Rob Lowe’s JFK is more than credible. It’s classic, starting with his perfect JFK hair, which a generation of boys wanted to have – my generation of boys. The deadly handsome Lowe is uniquely suited to essay Jack Kennedy’s deadly cocktail of sex, drugs and power. Plus it’s not the first time he’s played a major West Wing dude. Sam Seaborn done got a promotion to the Oval Office. He wears it well.

Ginnifer Goodwin’s Jackie Kennedy underwhelms until after the assassination, when she conveys the First Lady’s dignified grief very well. It’s become clear that Jackie Kennedy is very difficult to play, given that she was moviestar beautiful and stunningly refined herself. Goodwin joins Katie Holmes in The Kennedys as recent actresses who haven’t measured up.

Will Rothhaar makes an entirely credible impression as Lee Harvey Oswald. He comes across as a naive blowhard with a chronic need to achieve greatness, first by defecting to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and then by attempting one assassination before succeeding at another.

Michelle Trachtenberg is plenty affecting as his pretty Russian wife Marina.

Others:

• Jack Noseworthy is adequate as Bobby Kennedy.
• Francis Guinan is also adequate as Lyndon Johnson.
• Casey Siemaszko portrays Jack Ruby as an emotional suck-up. It would have been good to see more about the man who shut Oswald’s mouth forever.

The second in Bill O’Reilly’s Killing series, Killing Kennedy follows Killing Lincoln from the top of the NY Times Best Seller List to the top of the TV ratings for NatGeo. It is certainly the most popular property that National Geographic’s ever handled.

Unfortunately the assassination doesn’t occur until well past the halfway point, whereas Killing Lincoln devoted the last half of its runtime to the post-assassination. Granted that there was more activity to cover in the aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination than Kennedy’s, but much of the pre-assassination section tells us things about JFK that aren’t new.

Given that one of Killing Kennedy’s virtues is that it gives us a sense of Jack Ruby, it would have been helpful to see more of him, as he quieted Oswald forever. Perhaps the historical record doesn’t afford this, which is probably the case given what an ace reporter Bill O’Reilly is. A narrator could have set all that straight, another deficiency of KK versus KL.

Killing Kennedy is credible and non sensationalized, even though it depicts the most sensational assassination of modern times. This is a considerable public service, unlike the ridiculously sensationalized and fictionalized account in Oliver Stone’s JFK. Stone has it that the assassination was a conspiracy effected by a long-running cabal. Killing Kennedy shows that to be balderdash.

O’Reilly is the master of the notable detail. For instance, when the President lands in Dallas, his plane is called Air Force Number One. The word “Number” must have been dropped sometime thereafter.

O’Reilly’s inclusion of a radio announcer describing a welcoming crowd in Dallas must salt the wounds of Left Wingers who want to blame Right Wing hate in Dallas for Kennedy’s murder. What an irony that he was killed by an ultimate Left Winger, the Communist true believer – Lee Harvey Oswald.

Lefties take pride in their sense of irony, though perhaps not this time.