Coin of the Realm.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: John F. Kennedy Jr - Cheap sentiment - Brief Article

If you ask for spare change in Camelot, you'll be tossed this lachrymose "Official John F. Kennedy Jr. Memorial Commemorative," offered recently as "an important issue" from something calling itself "The Washington Monetary Authority." You're looking at the reverse of the "coin," at least as it was represented in the ads. The tribute it pays the late Mr. Kennedy, who was pushing 40 when he died, suggests that his life's singular achievement occurred when he was three years old: saluting his assassinated father's coffin in 1963. Now, reads the apostrophizing commemorative, "The United States of America Salutes You."

Kitsch has ever been the currency of Camelot. But in this case there's more. The cult of sensibility from which such products ultimately issue...