RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Nice image, but spent money like a sailor on shore leave after 6 months at sea, and was pretty much an elitist.

Had a lot to put up with in her philandering husband, but she knew his tendencies before she married him.

Defined grace for America.

I was upset when i read that the blood stained pink suit from 1963 cannot be viewed by the public for the next 100 years. Oh well...life is a bitc#! Hopefully i will meet her after i pass in heaven, and see something better. Her Birthday Suit!

For weathering her husband's death with dignity and grace, she deserves a fair amount of admiration. For her post-First Lady years, she really did very little to promote the social welfare of the country. She did glamorize the role of First Lady and she deserves respect for renovating and keeping the White House in it's historic conditon (and convincing Congress to fund it). But she was hardly the greatest woman to occupy the place.

Hot, sexy and spicy. I have collages of her in my coffee table book. Fine figure and a terrific first lady. She renewed the White House into a standard that her successors have followed. I might not like her personality, but she was a good woman.

i thought she always was a class act. she played her part as the 1st lady in the way that was classy and the sign of the times. i most definitely believed she loved jfk she may have said that about not loving him. but some women dont want to admit that for fear shell look stupid and naive if she says it after shes aware of the infedilty of her husband

Jaquelyn Kennedy is what a first lady is, to dislike her is to dislike the tradition of having a first lady.

Set the standard for what we consider a model First Lady today.

Jacki O was cool. But First lady's are getting a little passe in my book though... Wouldn't it be interesting to see a First Man? (lol...)

One-star to this person. BUT...only because she had the balls to stand up to Daddy Kennedy. She was nobody's pushover. BUT...aside from that...what EXACTLY did she do for America? All I can see is that she was a young white lady who wore some nice clothes (for her day). Later in life, she shacked with Maurice Templesman who was married to someone else. I think she was a very well-bred, Sorbonne-educated, book editing, Martha's Vineyard chickenhead!

There was a lot not to like about her. She seems to have married for money, because she even admitted once in an interview that she wasn't in love with Jack. And it's a shame that when she died, she was living with another woman's husband (a woman who refused to give the man a divorce). But there was also a lot to like about Jackie. While not exactly beautiful, she was very interesting-looking, and dressed in style. I love the photo taken of her at Love Field on 11/22/63, when she shook hands with the old lady in the wheelchair. Another good thing is that she was elusive, trying to avoid the cameras instead of hogging the cameras like so many prominent people do. She campaigned as little as possible, and let us wonder what she was thinking, instead of forcing her views on everyone. Even when she was living with a married man, she didn't flaunt it, just as she never flaunted anything. Her agenda as First Lady was to decorate the White House and promote the fine arts. She didn't go around the country lecturing all of us. When she died in '94, Hillary was the First Lady, and she was a total contrast to Jackie, because Hillary was the type who tried to force herself on us. When Jackie left the White House, she quietly went home and got on with her very private life. She didn't torment us all the way to her grave, the way someone else is doing.

She was a good First Lady. She was very elegant and certainly looked the part. She also redecorated the White House. When JFK was assassinated, she bore that blow with dignity. UPDATE: She was indeed a good First Lady, but I don't like what she did with her life after JFK was killed. She was definitely a gold-digger, and to paraphrase GoneAway, she sold herself for a ritzy jet-set lifestyle. Then at the end of her life she was living with a married man. True, his wife wouldn't give him a divorce, but couldn't he have obtained his own apt? I imagine if she was still alive she would be chasing Bill Gates.

A wonderful First Lady who displayed such class that the entire world noticed and appreciated. Her tour of the White House was very informative and impressive considering the knowledge that she shared and her young age.

Married for money. Thought Papa Joe was cute - then married Ari. My God, people - in your neighborhood you'd keep your kids away from this kind of babe. Notice how many female friend she had - about zero. You don't find hornets spending a lot of time together. A climbing, phoney, invented, fruitcake. White House tours or not, this dame was tinfoil.

She brought grace, elegance and refinement to the White House, moreso than probably any other First Lady. She conducted herself with superhuman strength and dignity when the CIA/Mafia blew her husband's head off, and kept her mouth shut about what she knew for the rest of her life. Her children turned out to be much better adjusted than the other progeny of the Kennedy clan because she kept them a distance from the white trash with money ethos of the rest of the family. She suffered her husband's running around, which I guess she did for the sake of preserving her family, or playing the part of the good political wife of her time, but I would have respected her more if she severely kicked Jack in his ass. In later life, she championed charitable and cultural causes, most notably saving Snug Harbor on Staten Island from the clutches of real estate developers. She lived a quiet and respectable life following the White House, with decorum. Her highly-touted good looks are inconsequential in rating her as a First Lady, but to counter the petty comments of a brainless poster on this site: I met Mrs. Onassis face-to-face about ten years before her death and I found her to be most attractive, much better looking than her photographs. As she was already in her 50s, I'm sure she was awesome when she was in her 20s. She had a low-pitched and quiet voice that sent a chill through me. Her date that evening was the architect I.M. Pei, so she hardly consorted with goons. Compare that with Nancy Reagan, who spent a good deal of time in the company of world-class sleazeball Frank Sinatra. Jackie O was a class act, and it's a shame she cashed in a such an early age.

She was an intelligent lady and class act. Her children were the best of that generation of Kennedys. The reason is that Jackie knew the rest of the Kennedy clan were trash, and she kept her children away from them. She should be proud of how they turned out. I still mourn JFK, Jr's death.

I'm not sure why people fawn all over Jackie Kennedy. I guess we all have our opinions, based on differing criteria and experience. There is no doubt that Jackie had to suffer through a lot of pain in her life, especially the horrific death of JFK, whic she did indeed bear with dignity and stoicism. However, we're rating her as a First Lady in all of its manifestations. She damn near bankrupted her husband with her obsession for clothes, Probably spent too much redecorating the White House (but isn't the only First Lady guilty of that). She seems to have been able to get lots of attention from foreign dignitaries (I think it was Khruschev who was particularly obvious in his ogling), which may or may not have helped diplomacy along, but I think that her talent and beauty were grossly exaggerated. What few words I have heard her utter in Spanish are far from reflecting any real fluency (although the media made a big deal about her linguistic ability); I'm not sure about her French. I can tell you from direct personal observation (I lived three houses away from the Kennedys in Georgetown when he was a seanator and President-elect), she was no raving beaty. She had a lousey profile (bad jawline), and terrible complexion. She also had big feet. OK, some of this physical stuff doesn't bear directly on her performance as a First Lady, but inasmuch as other comments have praised her for her supposed great beauty, I guess it's germane to the mix here. She added a lot to the Camelot image, but I'm not sure what else she really did.

positively lovely and always dignified.

I'm not a big fan of Camelot and the whole idea of American royalty... and it's not clear to me that she and JFK had a very healthy relationship. If this were a list of photogenic First Ladies she'd score higher...

Think of everything that this women went through during her lifetime. Two of her children died at birth. Her husband made no attempt to cover up his womanizing, and when things were getting better and his womanizing seemingly halted, he was shot and killed in the most horrific way, and she was sitting right next to him. Then her second husband, Aristotle Onassis died. She raised two fine children by herself. She took the country's breath away with her beauty and elegance. Her redecorating of the White House tranformed it from a dull office building into a beautiful mansion. She lived out her elderly years as a modest publisher, staying out of public life as much as possible. She was simply mesmerizing.