Josh Marshall responds to an interesting question from one of his readers with a few more interesting questions of his own:

…[November 22] did used to be a date for which there was always some build up and moments of commemoration [for the assassination of President Kennedy]. But now nothing. Is it just some critical mass in the passage of years? Forty-two years and it’s just definitively part of the past? Or is it some political or cultural inflection point the country’s passed through post-9/11?

I grew up with a keen awareness of the significance of this day, thanks to my parents, who’ve often told me the tale of where they were when the news of Kennedy’s death came over the radio, and how they felt all during that long afternoon in 1963. My mother, in particular, seems to have been deeply traumatized by the event; she’s one of those who continues to eat up every little tidbit of Kennedy clan gossip years after the family lost any genuine relevance to American society. Me, I’m largely indifferent to the Kennedys, as you can probably infer from that last remark. I recognize that the assassination of JFK was some kind of catalyst — or at least a signpost — for the years of turmoil that followed (and still continue today — what else is the so-called “culture war” if not the social battles of the 1960s spilling over into the 21st Century?). But I frankly don’t know enough about Kennedy’s presidency to have much of an opinion about it or any insight into the meaning of this day.

However, I am interested by how and why things in our society change, so I’m naturally intrigued by the issues Josh and his reader have raised. You don’t hear much about JFK’s assassination anymore — the only mention of this anniversary in my local paper is a short article that focuses more on a meeting of conspiracy theorists than the actual history of the event. It wasn’t so long ago that November 22nd would be wall-to-wall retrospectives. So what’s changed now? Is it, as Josh suggests, that 42 years is long enough to mourn a dead president? Is there a statute of limitations on these things, or have we now substituted the national tragedy of Kennedy’s killing with the bigger national tragedy of 9/11? Is it possible that the thing keeping the assassination story alive all these years has been the mystery of whether Oswald acted alone, and now that people seem to be losing interest in that, they’re also losing interest in JFK? (I recall saying back around the time of Oliver Stone’s JFK movie that by the time the government finally admits to whatever really happened, there won’t be anyone left alive who cares.) Or has there just been so much shit going down lately that we all forgot about it?

I don’t have an answer to these questions… but like I said, I find this matter interesting.