“…So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
— JFK’s commencement speech at American University, June 10, 1963.
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Whatever its intentions, the idea of an “uplifting” plaque in the place where John F. Kennedy — a man, a husband, a father, a veteran of war, a visionary liberal, and a leader — died in a hail of bullets is not only in supremely bad taste. It also may also violate National Park Service regulations requiring that the area be preserved as it appeared 50 years ago.
