Early on March 29, the Original Series Twitter account at CNN, the network which has obsessed over President Donald Trump's mid-2000s alleged affairs with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, posted this tweet about President John F. Kennedy: "JFK had a legendary love life. Did one of his affairs connect him with the mob?" The tweet remained up for over four days, but was pulled after its presence was noticed Monday morning by FoxNews.com, and in turn by Matt Drudge.
Here is the tweet, which was removed sometime Monday:
Fox's Brian Flood posted his related story at roughly 10 a.m. Monday (links are in original):
CNN mocked for glorifying JFK's ‘legendary’ infidelity after harping on sex allegations against Trump
... CNN was slammed for hypocrisy over the weekend when the network glorified President John F. Kennedy’s many infidelities after spending significant coverage painting President Trump as a monster for an alleged affair that occurred prior to his political career.
While promoting “The Kennedys,” CNN hailed the 35th president's “legendary love life,” before asking, “Did one of his affairs connect him with the mob?” The tweet featured video detailing JFK’s relationship with actress Judy Campbell, who was allegedly intimate with the head of the Chicago mafia while also having an affair with the president.
“Hypocrisy at its finest,” one user responded.
Author Joshua Kendall responded that “legendary love life” is a poor choice of words because it makes JFK’s infidelity sound “glamorous” and attached a link to a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed headlined, “JFK may have been a worse philanderer than Trump. Does it matter?”
Kendall's LA Times column notes that Kennedy had an affair with a stripper named "Tempest Storm, born Annie Blanche Banks" years before becoming President. It ended before he was inaugurated. However, in JFK's case, the affair began in 1955, while he was a U.S. Senator; no one has credibly accused Trump of having an affair while holding political office. Kendall also notes:
The largely male Washington press corps looked the other way then and likewise kept Kennedy insulated from sexual scandal during his presidency. Not until 1975, when the name of his mistress Judith Campbell popped up during a congressional hearing, did most Americans realize Kennedy had been unfaithful to his wife. Still, when Campbell wrote her well-documented 1977 memoir about the multi-year affair, Kennedy loyalists did their best to discredit and degrade her.
Tempest Storm's 1987 memoir got similar dismissive treatment. The mainstream press ignored it as undignified gossip. The tide turned only when several academic Kennedy biographers acknowledged that her story meshed with their research.
In 2010, ABC celebrated the adulterous affair of JFK as a “torrid” “love story” involving “American royalty.” Journalists really have no sense of self awareness when it comes to hypocrisy.
JFK's extramarital sex partners included at least one unwilling participant and multiple liaisons with two alleged Communist spies. Former British Prime Minister Harold McMillan reportedly claimed that Kennedy told him, "If I don’t have a lay for three days I get a headache." It's only April, but CNN's tweet is certainly a top candidate for Double Standard of the Year, best summarized in this response to CNN's now-gone tweet:
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
