Jack Kennedy

Were Jack and Jackie really in love when they married in 1953? Did Jackie know about Jack's womanizing? Such gossipy subjects are examined in two new books: "All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy," by Edward Klein (Pocket Books), and "Jack and Jackie: Portrait of an American Marriage," by Christopher Andersen (William Morrow). Each book purports to reveal new insight into the true nature of the planet's most celebrated couple. Some samples: Was Jack in love with Jackie?

DANVILLE, Ky. -- There is, let's face it, just one truly memorable moment in the annals of vice presidential debates. That was in 1988, when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen told Sen. Dan Quayle that the younger man was no John F. Kennedy. As we all know, that moment -- perhaps the all-time zinger in any debate -- is why Bentsen went on to a distinguished career as vice president under President Michael Dukakis. Or not. Consider the circumstances: A young member of Congress, who looked even younger than his 40-something years, going up against a vastly more experienced candidate, a longtime member of the Senate in his 60s. If that sounds a lot like Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden ... well, it's only a partially apt comparison.

American Expose: Who Murdered Journalism? The 25th anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination doesn't arrive until Nov. 22. But television's observance of that grim event is almost monthlong, ranging from the appealingly nostalgic "JFK: In His Own Words" at 10 p.m. Sunday on cable's HBO to syndicated columnist Jack Anderson's tawdry and strident "American Expose: Who Killed J.F.K.?," which aired Wednesday night on KCOP-TV Channel 13. How convenient for some in TV that J.F.K.

The first rule in picking a vice presidential candidate may be “do no harm.” As Mitt Romney prepares to roll out his pick for No. 2, it's not a bad time to recall all that can go wrong. VP choices can run off the rails from a candidate's native flaws, but at least as often because the teams that nominate them fail to thoroughly investigate for shortcomings or to prepare No. 2 for the withering odyssey of the modern campaign. Here are the six most problematic vice presidential nominations of the last six decades, ranked in reverse order of the least to the most problematic, for the VP pick and the ticket they helped form: 6. Adm. James Stockdale.

DANVILLE, Ky. -- There is, let's face it, just one truly memorable moment in the annals of vice presidential debates. That was in 1988, when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen told Sen. Dan Quayle that the younger man was no John F. Kennedy. As we all know, that moment -- perhaps the all-time zinger in any debate -- is why Bentsen went on to a distinguished career as vice president under President Michael Dukakis. Or not. Consider the circumstances: A young member of Congress, who looked even younger than his 40-something years, going up against a vastly more experienced candidate, a longtime member of the Senate in his 60s. If that sounds a lot like Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden ... well, it's only a partially apt comparison.

"You're no Jack Kennedy," the most telling line uttered by Lloyd Bentsen in his vice presidential debate with Dan Quayle, grew out of a warm-up session with Rep. Dennis E. Eckart (D-Ohio) playing Quayle, U.S. News & World Report says in its issue dated Oct. 17. The magazine quoted Eckart as saying he studied available videotapes of Quayle speeches and decided that the Indiana senator was setting himself up as a "Republican John Kennedy."

Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, clashing with Sen. Lloyd Bentsen on Wednesday in a vice presidential debate that focused on Quayle's qualifications to be President, compared himself to former President John F. Kennedy and insisted that, if necessary, he would be prepared to assume the presidency. The 41-year-old Quayle said age alone was not the only measure of fitness for the Oval Office.

Telling Quayle that he was no Jack Kennedy was not a cheap shot. If Bentsen had added, ". . . But you are somewhat reminiscent of Spiro Agnew," that might be construed as a cheap shot. NEWTON WINTERS Los Angeles

It was an exchange reminiscent of Lloyd Bentsen's put-down of Dan Quayle in 1988, when he said "I knew Jack Kennedy . . . you are no Jack Kennedy." The latest Tom Hayden-Jack Weiss tiff in the 5th Council District race involves who is more representative of the Robert F. Kennedy legacy.

I think it is outrageous that some un-Americans are bitterly complaining that they'll soon have to pay a little bit more income tax. Don't they realize we are the least taxed people in the world, and that the "falsely prosperous" years under spendthrift Reagan and Bush have made our country almost bankrupt? That bubble has now burst and we will all have to tighten our belts, just a little. As for Social Security recipients, of which I am one, whether they like to acknowledge it or not, SS is a form of welfare in which we get back more than ten times what we put into it. It will not make us go hungry if we have to give up a very few of those dollars.

If there is little earth-rattlingly new to say about Jack and Jackie Kennedy, their private lives, their restive travels together and separately, the international aristocrats, butchering dictators, arms dealers, piratical shipping magnates, aging debutantes, desiccated diplomats, dress designers, fashionable hairdressers and antiques experts they cultivated along with the obligatory politicians, reporters and other useful and often loathed Washington insiders, Sally Bedell Smith at least says

Jim Johnson's first political activity was licking envelopes for Hubert Humphrey's 1948 Senate campaign. He was 4 years old. Now, 56 years later, after working with politicians from Edmund S. Muskie to Walter F. Mondale, after stints as head of Fannie Mae, the Kennedy Center and the Brookings Institution, Johnson has yet another role in politics as leader of Sen. John F. Kerry's effort to select a running mate. He has been there before.

After more than four decades, the Kennedy industry is as strong as ever. Every year, publishers issue dozens of books on the Kennedy clan, and these past months have been no exception. Clearly, there is a hard core of Kennedy book devotees, much like there is a solid niche audience for books on each day of each battle of the Civil War.

It was an exchange reminiscent of Lloyd Bentsen's put-down of Dan Quayle in 1988, when he said "I knew Jack Kennedy . . . you are no Jack Kennedy." The latest Tom Hayden-Jack Weiss tiff in the 5th Council District race involves who is more representative of the Robert F. Kennedy legacy.

Believe all of it at your own risk. But "Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot" is serviceable melodrama and a heckuva good cry. As was much of the history it tells. This NBC two-parter is drawn from J. Randy Taraborrelli's book of the same title, covering a 27-year period ending in 1980.

William Gargan, star of "Martin Kane, Private Eye," a popular early '50s TV detective show, knew who was staying upstairs in the penthouse suite of a three-story apartment building at 522 N. Rossmore Ave. Gargan and his wife, Mary, had been sworn to secrecy not to reveal his identity. But as they sat watching the roll call at the 1960 Democratic National Convention, they had a surprise visit from their surreptitious neighbor. Sen. John F.

Jim Johnson's first political activity was licking envelopes for Hubert Humphrey's 1948 Senate campaign. He was 4 years old. Now, 56 years later, after working with politicians from Edmund S. Muskie to Walter F. Mondale, after stints as head of Fannie Mae, the Kennedy Center and the Brookings Institution, Johnson has yet another role in politics as leader of Sen. John F. Kerry's effort to select a running mate. He has been there before.

In his new book, "The Dark Side of Camelot," Seymour M. Hersh, a prize-winning investigative reporter, attempts to radically revise the history of John F. Kennedy. Soon after an assassin's bullets cut short the JFK presidency, books by his former aides and speech writers, notably "A Thousand Days" by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Were Jack and Jackie really in love when they married in 1953? Did Jackie know about Jack's womanizing? Such gossipy subjects are examined in two new books: "All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy," by Edward Klein (Pocket Books), and "Jack and Jackie: Portrait of an American Marriage," by Christopher Andersen (William Morrow). Each book purports to reveal new insight into the true nature of the planet's most celebrated couple. Some samples: Was Jack in love with Jackie?