Final_Judgment

684
A Conversation in Hell
New York Post
―July 21, 1999
John Podhoretz
JOE! Joe Kennedy! Come on in. Nice to see you. Are you enjoying the air
conditioning? I know it gets pretty hot out there.
Where are you these days, in the eighth circle or the ninth? Kind of a tough
choice where you’re concerned. After all, the eighth circle is for the fraudulent
and the ninth for the treacherous. You sure were fraudulent when you had Mayor
Daley fix the 1960 presidential election for your son Jack, weren’t you? And you
were pretty treacherous most of your life, what with your compulsive philandering
and double-dealing.
But listen, that’s what I love about you. I can’t tell you how it filled me with
pride just to know you back when you were America’s ambassador to England,
saying all those nice things about Hitler, doing everything you could to prevent
Jewish emigration from Nazi Germany. Thousands of Jews died because of you.
That was quite a demonic performance!
I always knew you had it in you. I don’t remember a soul I was happier to
procure when you called on me back in, what, in 1912? You knew exactly what you
wanted. You wanted wealth, fame and power, and you wanted it to stretch through the
generations . You wanted to be the creator ofa dynasty what would rule America..
It did my ancient heart a bit of good to hear just how ruthless you could be. And you
were such a tough negotiator it was fun doing business with you.
It seemed like you’d thought of everything. You wanted access to power and for you
that meant marrying the daughter of the mayor of Boston. Done; you and Rose Fitzgerald
were joined two years later. You wanted to remain attractive and alluring to the world’s
most glamorous women. Done; you became a motion picture executive and had affairs
with Gloria Swanson and many other stars and starlets.
You wanted wealth beyond the wildest dreams of any other Irish Bostonian. Done; you
were a millionaire many times over, and lost none of it when the Great Depression hit. You
wanted social position. Done; you were given the most glamorous job in government at the
time ― Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
And you wanted your son to president. Done as well
You dotted the “i”s, you crossed the “t”s, you did everything in your power to maximize
your part of the deal and minimize mine. Like all mortals whose most distinictive quality is
their unbounded sense of self, you believed your soul was so valuable that it was worth the
exchange.
You got everything you wanted. But when a I make a deal for a soul like yours ― so
unyielding in it sense of entitlement, so sure that the world should bow before it, so damned
tough ― its raw to me, like uncooked meat. I need to season it, to pound on it a bit so that it
becomes tender, brown it a bit on the fire before I amreadyto put it in the infernal oven.
So ifI’d let that son of yours that you wanted to become president make it to the White