is one of AA’s claims to fame, and its appeal — people in need helping people.

But, in any group of needy people, things can go wrong. Without supervision, anyone can attend, and perhaps pursue harmful agendas. One of these agendas is the predatory pursuit of members — often by older or criminal men of younger, vulnerable women. This template is more common than our society’s love affair with AA allows us to recognize.

Blogger Laura Tompkins has written about the tragedy of Karla Brada, who was murdered in August 2011. At the age of 30, Karla had a DUI — she had a relatively low-level BAL (.08) but had had an accident. This perhaps indicates that she was an inexperienced drinker.

Although a sub .10 BAL doesn’t scream “alcoholic,” Karla was referred to an inpatient alcoholism rehab clinic, where she was bussed to AA meetings. At one of these she met — and moved in with — Eric Allen Earle. Earle was one of many people mandated to attend AA as a condition of his parole. According to Tompkins, Earle’s rap sheet “includes multiple charges of battery, assault with a deadly weapon, domestic violence, disturbing the peace, evading arrest, reckless driving, elder abuse, multiple DUI’s, and now, felony murder. Earle allegedly murdered Karla by strangulation after she had asked him to move out of her condo.”

Whatever the criminal resolution of this case — and any civil charges that may follow — we can ask about the nature of AA and how this might happen. Does putting people in a situation where they are taught not to trust their own thinking — which, they are told time and again, is what got them into the fix they are in — make young women like Karla vulnerable to predators? We can reflect back on the whole idea of how it is therapeutic to belong to groups with such self-denigrating memes as these (as outlined in The Orange Papers):

• “Stop your stinkin’ thinking’.”
• “Your best thinking got you here.”
• “Don’t go into your mind alone; it’s not a safe neighborhood.”
• “Your thinking is alcoholic.”
• “You have a thinking problem, not a drinking problem.”
• “Utilize, don’t analyze.”
• “You need a checkup from the neck up.”
• “We’re All Here Because We’re Not All There.”
• “… no alcoholic … can claim ‘soundness of mind’ for himself.” — William G. Wilson, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 33.
• “I am powerless over people, places, and things.”
• “You have alcoholic thinking.”

Could these contribute to a young woman’s loss of self-esteem and feelings for herself that might cause her to consort with a predator, and then to — too late — regret it?

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Mindy McCready, a “successful” graduate of Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, killed herself at age 37 after the father of her child committed suicide and she lost custody of her kids.  Dr. Drew blames her behavior on the “stigmatization” she feared if she sought more help.  What kind of “stigmatization,” Dr. Drew?  That she failed at treatment after you said she was okay and she publicly bragged about how great your treatment was?

McCready was the fifth person Dr. Drew has treated on television who has died, leading to quite a bit of criticism of Dr. Drew’s therapeutic efficacy.  Maia Szalavitz made the case against the good doctor in a piece entitled, “Is Dr. Drew Too Risky for Prime Time?”  Szalavitz (the best informed and most informative journalist writing about addiction – along with Reason‘s Jacob Sullum) identified Dr. Drew’s deficiencies in utilizing evidence-based treatment techniques.

McCready’s suicide crystallized questions many had about Dr. Drew’s patient care.  But I have been attacking his methods from the get-go.  For instance, in April 2011 I criticized his reliance on magical 12-step and moralistic temperance thinking while claiming he is practicing modern neuroscience, as well as his irresponsible public pronouncements on Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan.  In January of 2012, I (writing with Alan Cudmore) pointed out the dangers of television intervention programs at large. If people had taken taken such objections seriously earier, then perhaps. . . .

Szalavitz focused on the detoxification conducted by Dr. Drew, although McCready killed herself years after appearing on the show.  I believe the major problem with Dr. Drew is one he shares with the entire medical-cum-12-step industry — the failure to teach coping skills in favor of pointing at patients’ heads and claiming addiction is a brain disease (see Anne Fletcher’s excellent book, Inside Rehab).  McCready needed to learn in treatment better relationship and parenting skills, how to cope with emotional distress, and that to use or drink again or to experience distress following treatment did not prove that she had failed.  In the 12 steps, once the person uses again they are taught that they can exercise no restraint or self-protection.  The last idea is a false concept with disastrous consequences — see Amy Winehouse’s death following rehab.  The opposite approach of teaching people to build safeguards into their lives is called harm reduction – an idea Dr. Drew has apparently never heard of.

