John Neely Kennedy (Credit: Getty/Jonathan Bachman) Since Sen. John Neely Kennedy was elected in 2016 — no relation to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, let us assure you — journalists have had a field day with the Louisiana Republican’s uniquely colorful rhetoric. The folksy-yet-quippish member of the upper chamber has sometimes baffled his spectators, who debate whether he is simply loose-tongued or, more enticingly, a 4D-chess-playing, mastermind media manipulator.