High life
What is truth?
Taki Talk about trash journalism. Better yet, talk about the basic post-modernist idea that truth is somehow invented rather than discovered. The JFK Jr non-story of last week is the perfect example of both genres. But before I go on, I first must declare the proverbial interest.
I have always loathed the Kennedys, starting with the unspeakable but martyred Robert Kennedy, a rich bully and thug who turned 'saint' after his brother's assassina- tion — having correctly read the polls that nice guys finish first. Robert Kennedy was always bullying people who worked or came into contact with him. He hated Greek shipowners because we were smarter than his KGB-like Justice Depart- ment, although no shipowner ever got away with what the Kennedy patriarch did. Things like bootlegging, insider trading, blackmail, perhaps even murder.
But that was long ago. After Bobby's demise came Teddy, not a Robespierre like his brother, but a Michael Collins, without the latter's brave side. Teddy drove a young woman to her death, panicked and fled the scene of the accident, lied about it for ten hours, but remained a senator and all was forgiven. After Teddy came the new gener- ation, a bunch as bad as the patriarch, but without his business genius or his balls.
All these Kennedys and their various cousins knew to do was to take lots of very hard drugs,, have car accidents which left other people paralysed for life, be under suspicion of murdering a 15-year-old girl 20 some odd years ago, sleeping with under- age girls, and, occasionally, kill themselves by overdosing or running into trees while skiing. They were known for not paying their bills, for wrecking people's lives as
well as other people's houses, for occasion- ally roughing up the weaker sex, but also for getting good press considering their thuggish behaviour.
The exception to the family rule was JFK Jr, but now, in the great tradition of the British press, even the normal Kennedy has been 'exposed'. All I have to say is how deeply ashamed I feel to be a journalist, but, simultaneously, how lucky I am not to have been born British.
It's been described as an explosive story that has tongues wagging on both sides of the Atlantic. Written by one Annette With-
eridge, a Brit, it was hawked around for months, until the Daily Mail fell for its bull-
shit. Because that's all it is. (For any of you that missed it, the Kennedy couple suppos- edly had not shared a marital bed in 18 months, were about to be divorced, and Carolyn was strung out on cocaine.) Even worse, the yarn has triggered Internet ghouls into describing John Kennedy Jr's bisexuality and all sorts of other grotesque lies. The fact that his sister and the Bes- sette parents have to endure such ghastly drivel does not appear to have inhibited the ghouls or Ms Witheridge. Certainly not when there's a buck to be made. While reading this crap I thought of the bank rob- ber I shared a cell with while in Pen- tonville, and how far superior a person he was compared with this Witheridge individ- ual. At least Tony the Loon took a chance while robbing a bank. She just desecrated the memory of three people and got paid lotsa moolah for it.
John and Carolyn Kennedy not only were not breaking up, they were building a large house in Connecticut and planning to start a family next year. One of his closest friends — and, unlike British tabloid hacks, I have access to such persohs — told me that the story was 'total rubbish, garbage' and that the unnamed sources were the kind of people who swore they had wit- nessed J. Edgar Hoover dressed in drag. (Now we know through the Mitrokhin archives that the Hoover whopper, so eagerly believed by the trendy Left, was KGB misinformation and nothing else.) Plus another thing. The story may well be a plant. With Carolyn Bessette Kennedy as the fall guy. (The ghouls are saying that there was a fight inside the cockpit.) There 'Nice extension.' are rumours that a lawsuit could be brew- ing — mind you, it's only a rumour, and a lousy one at that — but unscrupulous per- sons unknown could be protecting the Kennedy estate. All I know is that I know too many people who were close to the tragic couple, and if there were any truth in it, I would have heard something. The story smelled to high heaven from the start.
Conspiracy theories are nothing new. Mohamed Fayed insists that Diana, Princess of Wales was murdered by British intelligence officers. Some fools believe it. I am not a fool. This week I shall be follow- ing the Hamilton libel case. I am among Hamilton's principal financial backers. I have never met Hamilton, but I do believe a poor man, which Hamilton certainly is, should have the opportunity to seek justice, which he could not without outside finan- cial help. My involvement has nothing to do with any personal animosity I may feel towards Fayed. It's only fair that Hamilton has his day in court, c'est tout. That's more than JFK Jr, his wife and her sister will ever have. Nor his sister and their parents.
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