Why is JFK so Revered?

[DFWdem]

There is a thread in LBN concerning most popular presidents and JFK came in at number 1.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1991204&mesg_id=1991204

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing JFK, I just don't understand why he is so highly revered in American society. He was only in office for a couple of years. Did he really make that much of a difference in the roughly 2 years he was in office, or is his popularity more a product of the Camelot mystique, handsome guy with a beautiful wife, assassinated, etc.? I know part of it is that he gave a lot of people hope during the Cold War, but for my money I'd take FDR and all of his accomplishments over JFK.

[Gman]

1. All of the above plus

his idealism of everything this country could be. Bobby too, probably more.

[TayTay]

2. His presidency ended tragically

and he died in office at a young age. That alone is a mystique that surrounds him and his legacy. He was also in office during a very tumultuous time and it is always tempting to look back at him and wonder if he would have done things the way his successor did. That's just human nature.

[wtmusic]

3. He was one of the most charming men in American history

Looks, intelligence, honesty, and...charm. He charmed not only the country but the world, and though some may consider that a superficial attribute it was an enormously powerful tool in diplomacy.

The assassination made him larger than life, like it always does. But to understand the JFK mystique, ya had to be there. It was truly astounding.

[hfojvt]

52. my dad was there

he always said that the real tragedy was that JFK wasn't President long enough to have accomplished what he could have. Then I pointed out that by 22 Nov 1963 that Kennedy had served almost 3 years of his first term, and he said "hmm. He did not accomplish very much then."

A bio says this, though:

"Soon after his inaugural, Kennedy set out his domestic program, known as the New Frontier: tax reform, federal aid to education, medical care for the aged under Social Security, enlargement of civil rights through executive action, aid to depressed areas, and an accelerated space program. He was almost immediately, however, caught up in foreign affairs crises. The first (Apr., 1961) was the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles trained and aided by the Central Intelligence Agency. Although the invasion had been planned under Eisenhower, Kennedy had approved it, and was widely criticized.

.... Kennedy established (1961) the Alliance for Progress, which provided economic assistance to Latin American countries. He also initiated the Peace Corps program, which sent U.S. volunteers to work in developing countries.

Many of Kennedy's domestic reform proposals were either killed or not acted on by Congress ..."

[FreedomAngel82]

82. And he gave people hope and was optimistic

Whenever I'm feeling down in the dumps whether it's about how things are going here or something else in life I play his old audio clips and video files. He really gave me hope and optimism in the world and he wasn't afraid or ashamed of who he was. Last week I believe Thom Hartmann played his speech about why he was a liberal and he wasn't afraid of what the critics and other side said about him. And like others said he had charm and was full of life and cared about the whole country and not just a political party.

[Jawja]

113. Yes, he was charming,

and the First Lady was beautiful and elegant. Having 2 young children in the White House also added to the intrigue. They were a handsome couple with 2 small children and that contributed a lot to their popularity.

[raccoon]

4. I agree with you on this.

Several things.

He was good-looking and had charisma.

Johnson came after him and Johnson was very unpopular. Similar to the way * makes Clinton look so good to us. (Not knocking Clinton, but he had his faults, such as signing the "welfare reform" bill.)

He died young. Is there a phrase for this mystique that grows up around public figures who die young, such as James Dean and Marilyn Monroe--and of course JFK?

[Divernan]

5. People vote for a president they actually remember.

I agree with you that FDR was the best president this country ever had, at least in the last hundred years. Lincoln rates up there too. But the video/photographic record of JFK, ending with the tragedy of his assasination is much more real to the public than what little they ever knew about FDR. Also, JFK was highly intelligent, well-spoken, diplomatic, and charming - we were proud to have him representing our country to the world. All those attractive personal qualities are greatly enhanced through the inevitable comparison with the evil clown prince.

[Mend]

6. Maybe you had to be there:

we were young and had endured the fifties, right-wing, racist, old white men like cheney running everything, sexist, religious, up-tight total bullshit with segregated busing, no women in the ivies, med or vet schools. And then along comes a young, vibrant, brilliant President with a beautiful wife. They were loved all over the world. He wasn't just worldly, he looked to the stars. He was a real war hero. He was a liberal and defended liberalism. It wasn't about power, it was about making America better. He had a great sense of humor. The kids were gorgeous, not drunken sluts. He represented the best of all of us. I loved being an American and was patriotic and so proud of our country. Maybe you had to be there.

[wtmusic]

22. yes

you summed it up perfectly :thumbsup:

[FreedomAngel82]

83. And even JFK junior did great things before he died

Caroline is still political too and is a great person. The two of them are so different from the Bush girls.

[chookie]

124. Bingo

What a sweet, short summary.

[dailykoff]

7. All that, plus he tried to take apart the CIA.

They got him first, not that he didn't know they'd try. The daredevil Kennedy's. I think that's the appeal.

[FreedomAngel82]

84. And something that's so amazing to me

is how the rightwingers are still after all these years so afraid of Teddy. Why? Why are they still so threatned by him? :shrug: They have to make sure people know he's a "crazy left-wing liberal" and not to listen to him. I wonder why he still has a hold on them. It pisses me off when they continue to bring up his crash. Of course, I just bring up Laura's little crash and that usually works.

[YOY]

8. Among other things mentioned here

First and only non-WASP president to this date (Roman Catholic Irish.)

Created the Navy SEALS and the Peace Corps.

