Esquire: Dallas’ JFK Commemoration “More Than a Little Bit Hinky”

November 22 is still nine days away, but the eyes of the world are already turning toward Dallas in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy being gunned down in Dealey Plaza.

City leaders knew this would happen. It’s why Mayor Mike Rawlings has been working on his speech since January, why Dallas’ civic elites have been working behind the scenes for more than a year to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

See also: Dallas’ Quest to Keep the 50th Anniversary of JFK’s Death “Classy” Will Fail, and Fail Hard

The result, purged of any mention of the a-word (ass*********) or messy conspiracy theories, will be a weirdly sanitized spin on history.

Schutze has been saying this for more than a year now, and it seems that Esquire‘s Charlie Pierce agrees. He penned a blog post on Tuesday scratching his head over Dallas’ plans and Rawlings’ insistence that The 50th “is all about acknowledging the life, legacy, and leadership of the 35th president, not the moment 50 years ago.”

Suffice it to say that 50 years ago “civic leaders with deep ties to the city” of Dallas were a major part of the problem with the atmosphere when Kennedy came to town. But now, they’re going to commemorate his murder without mentioning the word “assassination”? This impresses me as being more than a little bit hinky. If you want to celebrate the life, legacy, and leadership of JFK, do it on his birthday, not on the 50th anniversary of the day in which he got shot down in cold blood and broad daylight in the middle of your city. Forgive me if I see this — as well as the freezing out of the assassination research community, which probably has done more for tourism in Dallas over the years than Jerry Jones has — as the continuing attempt by the city to forgive itself by anesthetizing the history of what actually happened there. This is just weird.

See also: Esquire: The Right Hates Obama Like Dallas Hated JFK

But we already know how Pierce feels.