That McCready (and Winehouse) didn’t learn such things is a horrible missed opportunity and, of course, a human tragedy.  That Dr. Drew is still out flacking exactly the same garbled mess of a treatment philosophy on our major media is a horror show, and a national tragedy.

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Disclosure: A producer for Dr. Drew’s CNN show called to invite me to discuss adolescent drinking, to which I agreed.  After apparently doing a better Google search of my views on Dr. Drew, he called back to say, “Dr. Peele — are you kidding me — we would never have you on.”

Writing as a student during the Vietnam War in his surprise bestseller, The Strawberry Statement, James Kunen noted that, while people have been sent to prison for opposing wars, no one is ever penalized for backing unnecessary wars, or for resisting abandoning a failed campaign.

This is a good week to think about Kunen’s truism. On the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, Arianna Huffington summarized the state of the war. Its major impacts — in addition to sustaining horrible (and continuing) human and financial tolls — has been to thrust Iraq into the Iranian camp. And yet, as Arianna notes, it is the proponents of the war who chastise its opponents — for example, Senator John McCain attacked the Secretary of Defense nominee for opposing the Iraq surge — with no fear of contradiction, let alone suffering any penalties.

At exactly the same time, after 12 years in Afghanistan, we are reaping our just deserts in that country. Despite trillions spent — and counting — and thousands of American deaths and many more casualties, now-Secretary of Defense Hagel can’t manage to hold a press conference with our puppet ruler there, Hamid Karzai, amid accusations by the Afghan president that we are negotiating with – even encouraging — the Taliban, his demands that we accelerate our withdrawal of special forces and other troops, and suicide bombings conducted by men wearing Afghan uniforms leading to American deaths.

Karzai has gone as far as accusing American soldiers of murder. Typically, commentators ridicule the man as an ingrate after we have kept him in office. But whose problem is that? Right — ours.

When we reflect on the administrations and policies that led to these decade-and-longer wars with such ambiguous (at best) results, we note that, of course, George W. Bush forced the Iraq War down our throats, while current President Barack Obama objected. Obama, himself, however, doubled down our forces in Afghanistan. How is it that, no matter who’s in power, we become enmeshed in never-ending struggles in foreign countries? And once in such wars, we resist terminating them — as occurred in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus Hagel is in a position of now defending an Afghan War that his prior positions might seem to make him critical of.

Actually, we can see the process unfolding before our eyes, as Vice President Joe Biden forcefully announced to AIPAC, the pro-Israel American lobbying group, that President Obama “does not bluff” when it comes to going to war with Iran. Hagel, meanwhile, who some felt was not sufficiently strong in his support for Israel, has likewise indicated that he is on board with American-Israeli policy towards Iran. In other words, there are powerful forces pressing for a more bellicose policy — up to and including war — with yet another Islamic country, while there is no equally insistent force for peace.

And, so, it is quite easy to imagine that however long, painful, expensive, and futile our last two wars have been, we could easily enter another one. In this regard, it is worthwhile recalling two presidents who kept us out of wars, one of them repeatedly. The first, of course, is Dwight Eisenhower, who withdrew us from and kept us out of wars in Asia, the Middle East (both Lebanon, during the 1958 Middle East crisis, and Egypt during the Suez Crisis, 1956), while refusing to get involved in Eastern European revolts against the Soviets in Hungary and Poland in 1956.

That Eisenhower really hated wars! Of course, this is credited to his having been involved close-up with the carnage of World War II. Likewise, the other example of a president who resisted the powerful forces he faced towards war with Russia during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, had fought in that war — suffering lifelong injuries due to the demolition of his PT boat. Chuck Hagel, too, has seen war close up and suffered from it.