The assassination and being a young and well-liked president add to the mystique true,,,

[Democrat 4 Ever]

15. All of the above but mainly he made us believe that all things

were possible. Not just for rich guys, not just for rich white guys, but that our country stood for all things fair and good and just. You could literally feel a change, an electricity coming over the country. After the decade of McCarthyism fear mongering, turning in your neighbors, red scare, Ozzie and Harriet myopic view of America you could feel it in the air that things would be better for all citizens. How a rich, white man from one of the elitist families in the country managed to do that is a wonder but he did. When he said we would be on the moon within 10 years - no one doubted it but just got busy doing it.

It was the ideal that we, as a country, could do great things for all people. And people the world over was grateful for the US for trying. We were the good guys.

The exact opposite is what is felt by the country and the world today.

[FreedomAngel82]

86. He created the navy seals?

Did he really?

[YOY]

92. His administration did...1/1/61

http://www.specwarnet.com/americas/SEALs.htm

and of course the Peace Corps.

Two weapons against communism, one of peace one of war.

[stevedeshazer]

103. I was about to point out that on 1/1/61, Ike was still president

Then I read your link and saw that it was actually 1/1/62. :)

[YOY]

146. Sorry! Miswrote/misread! n/t

[bmbmd]

9. Once there was a shining glimpse of glory

called Camelot.

[Touchdown]

10. He was a visionary.

He had the vision to see what we could do when we put our minds to it, thus a man on the Moon. And we suprised ourselves that we did accomplish that. Back in 1961, it was considered an impossibility with the technology of the time.

I credit him for ending the Cold War with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The SOviets started to negotiate after that. Reagan was just standing on the corner when it all came apart...of course taking credit.

Many other things, but also the fact that he was assasinated elevated all of his qualities higher than probably deserved, but that's the way it is. Theres an adage for this.... It's always easier to love someone who's dead. They make so few mistakes.

[B Calm]

66. Exactly! He made us proud to be Americans!

[serryjw]

97. All the above

We were so proud to be Americans in turbulent times. I was 12 during the Cuban Missile Crisis and it was a water shed for me. He handled it brilliantly. We didn't know until a few years ago HOW CLOSE we came to WW III

quote....
The blockade of Cuba worked, the crisis passed and LeMay bitterly criticised Kennedy for not allowing an invasion of Cuba. As Macnamara put it, '...after Krushcev had agreed to remove the missiles President Kennedy invited the chiefs to the White House so that he could thank them for their support during the crisis and there was one hell of a scene. LeMay came out saying, "We lost! We aught to just go in there today and knock 'em off!"

At a conference in 1989 in Moscow to discuss the crisis it was revealed C.I.A. 'intelligence' of only conventional capability in Cuba could not have been more wrong. The Cubans had 20 nuclear warheads for their R-12 ballistic missiles which could have reached Washington quite easily. There were also 9 tactical nuclear missiles that Soviet commanders in Cuba were delegated power to use. Neither class of weapon needed orders from Moscow to be fired. Any attempt to invade Cuba as was being pressed for by LeMay and Power would have been disastrous.

end quote........
God Bless JFK's soul...he truly did save us!


quote........
In the fall of 1962, Huchthausen (Hostile Waters) was a junior navy officer on the USS Blandy, a Forrest Sherman class destroyer; he and his fellow crew members were center stage during the Cuban missile crisis as they confronted Soviet submarines and merchant ships off the coast of Cuba. The submarines were equipped with nuclear-tipped torpedoes and had been given secret orders to use those new and virtually untested weapons if American forces attacked them or if American submarine-hunting destroyers forced them to the surface.
end quote.........
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0792729048/104-9248865-0042317?st=%2A&v=glance&n=283155

[Touchdown]

168. Thanks for the history. I was born 2 years after his assasination.

So all I have are history books and that Kevin Costner movie to go on. Seeing it through the eyes of somebody who experienced it helps my understanding.:hi:

[calico1]

11. He was young, handsome, charming

but he also had a bold vision for the future. He set his sights high and challenged all Americans to reach higher. He was like a breath of fresh air after many long, dark years for Americans. I do believe that had he lived longer he might not have been remembered so fondly. Surely he would have made more mistakes and age would have taken some of the glow away from him. But there is something about a person being cut down before their time. You wonder what might have been and how different the world might be. I think that is the difference between remembering him and FDR. FDR was great but he was on his way down as far as health went. He lived a long life. So you can remember him in the context of what he achieved in his whole life, rather than wonder what might have been had he lived a full life. This is why the memory of JFK is both warm and haunting for a lot of us.

[starroute]

12. I was very disillusioned with Kennedy before he died

I don't even remember the details at this point -- just that by the end of his first year in office, I had soured on him greatly and was extremely depressed in general about the possibility of things ever getting any better in the world.

When he was shot, I made a vow to myself that no matter how caught up I became in the emotions of the moment, I would never let myself forget how betrayed I'd been feeling before that. And I haven't.

Funny that I can't remember the details though. Perhaps we all need to refresh our memories of the events of 1962-63.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

63. Outside of the extreme rightwing of both political parties....

...and the senior ranks of both the military and CIA, I don't remember anyone being disappointed in JFK or his policies.

JFK was assumed the presidency at a very difficult time in Cold War history. He had been left with the anti-Castro Cuban activities planned by the military, the CIA, and Nixon; the military presence in Vietnam, and the increasing pressure in our relationships with the Soviet Union. Additionally, Big Oil was applying pressure to JFK to return their tax exemptions.

