I have also been to the library to look for JFK material, but because I have already reached my loaned book limit I could not check anything out. Luckily the paper that the other books are for is due on Thursday, so hopefully I can make more progress on the JFK research in the early half of next week. I have found the internet research I have been able to do to be not very helpful, since most of it is far more concerned with Kennedy’s death and assassination than with his life and public image, as I am supposed to be focusing on.  Some f the limited info I have been able to find is about hoe JFK was the first president to be ‘sold’ in the US.  He was portrayed as a war here, had biographies published (apparently someone else even wrote his ‘autobiography’), and was heavily portrayed in the media s the ideal family man, even though his marriage was fractured and he was wealthy enough t be considered far removed from the common American.  One source (although admittedly a very unreliable one that I will need to back up with a book when I can) even suggested that JFK’s father bribed scholars to write articles in his son’s name to make him seem more scholarly.  I think these suggestions bring up good points about the role of media in making legends in recent times.  Would JFK have become such a legend if his story had taken place in a slower time, like Washington’s?  Were his actions really legendary, or is he pure fabrication?  To what degree is the role of media in his image different from that of Weems’s in Washington’s?

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