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Saturday
George W. Bush proclaimed that fish and people can coexist on this planet and that “we got the best workforce in America.” John F. Kennedy said, “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on,” and, “Liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.” Kennedy biographers Robert Dallek and Terry Golway’s Let Every Nation Know puts JFK’s most famous orations into historical context—and it comes with audio, too. More than three decades later, Kennedy’s timeless words are useful to citizens inundated with buzz words and soundbites. Dallek and Golway suggest that, while presidents Kennedy and Bush were very different, their presidencies have certain crises in common. Because Bush’s wartime speeches are lacking, perhaps Kennedy’s speeches can inspire the masses. Or perhaps today’s conservatives can get on board, too—after all, Kennedy was a freedom fighter. When a Japanese destroyer attacked the torpedo boat he was commanding in WWII, he treaded water for nine hours and towed a wounded comrade with the strap of his life jacket, clenched between his teeth, for five hours. When he finally got to the shore of Plum Pudding Island, the exhausted Kennedy swam until he found a native of the island, wrote “SOS” on the husk of a coconut—yes, a coconut—and got the crew rescued by the Allies within seven days. Clearly this man was fit to rule. Say what you will about his fidelity issues: His time in the office just goes to show that if the president isn’t fucking someone else, he’s fucking the entire country. Ask what you can do for your country when Dallek and Golway read from their book at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 15, at Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Free. (202) 364-1919. (Megan Maher)