Hagel’s nemesis during his confirmation hearings, John McCain, obviously suffered directly from fighting in an American war as well. Nonetheless, on balance, it might seem that bringing back the draft would make America more cautious about proceeding into battle.

Some readers didn’t think much of Joseph P. Kennedy as a family man following my description of his excellent affair with Clare Boothe Luce, despite his generally happy and good marriage to Rose.  He and his wife never quarreled, were supportive of one another, and seemed to enjoy their time together — including overseas trips.  They just didn’t spend much of their time together.  Here is one reaction from an ardent (if anonymous) Catholic:

How can you use the term “family man” in the context of being absent and choosing to spend time in Palm Beach with his cronies? How can he have ‘paid detailed attention to the needs of his children’, when he wasn’t present? No he was NOT an ardent Catholic — if he had been, he would have understood infidelity. One can be a Catholic in name only, but not in practice. The Kennedy family has done more to disgrace Catholics in America and dilute the teachings of the Church than any other public figure in history.

Joe didn’t generally choose to live with his family.  He first spent a lot of time in Hollywood with his film business, then in New York with his financial business, then just gadding about with the boys (and girls — who were there for entertainment purposes).  Yes, after his active business career, Joe spent most of his time in Palm Beach with his golfing buddies.  He did often join the family in Hyannis Port over the summer — but, after the grandkids started coming, THAT was too much for Kennedy, and he spent most of the holidays and the summer in a villa in the south of France.

Here’s just a hint of Joe’s idea of intimate family life.  After moving the family from Brookline, MA to New York, since he worked there, “Kennedy’s daily life was not appreciably impacted by his family’s move to Riverdale.  He saw little of them that fall, worked late hours, and spent many nights at the Harvard Cub or a hotel.”

And, so, Anonymous finds Joe grossly deficient as a parent as well as a husband.

But Joe Kennedy might have been the greatest father of all time.

Joe and Rose had nine children.  And Joe was close to all of them; all of them respected — revered — their father; all did everything they could to please him; yet all of them were individuals who had great independent accomplishments.

Joe and Rose’s oldest child, Joe. Jr. — for whom Joe held his highest hopes — died young during the war flying a suicide mission.  Oldest daughter Rosemary had developmental problems.  Joe was very close with Rosemary — he devoted perhaps the most time to her special needs of any of his children. However, in a very bad move, Kennedy — on medical advice — had Rosemary lobotomized, after which she became severely disabled and was warehoused by the family.  And then the second oldest daughter, Kick (Kathleen) also died in a plane crash.

Jack was the second child, and a problem child at that.  Jack was sick throughout his life — he had undiagnosed Addison’s Disease — and was frequently hospitalized.  Whenever he was, Joe rushed to Jack’s bedside, and he worried constantly about Jack’s health.  Jack may have been the most deficient Kennedy (aside from Rosemary) as a student, and was frequently in academic trouble.  Finally, there were Jack’s alley cat ways.  But a more serious problem Kennedy had to deal with was not his son’s promiscuous dating, but rather Inga Arvad, a Danish national, four years older than Jack, who had graduated Columbia Journalism School.  Jack was serious about her.  But Kennedy couldn’t permit this relationship — for any number of reasons — and he had to end it.

Of the six of his children who survived and functioned into maturity, all three boys became United States Senators: Jack, Robert (Bobby), and Edward (Ted).  Jack, obviously, also became President — the first Catholic to hold this office, at a time when Catholicism invited prejudice like that faced by Barack Obama.  Robert — who was assassinated while seeking the 1968 Democratic nomination — might easily have become President as well.  No man has ever sired two American presidents (although Jeb Bush — George W.’s brother — may seek the Republican nomination in 2016).

Of Joe’s three remaining daughters, Eunice Kennedy married Sargent Shriver.  Eunice became an advocate for children with retardation, starting and funding a number of institutions that serviced this group, including most notably the Special Olympics.  Husband Sargent was the founding director of the Peace Corps under Jack, ran for Vice President himself, and became ambassador to France.  Patricia and Jean were likewise prominent for their public service, married prominent men, and remained devoted to their father — as did Eunice.

