What gets me isn’t that The Kennedys, the eight-part miniseries, has been deep-sixed by The History Channel, etc. What gets me is how stunningly awful Greg Kinnear‘s JFK voice sounds. Listen to this putz at the 40-second mark, and especially when he says “is entitled to defy the caught of lahww.” The chickenshit Vaughn Meader way he says “lahww” is dreadful. His voice is soft and sonny-boyish, not even slightly resembling the deeper pitch and timbre of the Real McCoy.

Listen to this clip of Kennedy’s 1962 U.S. Steel speech, and this one of a phone chat he had with General Eisenhower toward the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The tonal gaps between these clips and Kinnear’s imitation are embarassing. Kinnear’s JFK appearance isn’t too bad, so why didn’t they just hire some guy who can actually do Kennedy’s voice to dub him?

The miniseries is/was presumed to have a conservative mindset and a characterization of the Kennedy family that’s on the luridly critical side. The co-creator and exec producer is 24’s Joel Surnow, and if you know 24 you know where he’s coming from. Katie Holmes plays Jackie, Barry Pepper is Bobby Kennedy, and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph P. Kennedy. “This country is ours for the taking,” blah blah.