Somehow, JFK managed to get through his first year relatively intact, and made himself look good to the rightwingers during the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962. Shortly before he was killed, he wrote and signed NSAM 263 on October 12, 1963, which authorized the removal of the first 1000 troops in Vietnam.

I think you really should go back and try to unearth some specifics on why you personally felt disppointed by JFK's first year.

[CTyankee]

68. Oh no, you are forgetting how Texas hated him

For sure, he had enemies. There was that rumor that when a classroom of children in a Dallas school heard JFK had been shot, there was loud applause and cheers. Don't know if that is true, but I do know the Republicans loathed him, and in Texas specifically.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

78. They were included in the far rightwing of both parties....

...I was in a classroom in St. Pete, Florida when the news of JFK's assassination was announced over the intercom. About 1/3 of the class...all kids of military families...stood and cheered. I was pretty shocked by that behavior. That was my first real exposure to the kind of rightwing thinking that exists in America.

[FreedomAngel82]

87. How horrible!!

Oh gosh. How horrible!! Even though I despise all the Bush men I wouldn't cheer that they were dead. First I'd be in shock and than worry but I wouldn't be cheering even though I hate them.

[doubleplusgood]

123. a girl from Texas in my 5th grade class

in Burbank, CA was giggling with glee at the prospect of a Texan, LBJ, becoming president in the wake of JFK's assassination. What is it with Texas ?

[OzarkDem]

131. Mostly over civil rights

Many southerners and rural voters disliked him for his civil rights policies and interference in trying to integrate schools and universities in the south. Shows how extreme things were back then - Kennedy's policies in this area were actually pretty mild.

[Fla Dem]

142. Yes, there was a very large group of the population who despised

him. I grew up in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Saw a lot of the Kennedy's in parades, and my Dad brought me to a church breakfast when JFK was speaking during his campaign. I helped pass out fliers and buttons. I was in high school when he was assassinated. A group of WASP girls (yes they were in the Boston suburbs)knew I had been a Kennedy supporter. After the announcement and one of them said,"Good, your Catholic President is dead." That is something that has stuck with me for all these years.

But he and Jackie were an inspiration to most of the country and they were loved overseas. There were those that could not get over the relgious thing, and the die hard RWer's that hated any Democrat as President. You also have to remember he really was the first to start pushing for civil rights. LBJ picked up where Kennedy left off, but a lot of southerners and other "Americans" hated Kennedy for that.

[NNadir]

13. JFK is possibly one of the most overrated Presidents in history.

His historical reputation is mostly derived from people claiming what he "would have done," replete with the listing of all kinds of "clues." If he hadn't been shot, his administration may have fallen apart, especially if his personal behavior came to light.

Kennedy doesn't hold a candle to FDR, or to Truman, or to even Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter. Their names should not even be mentioned in the same sentence. I note that Eleanor Roosevelt, the greatest Democrat of the twentieth century, abhorred the entire Kennedy clan and only campaigned for JFK out of a deep sense of party loyalty, and even then with a sense of very strained reluctance. She was extremely disappointed in the Kennedy administration during which she died. That's saying quite a bit, because I'm sure she didn't expect much.

Kennedy was a cold warrior from a long line of cold warriors. He was the only Democratic Senator in the Senate who did NOT vote to censure Joesph McCarthy, who was by the way, the Godfather of one of Robert Kennedy's children. He damn near stumbled - through basic incompetence - into nuclear war and he put together the "brain trust" that would stumble into Vietnam. He was at best recalcitrant on Civil Rights and at worst, hostile to them.

Basically his entire regime was closer in outlook to Bush's than many people realize. Both JFK and Bush were synthetic leaders created by their father's power and prestige; neither had very much real experience and both benefited from a Press that was overly willing to "look the other way." Both elevated putative "charm" over substance. Both had the extremely bad behavior of their youth smoothed over and both were mostly comfortable with members of their own class. Kennedy though, at least, had actually participated in war, and was somewhat less self-serving. Kennedy was probably also not so much as a sociopath as Bush is. Kennedy was also far more forthright. His accepting responsibility for the Bay of Pigs was something that Bush would have been constitutionally incapable of doing.

FDR, like Kennedy and Bush, came from privilege; however his background was tempered by a keen intellect (which Kennedy was lacking) and the experience of polio that exposed him to the trials of the sick and poor. The polio gave him direct experience of what it is like to overcome powerful adversity. It also helped FDR that he was married to Eleanor, who was orphaned at a young age when her father died of alcoholism, and who as part of her upbringing, privileged though it was, found herself engaged in social work with some of the poorest people in New York, an experience that never left her and which she never betrayed.

[msongs]

18. LBJ did the heavy lifting after JFK died

civil rights and all that was stalled and nearly DOA in congress until LBJ became president and used the
emotional state of the nation to push through the civil rights act and other social legislation, much of which
may have foundered if JFK had still been pres.

There is a famous quote along the lines of "die young and leave a good looking corpse." JFK was the first
popular TV president.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[wtmusic]

41. Yep, averting an imminent nuclear war...

that's lightweight stuff :eyes:

[GCP]

89. EXACTLY

You are the only poster who's mentioned the Cuba Missile Crisis. I lived through that and we went to school one day in October 1962 not knowing whether we'd be at war with the USSR by evening - and living in the UK, we had a four minute warning unlike your 30 mins here.
Kennedy refused to listen to the hawks who were all for bombing and invading Cuba, which would have tipped us into WWlll - every historian agrees with that point.
If Shrub had been in charge you could be sure there'd be nothing much left but a smoking radioactive cinder going around the sun.

