The ironist and hypocrite as presidential symbols: A Nixon‐Kennedy Analog

This essay analyzes the divergent public response in democratic cultures to power symbols who manipulate either a self‐disparaging (ironie) public persona or a self‐aggrandizing (hypocritical) one. This divergence is explored in light of well‐known democratic assumptions about power‐holders, and it is illustrated in the contrasting presidential images of Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It is concluded that the critic may require an extended vocabulary to evaluate the actions of power‐holders over and above those used to evaluate the actions of private individuals.