Kennedy, obviously, emphasized public service for his children — since he often said he had made enough money for all of them.  He helped them to shape their careers — usually by following the interests they found on their own.  Perhaps the two greatest exceptions to this were Joe insisting that Jack appoint Bobby as his attorney general — even after Bobby initially refused the job.  Likewise, before Ted was 30 and eligible to be a United States Senator, Joe decided on that role for his youngest son and helped position him to take that office.  Ted Kennedy went on to become arguably the most influental senator in American history.

But Joe also let all of his children have their own heads. While encouraging them, he gave them tremendous freedom, and always supported their endeavors.  This continued as the children became adults.  When a still quite young Bobby decided to go after Teamster Union president Dave Beck under the Kefauver Senate Subcommittee, Joe objected forcefully — since it would alienate the labor vote — and had Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas try to argue Bobby out of it.  Bobby went ahead anyhow.

Joe frequently took active positions towards his sons’ political moves.  but Joe and his sons never became alienated — they hardly ever seemed to be angry at one another.  After Joe made his position known — well known — even if his children disregarded him, he backed them one hundred percent.  For instance, Joe argued strenuously against Jack entering the West Virginia primary, since he expected his Catholicism to go down poorly in that largely Protestant state.  Jack listened carefully, then responded: “Well, we’ve heard from the ambassador (Joe had been Ambassador to Great Britain), and we’re all very grateful, Dad, but I’ve got to run in West Virginia.”  He won the state’s primary big.

During the period when Jack sought the Democratic nomination, Joe kept in the background, speaking only to an occasional reporter.  Meanwhile, Lyndon Johnson entered the battle for the nomination late, then challenged Jack to a debate.

“This is Jack’s fight, and this is his effort. He doesn’t need me making wise cracks. . . .I don’t want my enemies (of whom Joe had many) to be my son’s enemies or my wars to be my son’s wars.  I lived my life, fought my fights, and I’m not apologizing for them. . . .It’s now time for a younger generation. . . .I don’t want to hang on. . . .They’ll make it on their own.”  While they (Joe and a reporter) talked, the radio was playing in the background.  When it was announced that Johnson had invited Jack to debate before the Texas delegation (Johnson’s home turf), Kennedy insisted that if he “were Jack, I wouldn’t get within a hundred yards of him.  We’ve got this won. . .and he’s desperate. . . .Hell, I wouldn’t touch him.”  Then, a bit later, came the report that Jack had accepted Johnson’s challenge, and without a moment’s hesitation Kennedy declared that Jack would easily win the debate. (He did)

After Jack became president, “Kennedy took a commercial flight to Washington and. . ..made it clear to his friends in the press and to Jack’s staff that ‘he didn’t want any calls from anybody.’ Instead, he spent the next ‘three days in the Senator’s (Jack’s) office. . .doing the same kind of work I did when I was fifteen years old — sorting out letters and answering telephones.’”  Joe in fact organized the pre-inauguration gala for his son, with his business, film, political and media friends and connections.  Jack took an aide aside and told him, “Have you ever seen so many attractive people in one room?  I’ll tell you, Dad knows how to give a party.”

At the inauguration itself,

As the lead-off car with the President approached the reviewing stand, Joseph P. Kennedy stood up and took off his hat in a gesture of deference to his son. “It was an extraordinary moment,” Eunice would later remark.  “Father had never stood up for any of us before.  He was always proud of us, but he was always the authority we stood up for.  Then, as Jack passed by and saw Dad on his feet, Jack too stood up and tipped his hat to Dad, the only person he honored that day.”

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Quoted sections from David Nasaw’s “The Patriarch”

News item on New York magazine’s website: “The United Nations has a drinking problem, thinks Joseph Torsella, the U.S. ambassador for management and reform at the U.N., who on Monday got a promotion from Captain Buzzkill to admiral by publicly scolding his colleagues for boozing during budget sessions.”