[OzarkDem]

132. Don't forget James Meredith

Kennedy federalized the National Guard and sent them into the U of Miss to stop the rioting when James Meredith tried to enroll there.

Some of Kennedy's actions may seem mild in comparison to later changes, but it requires some perspective. Kennedy was the first to break down many of these barriers and challenge the status quo. As president, he had to proceed with some caution. The doors he opened paved the way for many of the successes of later presidents, including Johnson. (Too bad Johnson didn't follow his lead on Vietnam).

[cmkramer]

171. Oddly enough

Meredith ended up becoming a conservative Republican.

[against all enemies]

141. The way he did it was. He backed USSR into a corner. Lucky it

didn't explode in his face.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

161. The Soviet Union did not yet have missiles they....

...could launch from the mainland USSR that could strike the U. S. The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles on Cuba, but they would have been destroyed by U. S. warplanes before they could have been launched. There was nothing on that island that could move without being spotted.

Additionally, there were only eight Soviet Hotel class nuclear subs capable of firing nuclear missiles in 1962. Here is more on this subject:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_class_submarine>

QUOTE:

"The Hotel design was based on the Project 627 November class, the first nuclear Soviet submarines, modified by adding the missile compartment from the Golf class submarines. Additionally, the Hotels had small horizontal hydroplanes for better maneuverability, and more reliable electrohydraulic command control surfaces for high-speed underwater operations with reduced noise. The D-2 launch system on the Hotels placed three R-13 missiles in vertical containers directly behind the sail. The submarine had to be surfaced to launch, but all three missiles could be fired within 12 minutes of surfacing.

The first Hotel submarine, the infamous K-19, was laid down on October 17, 1958. The last of the eight Hotel submarines was launched November 12, 1960. All of them were built at the shipyard in Severodvinsk, Russia. The eight Hotels were K-16, K-19, K-33, K-40, K-55, K-145, K-149 (Ukrainsky Komsomolets), and K-178."

The R-13 missiles had a range of just 300 miles. That means they had to get very close to the U. S. coast to be able to hit their targets, and they had to surface to be able to launch them. That placed the subs in extreme peril from U. S. planes on patrol and U. S. subs shadowing the Soviet subs.

The units that posed the greatest threat were the small nukes mounted on tactical-range missiles that had been delivered to Cuba completely unknown to U. S. intelligence. They also had Soviet crews, and unlike all other Soviet nuclear weapon systems, the commanders had been given local control to use those weapons. The U. S. had put together an invasion fleet that would have been given the green light to invade Cuba if the missile crisis had gotten too far out of hand. That fleet would have been at the mercy of those tactical nukes...a disaster that would have far exceeded the Bay of Pigs fiasco. That would have most certainly triggered a rather one-sided and short nuclear war. Of course, that was in the days when scientists had not yet discovered the effects of a nuclear winter.

[dailykoff]

19. Closer in outlook to Bush?

I'd recommend looking a little deeper. Their ideologies are completely antithetical. Bush is a creature of the intelligence industry and Kennedy deeply mistrusted it. And the Kennedy were/are isolationists, not cold warriors. And I'm afraid Eleanor's behavior at the 1960 convention reflects rather badly on her legacy.

[NNadir]

30. You take the make believe "missile gap" as evidence of not being

cold warriors? The placement of nuclear missiles in Turkey?

That "missile gap" from the 1960 campaign represents the first bullshit claim of "weapons of mass destruction." It didn't exist.

How about Joseph Kennedy's promise to the Republican leadership in 1960 that "no son of mine will abandon Vietnam?"

Many modern histories reflecting on the personal warmth between Kennedy and Nixon, note that it derived from their shared cold war ideology.

If you really want a view of the other side of this whole cold war fiasco of the Kennedy administration, I recommend Sergei Khrushchev's memoir of his father, "Khrushchev on Khrushchev." (Sergei Khrushchev now resides in the United States where he is a professorial polymath.) In it you can get a pretty clear picture of the belligerence of the United States in the Kennedy era.

Actually the Kennedy fear of intelligence services - which certainly did not include a fear of the CIA, which it used to engineer the assassination of Diem and the failed Bay of Pigs amateurish foible - was largely focused on the FBI. The fear was personal and not institutional. Some people think that the main reason for this was that J. Edgar Hoover had a pretty titillating file on the Kennedys and was blackmailing them. This was the time that the FBI was closely monitoring Martin Luther King for his "communist" connections. The Kennedy's were scared shitless by Hoover and he was given full reign to begin behaving like an independent Gestapo.

Eleanor Roosevelt's behavior at the 1960 convention - quixotic as it may have been in trying to get a third Stephenson nomination - enhances her reputation. She fought for what she believed. She stuck to her abhorrence of Joseph McCarthy and she behaved exactly as I would have done. Left to a choice between Nixon and Kennedy she also did what I would have done, but her last two years must have been very painful to her.

I stand by my other contentions as well.

[dailykoff]

38. No, I wouldn't take Sergei Khrushchev's word as gospel,

or Eleanor's either. They both had axes to grind as did plenty of well-to-do Americans who felt their precious privileges threatened by the Kennedys. For what it's worth, Joe Kennedy was an isolationist going back to WWII; in fact that's why he left FDR's administration. And Edward Kennedy is the only U.S. Senator to my knowledge calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, and that was a year ago.

[NNadir]

44. Well, I will say that Ted grew up some. His long adolescence has been

over for some time.

