According to the very believable Ms. Alford, President John F. Kennedy knowingly took her virginity after luring her into his bedroom when she was a newly hired 19 year-old White House intern. Shockingly, this all happened on the first day that she met the man she always referred to as Mr. President.

During the course of the 18-month affair, Mimi was sometimes chauffeured between her college and the White House or other places to be at the President’s beck and call – sometimes waiting for hours at a time alone in a hotel room. Over the course of their secret affair, he gave her drugs at a party and asked her to perform humiliating acts on both his special assistant and his younger brother, Teddy.

Equally disturbing is the fact that to this day, Mimi Alford has no idea how she got the internship. She simply received a letter offering her the job while she was attending an elite East Coast finishing school – the same finishing school from which Jackie Kennedy had graduated. Since neither she nor her parents sought out this coveted internship, one wonders if the duties of JFK’s inner circle of enablers included trolling schools for attractive young girls for their famous and powerful boss. After all, she was only three days into her new internship when she first met the President who summoned her for a “personal tour” of the White House bedrooms.

While JFK’s infidelities are, by now, well known to the public, his preying on an innocent teenager (how many others were there?) and the demeaning things he asked of her were, until now, unknown.

For this reason, NBC felt the need to devote an entire segment after Mrs. Alford’s interview to three of JFK’s biggest fans and apologists – Chris Matthews, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Reeves. It’s pretty hard to imagine NBC affording Ronald Reagan, a far more accomplished and successful president, the same treatment under such explosive and disturbing new charges.

In the segment, the JFK biographers did their best to rationalize his boorish behavior and patch up the PR problem Mimi’s story created for Camelot’s most nostalgic and prolific curators. Kearns, presuming to speak for all Americans, told us we don’t actually expect fidelity in our presidents – just leadership. Reeves assured us that John F. Kennedy never let his extramarital sex life interfere with his awesome presidency and then they all fawningly listed off all the awesome things JFK did.

Ok, they didn’t use the word awesome, but Chris Matthews did end the segment with the following choice quote: “The total picture [of JFK] still arouses the country.”

He’s half right. There will always be Boomers willing to overstate JFKs good looks, and overlook his grating voice and phony family imagery. But for those of us a generation or two removed, the home movies from the family compound and the black and white Kennedy coffee table books just don’t hold the same sway over us.  Much to the dismay of his admirers, Mimi’s convincing and unvarnished account of President Kennedy will have a lasting impression on our understanding of the man they still insist is a hero.

Welcome to the Lunchtime Reader, where we assemble important stories to keep your eyes on.

Vaclev Havel was a playwright, anti-Communist, and former leader of a free Czech Republic. He died yesterday at 75. http://is.gd/5xzOCB

Brutal North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il dead at age 69. Pray for the people suffering in North Korea. http://is.gd/yrGU23

Christopher Hitchens: Abortion survivor, post-abortive father, cognitive pro-lifer. http://is.gd/2cqL9Q

NY Times: Newt Gingrich represents “new political era for Catholics.” http://is.gd/eqxHkA

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, ought to be ashamed. He compares the effort to ensure fair elections to racism, claiming that GOP efforts to pass laws requiring voters to show an ID is a “21^st century poll tax.” http://is.gd/T77JBc

‘Vegetative’ patients may be fully conscious: Lancet study. http://is.gd/CPK65s

Two new U.S. saints! Pope Benedict XVI decrees miracles needed to canonize Blesseds Marianne Cope and Kateri Tekakwitha. http://is.gd/TTWc0d

Obama would lose Pennsylvania if the election were held today, says Paul Kanjorski. http://cvote.to/9B  Kanjorski is a Democrat from Scranton who lost his House seat in 2010.

And by the way, CatholicVote.org’s PAC had something to do with that defeat. http://cvote.to/9C  

Fred Barnes has a must-read article on the unheralded successes of the pro-life movement, which I didn’t notice until now. http://cvote.to/9A

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli is expected to announce a run for governor in days. Cuccinelli is a pro-life Catholic who gained national attention for filing a lawsuit against Obamacare. The election will be held in 2013. http://cvote.to/9D

I love Tim Pawlenty, but his explanation of why he ‘whiffed’ on attacking Romney over “Obamneycare” is just painful. http://cvote.to/9E

A local union leader in Michigan writes in the Detroit News about how the new EPA regulations will ‘devastate’ his state’s economy. http://cvote.to/9F

The Illinois Supreme Court to hear parental notification case. http://cvote.to/9G

The Naperville Sun reports:

Gov. Pat Quinn said Thursday he considers it “the proper, Christian thing to do” to present an abortion-rights group’s leadership award, sloughing off criticism from Cardinal Francis George and other Roman Catholic bishops.

So at what point would we the bishops consider dialogue a waste of time? This Catholic governor not only supports legal abortion, he celebrates it. He not only signs a law on civil unions, he enforces it so that Catholic agencies can essentially no longer participate in adoption or foster care.

I mean, with friends like this…

How should the Church respond to Catholic politicians who support legalized abortion?

Bishop Aquila: Their particular bishops can use the process of correction that is given to us in sacred Scripture, especially in Matthew’s Gospel. Our Lord tells us to speak to the person, and then take two or three others with us if he does not change.

If he still does not change, the Church can speak to him, which is done through the bishop. [The bishop] exercises the authority of Christ. Christ then says that if that person is still obstinate and will not change, treat them as a tax collector or Gentile. Expel him.

We do this out of love for the person, seeking his conversion. He needs to understand that the salvation of his soul is in jeopardy because of the positions he is taking.

Catholics are called to defend human life, particularly that of the unborn. The Church’s teaching is clear. If we don’t challenge public officials who reject this teaching, we leave them in their sins and confuse the faithful.