We all know that if you drink a lot you become an alcoholic and can’t function. This is — if not God’s will and written in the stars, the next best thing — biologically and genetically determined, irrefutable, and irreversible.

Oh, sometimes tales come down to us from history that seem to defy this indubitable truth. But we can explain them away — if we try. There was Alexander the Great — a massive binge drinker – who conquered the known world. (Cultural note: Alexander was a Macedonian, a culture known for intemperate drinking, unlike the neighboring Greeks, known since antiquity for moderate imbibing.)

Then there was that habitual tippler, Winston Churchill, now regarded by some to have been an alcoholic by contemporary clinical standards, who saved the known world from another would-be conqueror (who was, by the way, a teetotaler). But, well, he was Churchill.

Not so fortunate was Texas Senator John Tower, whose name arose again around the contentious confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense. Tower was rejected as George (the first) Bush’s Secretary of Defense, not because of any positions he took on issues, but because he drank so damn much! True, he had many fellow carousers in the Senate over his career (Tower entered that august body in 1961), but that was then, and now is now. Tower’s humiliating temperance pledge to abstain from drinking and to resign if he broke his promise was not enough to save his nomination.

Which brings us back to the Constitutional Convention and drinking in Colonial America, where average per capita consumption was 3-4 times its current level.[1] Alcohol was served and drunk in many state legislatures (like Virginia’s — George Washington was a typical heavy drinker).[2] At the Convention itself, many (most?) participants began the day with a grog (a rum and water or “weak” beer with spices). And, truth be told, they drank throughout the proceedings.

This type of drinking is noted in the musical 1787: We the People, although it is attributed there to a single miscreant. To acknowledge that such behavior was typical is, simply, not possible, and references to the founders’ drinking have been literally whitewashed from history. For example, Alonzo Chappel’s famous painting of Washington taking farewell from his officers, which took place at a tavern, showed a bottle of alcohol clearly visible on a table. The bottle was painted out of the picture during Temperance and has been “disappeared” ever since.

Oh, here is a list of the booze consumed when 55 delegates to the Convention partied at a tavern two days before they signed off on the Constitution. According to the bill preserved from the evening, they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer and seven bowls of alcoholic punch.

That’s more than two bottles of fruit of the vine, plus a few shots and a lot of punch and beer, consumed by every delegate. Clearly, that’s humanly impossible. All of these men would have been incapable of functioning at their historic Constitutional duties. (Perhaps it is due to this it-can’t-be-true-even-if-it-was attitude that such Constitution lovers as Glenn Beck don’t drink.)

And, of course, as written in the stars, in God’s judgment book, and in our neurosystems, all of these distinguished patriots would have been addicted alcoholics if they drank anything like that.

References:

[1] W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.

[2] Lender, Mark. Drinking in America: A History. New York: Free Press, 1982.

For more by Stanton Peele, click here.

For more on addiction and recovery, click here.

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Joseph Patrick Kennedy was a complex man, as David Nasaw’s bio, The Patriarch, makes clear.  Joe was the father of JFK, and — both psychologically and practically — he enabled his son to become perhaps the most personally beloved president of the Post-War period, or of the twentieth century for that matter.  Jack loved and was devoted to his father.  In fact, JFK and Kennedy’s other eight children were perhaps more devoted to him — and he towards them — than they were to Rose, their mother (about which more later).

This is the more amazing since Kennedy was largely an absent husband and father.  Joe made his first fortune (followed by stocks and booze) in Hollywood films, where he repaired to screw starlets and secretaries — and silent screen star Gloria Swanson.  Kennedy’s affair with Swanson, in which they also worked together, ended badly.  But he was to have a much better, constructive, long-term affair with another famous woman (about which more later).