Although he certainly was in no way qualified tempermentally, intellectually or otherwise for the Senate in 1962 - and used family connections alone much as any Bush would do - Ted Kennedy has grown up to some extent and actually has begun to behave in a fashion more consistent with the big myth of the Kennedy clan. It may be too little too late. He probably didn't help very much to prevent the seating of training school for the Neocons - the Reagan administration - when he chose to run against the sitting President and (later) Nobel Peace Laureate Jimmy Carter, but in Ted's defense, he's nowhere near as dubious and malign as his overly elevated brothers.

Thanks for recalling Joe Kennedy's tacit support for Hitler. This draws yet another parallel between the Kennedy and Bush family. Both had progenitors that certainly were not notable for their gut opposition to Nazism.

[dailykoff]

57. You left out Marilyn and Mary Jo.

Or were you getting to them? :eyes:

[OzarkDem]

133. JFK and his father

didn't have the same opinions about Hitler, the Cold War, Vietnam or capitalism. JFK became his own man.

[WinkyDink]

90. Oh, wait; the son of Khruschev is unbiased?

The Bay of Pigs was all Eisenhower/Nixon.
The involvement in the assassination of Diem is a canard based on known-to-be forged cablegrams.

Sometimes we forget that 1960 was a mere 15 years after the end of WWII. Yes, that would naturally have shaped JFK's outlook (Joe and Kathleen dead, his father recalled as Ambassador, his own PT-109 accident and aftermath), both about Fascists and Communists.

And African-Americans as a voting bloc turned from the party of Lincoln to the Dems after JFK lent his ear to MLK, Jr., in Birmingham jail (presaged by Eisenhower's stand in Little Rock), and Asst. A.G. Katzenbach's mano-a-mano with Gov. Wallace.

I admired Adlai; who could not? JFK obviously did, as well (U.N. Ambassador). But let's face it; he was not the type or style of man to get elected President. Not of this country.

[NNadir]

115. Actually Dr. Sergei Khrushchev is a well respected intellectual.

He is a professor of International Studies at Brown University and a widely respected speaker and lecturer. He was also a very important aerospace engineer in the Soviet Union - and obtained and maintained his position there independent of his father's political connections. His balance and insight are widely respected throughout the world, and his obvious love for his father does not translate into uncritical praise. Dr. Khrushchev undertook great personal risk to prevent his father's memoirs, which represent important historical documents, from being destroyed, and also to bring them to the West where they were authenticated and published. He reports forthrightly that he disagreed with his father on many issues.

His work is probably more balanced than ninety-five percent of the apologist bullshit for the right wing Kennedy administration that I'm reading here.

Before becoming an internationally known political scientist focusing upon and researching Russo-American affairs, Dr. Khrushchev was one of the leading Soviet computer scientists, working extensively on the guidance systems in the Soviet space and defense programs.

http://www.fairfield.edu/x1797.xml

In short, Dr. Khrushchev has impeccable credentials as a scientist and thinker. He is a true polymath of a type too rarely seen in the world these days. Please tell me so I'm aware, with which Kennedy one should associate the word impeccable. Which of them is a polymath? Which one has demonstrated first order skills in three or four different disciplines?

Dr. Khrushchev obviously wouldn't fit in the Kennedy family. He has no known proclivity for partying and carrying on like an adolescent. He is, again, an intellectual. I don't think there is one Kennedy with a doctorate in any subject, unless of course they award doctorates in drinking and being arrested. To my knowledge there is not one Kennedy who qualifies as an intellectual, even among the modern set.

The fact is that the Kennedy family is our Bush family. In a time of global climate change, this is the kind of business the Kennedys are still in: http://www.capewind.org/

Talk about self-serving rich boy claptrap.

[dailykoff]

116. LOL. Who do you think is propping up this little stunt?

Self-serving rich boys, alright--the ones who hate the Kennedys. It has all the earmarks of a right wing scam.

[NNadir]

119. What are you referring to as a stunt, Cape Wind?

[dailykoff]

120. Yes.

I find it hard to believe that this very well-funded campaign to discredit Mr. Kennedy is some kind of innocent energy scheme.

[NNadir]

127. Kennedy is opposing a wind farm because it ruins the view of rich

people. He wrote a full page op ed piece in the NYTimes.

Nobody forced him to do that. It is all rich boy NIMBY.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=36905&mesg_id=36940

Apparently his family's views are more important that the survival of the planet.

I guess in the Kennedy religion anything a Kennedy says is great because he's a Kennedy.

Well guess what? People build wind farms because our planet needs greenhouse gas free energy options. They don't sit around and propose these things to "get" a dumb Kennedy.

[dailykoff]

134. ...and John Kerry is no war hero.

Notice the similarities?

[NNadir]

139. No. I don't understand what Kerry has to do with the Kennedys.

I suppose that the new tack is that if some criticizes his holiness, John Kennedy, for being a right winger, one must be a right winger. Is that the point?

Kerry's daddy didn't make Kerry.

[dailykoff]

144. The point is that if you're inclined to believe their lies

they're happy to tell you what you want to hear.

[NNadir]

150. My we're rather credulous aren't we? Kennedy = liberalism? OOO Boy!

I suppose Eleanor Roosevelt was a right winger too? She had a low opinion of John F. Kennedy rather like my own.

I suppose in your exalted opinion Seymour Hersh is a right winger, since he doesn't buy into the Kennedy myth?

There is nothing funnier than religious posturing. Look, Kennedy as liberal hero is not fair to liberalism, or really to the cold warrior Kennedy.

