I'm not really being fair to Amergin, but then Amergin isn't being fair either.

No one who wasn't there can possibly understand the Kennedy years. The exuberance, the hope, the wit -- sure it all would have ended, perhaps badly, perhaps with a dull thud. But we were all on such a high in those days, and when that high was shattered in Dallas, on a beautiful day, it had the same effect then that 9/11 did in 2001. I'm fairly sure that Amergin will remember 9/11 as being life-changing in some way; we from the Kennedy era remember his assassination in much the same way.

Rather than sneering, Amergin, try to get some old newspapers or TV clips and watch what we saw -- not the actual shooting, but the aftermath...the people crying in the streets (in my country too, btw), the utter shock, the bewilderment and disbelief. Watch Walter Cronkite, the most unflappable newscaster in history, announce that the president was dead, and break down.

But don't sneer at something you didn't share.