Father, son and JFK

Dad, why would anyone want to shoot the President?

This is the question my 9 year old son Chase asked me, as the two of us watched a documentary on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.  The special, co-produced by Tom Hanks, will air several more times on CNN leading up to the 50th anniversary of JFK's death on Friday, November 22nd.  No, there were no graphic images from the Zapruder film.  No bloody photos from inside the limo.  What was presented, was actual television and radio coverage from that fateful day.  It was a day that changed our nation, and the way the media covered it.

Television and radio news had never done wall to wall coverage like this before.  But there had never been a story like this before.  The only event since then to garner that much non-stop coverage by the news media?  The events on 9/11.

I wasn't born until 1974.  I missed the sixties, and the events that decade that changed our country.  As I sat there and watched with my son, I realized that in a small way, we were watching the events unfold through similar eyes.  Neither of us had ever experienced something like what we were watching.  Neither of us had answers.  50 years later, I'm not sure who does.