Strong words, yes. But if we do not believe in and speak this strongly about protecting innocent life, how can we speak strongly about other important issues?

Also worth reading in the interview: Bishop Aquila explaining how he came to be so personally involved in the pro-life movement.

“I have no comment,” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told CNA. “It was a totally private meeting and there will be no communiqué.”

Biden had been in Rome for a ceremonial function relating to the anniversary of Italy’s unification.

The CNA article was left with little to nothing to add. The reporter smartly suggested that the meeting might have had something to do with Biden’s stance on abortion. The reporter noted Biden’s previous battles with his bishop in Wilmington, Delaware, the late Michael Saltarelli, and also noted the precedent of the private meeting that Nancy Pelosi, another “pro-choice Catholic,” had with the Holy Father in Rome two years ago.

A brief recent history of Biden’s Church troubles on the life issue is worth revisiting here:

In the fall of 2008, just before the presidential election in which a majority of professing Catholics voted the Obama-Biden ticket into the White House, Biden appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press, where he was asked by Tom Brokaw: “If Senator Obama comes to you and says, ‘When does life begin? Help me out here, Joe,’ as a Roman Catholic, what would you to say to him?”

“I’d say, ‘Look,’” Biden answered forcefully, “’I know when it begins for me.’ It’s a personal and private issue. For me, as a Roman Catholic, I am prepared to accept the teachings in my Church.”

What does that mean?

Biden translated, explaining to a nationwide audience that while he personally believes life that begins “at the moment of conception,” other people of other faiths have different definitions. Thus, “For me to impose that judgment on everyone else who is equally and maybe even more devout than I, seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society.”

Biden’s judgment, of course, is that even though life begins at conception, a mother should have the legal right to terminate that life for whatever reason—and then some. He also favors the dissection of human embryos for research purposes. Needless to say, these are not the teachings of his Church.

Biden’s statement to Brokaw was a perfect Cuomo/Pelosi/Ted Kennedy-like moment.

The bishops, to their credit, didn’t hesitate to respond, especially as they sensed that the flock was on the verge of electing into the presidency the most radical abortion advocate ever to sit in the Oval Office. Cardinal Justin Rigali, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop William E. Lori, chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine, issued a statement saying that Biden’s remarks do “not reflect Catholic teaching.” The bishops responded by noting that the Church does not teach that life begins at conception “as a matter of faith” but, rather, “as a matter of objective fact.”

Biden wasn’t shy about issuing judgments on life throughout the 2008 campaign. He publicly took a swipe at Sarah Palin, who chose to bring to term a Down syndrome baby. To Biden, this made Palin a hypocrite; after all, she opposes embryonic research—which, in the mind of the modern liberal, is a slam-dunk cure for everything from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to babies with Down syndrome. “If you care about it,” Biden asked Sarah Palin, “why don’t you support [embryonic] stem cell research?”

Bear in mind: This question was asked by the Catholic to the non-Catholic.

Biden also caught the bishops’ attention with his remark to Brokaw about how a public official like himself allegedly cannot “impose” his moral values on other Americans. This is one of the nonsensical claims that liberals reserve exclusively for issues like abortion. Biden’s bishop, Michael Saltarelli, was in no mood for that one, stating: “No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’ Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: ‘I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.’”

In short, Biden found himself in a firestorm. Saltarelli’s successor, W. Francis Malooly, publicly stated that he wished to sit down with the senator to help him “understand how crucial the sanctity of human life is to a just society.” Also requesting a meeting with Biden was Carl Anderson, head of the Knights of Columbus, and the entirety of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

That was merely the fall of 2008, and it was mainly just talk from Biden. Since then, Biden has helped his partner and president push an unprecedented advance of abortion, along with his Democratic Party’s handmaidens in Congress.

And so, it would be no surprise that Joe Biden might have earned himself an invitation to the Vatican—just as Nancy Pelosi apparently did two years ago.

On that, the CNA piece noted:

Biden isn’t the first senior Democrat who supports legalized abortion and is Catholic to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2009 then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also visited the Pope at the Vatican. Afterwards she claimed, “I had the opportunity to praise the Church’s leadership in fighting poverty, hunger, and global warming, as well as the Holy Father’s dedication to religious freedom and his upcoming trip and message to Israel.”

This version of events, though, was somewhat contradicted by a Vatican statement issued only hours later:

“His Holiness took the opportunity to speak of the requirements of the natural moral law and the Church’s consistent teaching on the dignity of human life from conception to natural death which enjoin all Catholics, and especially legislators, jurists and those responsible for the common good of society, to work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.”

Indeed, “somewhat contradicted” is an under-statement. Pelosi’s account was like something that had flown in from the planet Neptune.

Of course, at least with Pelosi we had some sort of record of conversation with Pope Benedict. In Biden’s case, we have nothing, not even contradictory statements. Why not?

I don’t know. I have no access to the vice president.

Could someone in our media who does have access probe a bit, perhaps asking a question or two? Maybe take a break from scouring Sarah Palin’s emails? Some of us would like to know what this meeting between Biden and Benedict was all about. And if these life issues were raised, Joe Biden has some very serious soul-searching to do. He has no excuses and will be held accountable.

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College. His books include The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

My friend Eric spotted this wonderful photo of Sean as he “narrates and records a video for his Facebook page while walking around Statuary Hall inside the U.S. Capitol Hill” earlier in the day.

I thought it particularly appropriate because of the statue of Fr. Junipero Serra in the background (note the parallel gesture). We need more brave Catholic missionaries in politics.

Sean Duffy is a Catholic father of six, 39 years young.

The future is bright.

Photo: Getty Images