The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power

Garry Wills's The Kennedy Imprisonment does not rise to the level of his more nuanced and intellectually-honest books — Nixon Agonistes (1970) being the best one. But this one-sided polemic on the Kennedys nonetheless brings Camelot down a notch or two, as he describes a family "whose basic values ensnared its men in their own myths of success and masculinity." And the imprisonment Wills refers to in his title remains with us today as national political candidates (especially on the Democratic side) continue to feel the pressure to fit the Kennedy mold.