Buchanan wrote that, "George Bush should have told the NAACP convention that black America has grown up, that the NAACP should close up shop, that its members should go home and reflect on JFK's admonition: 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather ask what you can do for your country.'"
It is ironic that the Institute of Politics, dedicated to the remembrance of President Kennedy, saw fit to invite Pat Buchanan, a demagogic hate-monger who casts aspersions on the patriotism of whole groups of Americans, sometimes through the very words of Kennedy's most inspiring address.
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Aharon J. Friedman is a student at Harvard Law School and the Kennedy School of Government.