First, Nasaw’s book has to labor against Kennedy’s unpopular isolationist worldview, and particularly his insistence as ambassador to Great Britain at the outbreak of World War II that the US not engage against Hitler. You can see where that would leave a bad taste — on top of which, Kennedy’s battles with Jewish commentators and public figures in response to his isolationism comes awfully close to anti-Semitism.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten some big negatives out of the way, Kennedy’s isolationism continued in the anti-communism era, which has come to make him look like something of a seer.  From the earliest days of the Post-War period, Kennedy argued against engaging in the policy known as “containment” with the Soviet Union.  Kennedy foresaw that communism wasn’t a monolith, that Russia would fight with its satellites and with China, and China with its satellites (Kennedy opposed any American involvement in Vietnam), and that we would spill our country’s coffers out in the Cold War instead of investing in infrastructure and industry — which too has come to pass.

But this post is about Kennedy’s family and love life.  Although Kennedy paid detailed attention to each of his children — advising, admonishing, supporting each according to his or her needs — he was only occasionally in the same place as they were. Instead, he preferred to hang out in Palm Beach with his cronies and rich people, playing golf and doing whatever.  Oddly, one of the few times he lived for a period with his children was when he moved the whole family to London during his ambassadorship.  But that was short lived, since he had to return everyone but himself to the States with the outbreak of the war and the subsequent bombing of London.

But this post isn’t so much about Kennedy as parent, which is affecting and heat breaking: Kennedy was never the same after oldest son Joe Jr. was killed on a suicide mission early in the War; Kennedy was constantly attentive to Rosemary, his mentally challenged daughter, until he had her lobotomized on medical advice — after which he (and the rest of the family) wouldn’t see her.  Yes, Rose abandoned Rosemary too.  Rose did quite a bit of absentia parenting herself (without the screwing).  What’s more, Rose practically disowned daughter Kathleen (“Kick”) for marrying a Protestant (thank God he wasn’t a Jew!), while Kennedy made peace with his daughter’s “rebellion” (soon after which, tragically, Kick died with her husband in a plane crash).

Throughout these events and others, Kennedy maintained a positive — even a loving — relationship with Rose.  In his memoir, Ted Kennedy said he never saw his parents quarrel.  Joe often wrote Rose longing — even loving — letters, even as they rarely spent much time together.  Oh, Kennedy’s affairs.  Kennedy’s best-known mistress, Swanson, resented that Kennedy profited from their association while she fell into financial ruin, for which she never forgave him.  But Kennedy had a satisfying, productive, and mature long-term affair with another world figure.  This was Clare Boothe Luce, actress, playwright, congresswoman, ambassador to Italy, and wife of Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life(as well as Fortune) when these were America’s most influential popular periodicals.

Henry and Clare were sexually incompatible — or at least non-exclusive — and Kennedy became acquainted with Clare (and her husband) in London. The time when Kennedy met Luce, after a lifetime of triumphs (among many, Kennedy had been successful as the first director of the SEC and was one of Roosevelt’s most trusted advisors), was to be devastating to Kennedy’s reputation and life.  He first lost Franklin Roosevelt’s — then the nation’s — respect due to his isolationism, which was followed by the death of his son.

And Luce was there for him.  They met in various international destinations, sought advice from one another, and even traveled together with Rose!  I know — Rose was a saint.  But she seems to have been genuinely untroubled by the relationship.  Luce’s cable telling Kennedy she was returning to Europe for the opening of her hit play, The Women, expresses ardor, practical planning, and consideration for Rose: “You’re an angel.  Make life so exciting for me.  Sailing June first for Paris, then London until June thirtieth.  Will you be there? Cable. Yes, do.  Love to Rose.”

But that’s only the mind-bending beginning of that triangle.  When Kennedy returned to England from the States, he wrote Rose that by some strange coincidence, Luce was on the same ship!  As Kennedy wrote in his unpublished memoir, the journey was marred by “bad weather and poor food.  Happily, Clare Luce was on hand. . . . Her gay conversation was a contrast to the greyness of sea and sky.”

Kennedy then spent Easter of 1940 in England with Luce.  During this trying period Kennedy’s reputation crashed on both sides of the Atlantic.  Kennedy was sure the Germans would overrun Britain with little trouble and argued vociferously that the US should remain aloof from the debacle — not a popular position in London.  Both Rose and Luce worked to rescue his reputation — to which Luce brought to bear the resources ofTime.  What a winning way Kennedy must have had with women — if not with his countrymen and the British. Perhaps Kennedy’s piece de resistance was returning to the States on the same ship with both women, which Rose took without any sign of perturbance!