For the record, I was not happy about Kerry's war hero carrying on - I was a Deaner and I was consistently against the war way back when Kerry was voting for it. That said, just as Eleanor Roosevelt put aside her objections to the right wing Kennedy and supported the ticket, so did I.

I supported John Kerry in the general election because I thought he was changing with the times. I still think so. Even so, I'm not going to support any nominee in the primaries who is a Kennedy clone - a right winger in a left leaning party.

Sorry - I don't do dogma.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

162. This post proves that you haven't read anything about JFK's....

...liberalism that has been discussed throughout this thread.

Sounds like you're only interested in the rightwing version of this story.

[NNadir]

172. Nonsense. I have been reading about JFK for years, with horror.

I fully reject the notion that cold war bullshit foisted by Kennedy is anything like liberalism. What I am reading here is a bunch of crap about how the cold war was justified, which is not consistent with my liberal ideology...All kinds of irrelevant (really) crap about Stalin...Insipid comments about photo-ops, etc.

Here's a clue bub: John F. Kennedy made a calculation that he should risk nuclear war. I'll try to help you through this, but anyone who even comes close to nuclear war is a loser. Do you really believe that we should admire someone who takes such an option seriously? Who allows himself to come close to it? Do you really believe that the existence of life on earth was worth whatever the fuck was going on in Cuba?

Do you have any idea what nuclear war even is?

Would the American flag have flown any higher above vaporized cities if Kennedy had failed in his school boy game of chicken?

I don't buy the simplistic bullshit that the Cuban Missile Crisis was a total function of good guy US freedom lovers and big bad guy Soviet expansionists. I don't believe that the Russians loved their children any less than we did. There were, in fact, two sides to the story. There always is.

Here's a clue, the cold war was not justified. It was unnecessary, but the Kennedys and their apologists just don't fucking get it. Kennedy was a low life prep school boy in over his tiny little head. The Cuban Missile Crisis should not have happened in the first place.

Get it?

I didn't think so.

Again, I'm an Eleanor Roosevelt democrat, not some airhead who thinks that getting shot, or stumbling out of a crisis that one should have never stumbled into in the first place makes for a great President.

Let me help you again. If fucking George Bush, like Kennedy another weak minded prep school boy in over his head, stumbles out of the war in Iraq without totally destroying the US, he will not become a hero. He will still be an idiot who made a terrible mistake. So it is with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[dailykoff]

149. p.s. your crack about "the Kennedy religion"

gives away the game. I had a hunch it was something like that.

[NNadir]

151. I am an atheist. I don't have any gods. Including John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy wasn't much of a Catholic, I'd guess. Like everything else about him it was in name only.

[dailykoff]

153. You could do worse.

And every god has his detractors, including some rather well known ones.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

163. LOL. Whatever you say.

[madmunchie]

177. You know you could pull anybody apart with little effort

There may be some truth in some of what you have stated. Nobody is perfect. Kennedy's whole package is what so many of the American People loved. He made mistakes, as every President has. Many choose to focus on those faults and then add their own "spin" to them. You can think what you want, but MOST people who also know Kennedy's history don't agree with your thoughts on him. So enjoy your lonely opinions.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

65. Hmmm. You hit just about all of the rightwing positions on JFK.

137. a nice portrait of Kennedy

People like to paint people as all good or bad, but I think you painted a picture that shows his many shades.

[depakid]

160. I agree with most of this except for the Cuban misssle crisis

That process is still studied extensively today in graduate Public Administration classes as a method to avoid group think and as a model for proficient decision making, particularly under conditions of high dtress.

[DistressedAmerican]

14. Killed.

Bush would be treated the same way if a lone gunman caught up with him. That is why I am pulling for the bolt of lightening from on high. Act of God you know!

[wtmusic]

24. The way we all revere William McKinley? nt

[calico1]

26. Exactly. n/t

[NNadir]

34. Even Warren G. Harding was revered after his death in office.

True story.

The truth about Harding came out in history, and was about as delayed as the truth about Kennedy.

[DistressedAmerican]

35. Thank You.

A little history always provides perspective.

[wtmusic]

36. Not even close

As a matter of fact, history regarded Harding in opposite terms:

"Due to a number of scandals involving others in his administration, after his death Harding gained a reputation as being one of America's least successful presidents.
<>
Some recent writers, however, have come to different conclusions about Harding's place in history."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Harding

[NNadir]

47. I was referring to the immediate response, not the long term response.

There was wide spread grief and mourning for Harding immediately after his death.

http://obits.com/hardingwarreng.html

http://www.raabcollection.com/detail.aspx?cat=2&subcat=35&man=362

After leaving Alaska, he was unwell in Vancouver. In Seattle he read his speech listlessly and appeared confused, then pronounced himself “exhausted.” The decision was taken to go immediately to San Francisco and stay for a few days of rest. On the way there Harding was breathless, uncomfortable and breathing heavily. His usually high blood pressure had dropped, and an examination disclosed that his heart was dilated and he had congestive heart failure. He was rushed to a suite in the Palace Hotel upon arrival, where his heart problem worsened. On August 2 the President was dead of a heart attack.

The nation was plunged into mourning. As the president's ceremonial procession traveled from San Francisco to Washington, D.C., the New York Times said, "The public's response is the most remarkable expression of affection, respect and reverence in U.S. history."

Here is a photo of Harding's funeral procession:



http://cgi.ebay.com/1923-WARREN-HARDING-PRESIDENT-US-FUNERAL-PHOTO-SOLDIERS_W0QQitemZ7734814006QQcategoryZ33779QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

After some time upon retrospection, historians revised their opinion, rating Harding consistently as one of the worst Presidents, of a stature reserved for Buchanan, Pierce and Nixon. Of course that low standard has been recently shattered, but that is for future historians, should historians continue to exist.

