7. It's widely believed that the character of Superman was inspired by Nietzsche's doctrine of the Ubermensch, which can be translated as both "overman" and "superman." But it's worth noting that the actual character was an inversion of the Nietzschean idea — and the Nazified concept. Nietzsche's superman owes no loyalty to conventional morality and legalisms because he is above such petty concerns. The comic Superman bound himself to such customs even more than normal men. There is a certain nationalistic conceit to the character in that he was born in the American heartland and imbibed all that was good of Americanism. But this manifested itself in benign or beneficial patriotism more than anything else.
At the end of the issue on physical fitness, Superman and Supergirl lead a parade of Americans waving flags and holding signs supporting the president. One marcher carries a placard that reads, "OBSERVE THE PRESIDENT'S PHYSICAL FITNESS PROGRAM AND THE 'WEAKLING' AMERICANS WILL BE THE STRONG AMERICANS!" The comic was supposed to appear in early 1964, but the assassination postponed it. LBJ eventually asked DC Comics to run the issue as a tribute. Kennedy remained a recurring character after his death. In one comic Jimmy Olsen travels to the future and identifies alien villains because they are the only people who didn't observe a moment of silence for the slain president. See http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/166/ for images from the comic and commentary (accessed July 10, 2007).
8. The election would decide, Mailer wrote, "if the desire of America was for drama or stability, for adventure or monotony." Mailer hoped Americans would choose Kennedy "for his mystery, for his promise that the country would grow or disintegrate by the unwilling charge he gave to the intensity of the myth." Norman Mailer, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket," Esquire, Nov. 1960, in Pols: Great Writers on American Politicians from Bryan to Reagan, ed. Jack Beatty (New York: Public Affairs, 2004), p. 292.
9. Herbert S. Parmet, "The Kennedy Myth and American Politics," History Teacher 24, no. 1 (Nov. 1990), p. 32, citing "What JFK Meant to Us," Newsweek, Nov. 28, 1983, p. 72; Jonah Goldberg, "'Isolationism!' They Cried," National Review, April 10, 2006, p. 35; Alan McConnaughey, "America First: Attitude Emerged Before World War II," Washington Times, Dec. 12, 1991, p. A3.
10. Louis Menand, "Ask Not, Tell Not: Anatomy of an Inaugural" New Yorker, Nov. 8, 2004, p. 110.
11. John W. Jeffries, "The 'Quest for National Purpose' of 1960," American Quarterly 30, no. 4 (Autumn 1978), p. 451, citing John K. Jessup et al., The National Purpose (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), p. v. Newsweek had noted the previous year that "thoughtful men" were worried America had lost its "boldness and imagination, the sense of mission and dedication." Chief among these was Walter Lippmann, an elder statesman of liberalism who had led the march to war in 1917 in the hope that it would bring about a "transvaluation of values." Once again, Lippmann hoped Americans would embrace a collective mission, this time in the face of the Soviet challenge. Jeffries, "'Quest for National Purpose' of 1960," p. 454, citing "An Unwitting Paul Revere?" Newsweek, Sept. 28, 1959, pp. 33-34.
12. Adlai E. Stevenson, "National Purpose: Stevenson's View," New York Times, May 26, 1960, p. 30; Charles F. Darlington, "Not the Goal, Only the Means," New York Times, July 3, 1960, p. 25; Charles F. Darlington, letter, New York Times, May 27, 1960, p. 30.
13. Jeffries, "'Quest for National Purpose' of 1960," p. 462, citing William Attwood, "How America Feels as We Enter the Soaring Sixties," Look, Jan. 5, 1960, pp. 11-15; Leebaert, Fifty-Year Wound, p. 261.
14. William F. Buckley, "Mr. Goodwin's Great Society," National Review (September 7, 1965), p. 760.
15. Garry Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002), pp. 170, 171; David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 (New York: Norton, 1980), p. xv n. 4.
16. Leebaert, Fifty-Year Wound, p. 263; Wills, Kennedy Imprisonment, p. 171.
17. H. W. Brands, The Strange Death of American Liberalism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 87-88.
18. Christopher Lasch, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 218 n. 55, citing David Eakins, "Policy-Planning for the Establishment," in A New History of Leviathan, ed. Ronald Radosh and Murray Rothbard (New York: Dutton, 1972), p. 198.
19. James Reston, "A Portion of Guilt for All," New York Times, Nov. 25, 1963; Tom Wicker, "Johnson Bids Congress Enact Civil Rights Bill with Speed; Asks End of Hate and Violence," New York Times, Nov. 28, 1963.
20. "When JFK's Ideals Are Realized, Expiation of Death Begins, Bishop Says," Washington Post, Dec. 9, 1963, p. B7.
21. Robert N. Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus 96, no. 1 (Winter 1967), pp. 1-21; C. L. Sulzberger, "A New Frontier and an Old Dream," New York Times, Jan. 23, 1961, p. 22.
22. Bill Kauffman, "The Bellamy Boys Pledge Allegiance," American Enterprise 13, no. 7 (Oct./Nov. 2002), p. 50.
23. Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (New York: New American Library, 1960), p. 111.
24. Nicholas P. Gilman, "'Nationalism' in the United States," Quarterly Journal of Economics 4, no. 1 (Oct. 1889), pp. 50-76; Bellamy, Looking Backward, p. 143.
25. The story of the Pledge of Allegiance and its National Socialist roots is a fascinating one. Rex Curry, a passionate libertarian, has made the issue his white whale. See rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html.
26. "Hail New Party in Fervent Song," New York Times, Aug. 6, 1912, p. 1.
27. Senator Albert Beveridge, Congressional Record, Senate, Jan. 9, 1900, pp. 704-11, quoted in The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance, ed. Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom (Boston: South End Press, 1987), p. 23.
28. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianizing the Social Order (New York: Macmillan, 1912), p. 330. The Social Gospel journal Dawn, founded in 1890, was intended "to show that the aim of socialism is embraced in the aims of Christianity and to awaken members of Christian churches to the fact that the teachings of Jesus Christ lead directly to some specific form or forms of socialism." William G. McLoughlin, Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 175.
29. Charles Howard Hopkins, The Rise of the Social Gospel in American Protestantism, 1865-1915 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), p. 253.