Throughout this period and later, Kennedy maintained a trusting relationship with Luce in which he often sought her advice and help.  Luce was particularly concerned about JFK (although she was herself a Republican).  In regards to Kennedy’s pessimism about the war, she advised Kennedy to go easy with Jack: “It alams . . . and dispirits him.”  When Jack went missing after his PT boat sank, Kennedy naturally turned to Luce for help in locating his son’s whereabouts and in arranging for his recuperation.  For his part, Kennedy — with his considerable political resources — undertook a survey of her district when Luce successfully ran for Congress.

How was an ardent Catholic and devoted family man able to broaden his conception of intimacy to allow Luce to enter his heart, yet to maintain a largely separate — but consistently supportive and helpful — liaison for years with a woman nearly as powerful and quite as intelligent as was Kennedy himself?  Unfortunately, Kennedy never discussed or provided any inward view of their affair, so we are left to imagine how he accomplished this psychologically, which might have been among his most noteworthy accomplishments.

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For several days, one of the most e-mailed articles in the New York Times has been Why Can Some Kids Handle Pressure While Others Fall Apart?  The article purports to explain why some children fold under the pressure of taking tests.  It begins with the case of Noah Muthler, a third grader in a gifted class, in anticipation of his first standardized exam.  According to his mother, “he was crying in my arms the night before the test, saying: ‘I’m not ready, Mom. They didn’t teach us everything that will be on the test.’”

Wow, a single gene can explain that!  This is the COMT gene: “This gene carries the assembly code for an enzyme that clears dopamine from the prefrontal cortex. That part of the brain is where we plan, make decisions, anticipate future consequences and resolve conflicts.”  The prefrontal cortexes of those with slow-acting enzymes are flooded with too much dopamine under stress.

What parent isn’t concerned with this research? In today’s highly competitive environment this finding could mean the difference between school success and school failure.  In a test carried out with Taiwanese students, those with slow-acting enzymes scored 8 percent lower than those with the fast-acting enzymes.  Hmmm, does an 8 percent performance deficiency jibe with the case of Noah, the article’s signature example (who is opting out of taking Pennsylvania’s state exams from now on)?

For one thing, Noah’s enzymes were not actually tested.  Moreover, Noah has an older brother in eighth grade, Jacob, who according to his mother “isn’t the least bit unnerved by the same tests.”  Isn’t it strange that, reflecting a single gene’s operation, two brothers react in opposite ways?

The article explains the inherited nature of the dopamine-clearing enzyme difference:

Because we all get one COMT gene from our father and one from our mother, about half of all people inherit one of each gene variation, so they have a mix of the enzymes and are somewhere in between the Warriors and the Worriers. About a quarter of people carry Warrior-only genes, and a quarter of people Worrier-only.

Could Jacob and Noah have inherited two opposite COMT genes from the same parents?

Researchers have been studying the gene in relation to post-traumatic stress disorders among military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  “While the studies are ongoing,” an early result is “Even some Navy SEALs have the Worrier genes, so you can literally be a Worrier-gene Warrior. In Kennedy’s sample, almost a third of the expert pilots were Worriers — a larger proportion than in the general population.”

Wait a second, run that by me again?  Those who have a pure “worrier” gene that means that they can’t clear stress-related dopamine are MORE likely to become Navy SEAL pilots?  Here’s the explanation for that finding: “those with Worrier-genes can still handle incredible stress — as long as they are well trained.”

Haven’t those who become expert Navy SEAL pilots undergone a large number of stress-testing type situations?  Wouldn’t they have been washed out long ago — not even gotten started — on the process of becoming SEAL pilots if they responded like Noah to tense testing situations?  Yet, at the end of this selection process, Worriers areoverrepresented among those in the most stressful occupation one can imagine.

Yes, quick genetic answers for complex behavioral responses and personality types are very hard to come by — no matter how much we long for them.

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