[wtmusic]

51. The response to a death in office

is fairly consistent in the short term. But if you're waiting for JFK's legacy to fail like Harding's, it ain't gonna happen. Ever. (see post #43)

[NNadir]

53. I didn't say Kennedy was as bad as Harding. With Harding, he is probably

in the lower third tier of US Presidents, but no, he is nowhere near as Buchanan, Pierce, Harding, Bush I and Bush II.

As your post #43 points out, he was great at window dressing, limited in accomplishment but great at window dressing.

I note while remarking on his Civil Rights stand that he was sitting a few blocks away watching television while Martin Luther King made one of the great political speeches of all time, the "I Have a Dream" speech. What great leadership Kennedy showed on Civil Rights!

I note that preventing a situation from getting further out of control that you yourself caused through inept incompetence, and here I am referring to the Cuban Missile Crisis, is hardly a paradigm for greatness. He managed to push back from the precipice against some who wanted to go over it, but he shouldn't have been playing on the cliffs in the first place. His need for on the job training was appalling. The Vienna summit with Khrushchev and Kennedy certainly was a low point in Presidential diplomacy until modern times, but of course recently records for inept Presidential diplomacy have been shattered, so Kennedy's relative stature should go up.

[wtmusic]

55. wow

So now we're blaming the Cuban Missile crisis on Kennedy's "inept incompetence"? The Soviet's installation of nukes within 90 miles of Miami is now Kennedy's fault, as is JFK's failure to win over an endearing figure like Nikita Kruschev?

Your opinion of the man seems to be largely based on Kennedy not being on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the right time and little else that's factual. Whatever.

[NNadir]

58. Um, maybe you're unaware of US missile placements in Turkey?

Soviet archives are pretty clear that the Soviets were encouraged to be aggressive in response to aggressive American moves with respect to the placement of missiles in Turkey, and to the perception -obtained at the Vienna summit that Kennedy was such an intellectual lightweight that he must be a front for American military leadership.

You may choose to believe that my criticism is wholly dependent on Kennedy's location during the march on Washington, but like most Kennedy worshipers, your are hearing only what you want to hear. My opinion of Kennedy is based on the facts. I didn't make these things up, of course. Thomas Reeves covers the facts - and he is more balanced than I am inclined to be - in his biography "A Question of Character." Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winner who hardly constitutes a Neocon, also wrote about Kennedy's character, or lack of character, in "The Dark Side of Camelot," and Kessler explored the ethics and character of the Kennedy family in "Sins of the Father." (I note that there are still plenty of Kennedy scandals still to suggest that this family had some major issues in dysfunction.)

However, the fact is that Kennedy watched the March on Washington on television. The onus is upon anyone who wishes to claim his nonexistent leadership on Civil Rights to explain that. Tough, but true. Or are you saying that he stayed home and watched TV because he thought that Martin Luther King wasn't doing the job right and he was planning to do better, but was prevented from doing so by assassination? Give me a break. If he were such a staunch supporter of Civil Rights, why not appear at a major event in the history of the Civil Rights movement? (The actual case was that the Kennedy's tried to prevent the march, since it would put them in a difficult spot with southern segregationists like James Eastland.) Was his back out again? These Freedom Riders are hardly sympathetic to the Kennedy performance during the Civil Rights protests: http://www.crmvet.org/faq/faqpres.htm This link by the way is direct history from people directly involved.

Kennedy did NOT withdraw troops from Vietnam, and Diem WAS assassinated in September of 1963 with CIA covert support. He also worked to assassinate Castro, all that exploding cigar shit and the like. In fact CIA excesses, at least until the Bush administration, reached their apotheosis in the Kennedy era. All of this is well established to anyone who looks into the matter - most having come to light after the Freedom of Information Act became law.

Kennedy DID run for election as President on the basis of a claim of a nonexistent missile gap.

Kennedy DID have sexual relationships with a number of women who placed him a position to compromise both domestic and international security.

And Kennedy was largely a creation of his father. On his own, he was distractable, amoral, and lacking in both seriousness and gravitas, ambitious for power, but not for the power to change to world for the better, but power for power's own sake.

The Kennedys are the generally the subject of hagiography, not biography. People seem to forget that the assistant council (under Roy Cohn, early neo-Nazi) to Joseph McCarthy's blacklisting Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was none other but the young hack lawyer Robert F. Kennedy. This is easily verifiable, and most people ignore it because it doesn't conform to the god-like status as liberals conferred upon the Kennedy clan by rote acceptance of this martyrdom tripe.

In fact Kennedy was one of the more prominent Democratic Supporters of the so called "Communist Control Act" outlawing the communist party. He also prominently worked with Republicans to criticize the Truman administration for "losing China," said loss being just so much more right wing bullshit. His pre-1960 career is very much attached to the right wing of the Democratic Party of his day - and is entirely consistent with the cold warrior mentality that characterized his father and, indeed, his entire family up to the day Kennedy was installed in the White House in one of the most dubious elections (exceeded only by 2000 and 1876) in US history.

I leave you with this gem, which is readily available on the internet, relayed by Kennedy's friend and family operative, Charles Spalding, quoting Kennedy when he avoided the McCarthy censure vote:

"You know, when I get downstairs I know exactly what's going to happen. Those reporters are going to lean over my stretcher. There's going to be about ninety-five faces bent over me with great concern, and everyone of those guys is going to say, 'Now Senator, what about McCarthy?' Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to reach back for my back and I'm just going to yell 'Oow' and then I'm going to pull the sheet over my head and hope we can get out of there."

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk2.htm

So much for the "great liberal" President. John F. Kennedy should not be anyone's liberal hero. He was pretty much a right winger.

[wtmusic]

64. Um, no

I just believe your interpretation (or re-interpretation, rather) of history is out to lunch.

I don't give a flying fuck if Kennedy was a dysfunctional father or a faithful husband. That's not the issue here, and your dragging it into the equation proves you're merely trying to cast aspersions. If you're going to base the value of the man to this country on that, then you obviously agree with the decision to impeach Clinton. I don't.

Regarding civil rights your analysis is, again, without a stitch of historical perspective. I'm sure you're one of the people who curse Lincoln for his statements in tolerance of slavery while failing to acknowledge that no man did more to end it. In the 60's the Kennedy's (Jack and Bobby) job was not only to advance the cause of black people--it was to hold together a nation which was splitting apart at the seams. That accomplishment was nothing short of genius.

Is "losing China" so much more "right-wing" bullshit? Maybe not...they're certainly not a pillar of human rights today, now are they? And in historical perspective (that term keeps coming up) with the Soviets gobbling up countries left and right, much of the country--not just McCarthyites--were concerned not so much about the spread of communism but the spread of the Soviet Union. Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Albania, Hungary -- all fell to Stalin within ten years of when they fell to another famous despot.

In 20/20 hindsight it's easy to dismiss the American reaction to Soviet expansionism as a bunch of hysterical rightwingers, or to castigate JFK for not singlehandedly ending the war in Vietnam (we'll ignore the fact that Johnson expanded our presence tenfold). Stalin, who was responsible for an estimated 40 million deaths, was equally as bent on owning the world as Hitler, and the only thing that prevented the Soviet Union from expanding farther was mutually-assured destruction. We're not talking about "maybe" having WMD's--we're talking about ICBMs on a hairtrigger and B-52s aloft with H-bombs 24 hours a day. This is shit that made 9/11 look like afternoon tea, and you're expecting Kennedy to convince the country there's no threat?

Without historical perspective facts are useless.

[NNadir]

118. Oh, please. Your argument is completely absurd.

I think, by the way, that maybe, just maybe the Chinese had something to do with events in China. The Kennedy contention was not that there was a difficult war in China, or a complex history complicated by events stretching back thousands of years was unfolding in an intractable fashion. Kennedy was claiming that Truman lost China. Where the fuck did this lightweight think that Truman lost China? Did he look under the bed in the Lincoln bedroom when he got in the White House?

I'll bet I know about 9,000 times more than you do on the subject of Abraham Lincoln, who by the way, I regard as the greatest President in US history. Your mention of the two men in the same breath shows that you really don't grasp much about the types of men these represented.

Lincoln had principles. He ran his government with intensity and insight with the clear goal of those principles always in sight. He felt himself compelled to triangulate many times, and he was often subtle, too subtle for his less skilled critics maybe, but he accomplished an important goal - and as Gary Wills notes in his elegant work, "Lincoln at Gettysburg" - in so doing transformed American culture in a way that up until his time, seemed impossible. He did this using great political skills, humility, patience, self control and total devotion during nearly every waking moment of his last 5 years to the successful outcome of his country.

Kennedy, on the other hand, had no principles, other than to elevate himself to power and to maintain his office.

Your weak arguments about "historical perspective" are appalling. There were many people speaking forcefully for Civil Rights in the 1950's and 1960's, including, as I mentioned earlier, Eleanor Roosevelt. I note that Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939(!?!) while she was first lady because the DAR refused the right of the famous African American singer Marian Anderson to sing at Constitutional hall because of her race. Kennedy was acting over 23 years later and still showed not a stitch of courage on the subject. Humbert Humphrey - who would later be a Presidential candidate and who almost defeated Nixon for a second time - made a stirring Civil Rights Speech in 1948.

To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say to them we are 172 years late!

To those who say, to those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of state's rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!

People, people--human beings--this is the issue of the 20th century. People of all kinds, all sorts of people, and these people are looking to America for leadership, and they're looking to America for precept and example.

My good friends--my fellow Democrats--I ask you for calm consideration of our historic opportunity.

Let us not forget--let us do forget--the evil passions, the blindness of the past. In these times of world economic, political, and spiritual--above all spiritual--crisis, we cannot--we must not--turn from the path so plainly before us. That path has already lead us though many valleys of the shadow of death. Now is the time to recall those who were left on that path of American freedom.

For all of us here, for the millions who have sent us, for the whole two-billion members of the human family--our land is now, more than ever before, the last best hope on earth. I know that we can--I know that we shall--begin here the fuller and richer realization of that hope--that promise of a land where all men are truly free and equal, and each man uses his freedom and equality wisely and well.

My good friends, I ask my party, I ask the Democratic party, to march down the high road of progressive democracy. I ask this convention, I ask this convention, to say in unmistakable terms that we proudly hail, and we courageously support, our President and leader Harry Truman in his great fight for civil-rights in America!

Some people at the courage to speak out and be right on this issue? Why not Kennedy? Because Kennedy didn't give a shit, that's why?

Thank you with your other remarks confirming that Kennedy was indeed a cold warrior. As a point of interesting fact, you may be interested to know that Stalin was not the object of much Kennedy attention. About the only thing that Stalin did during the Kennedy adminstration is to get removed from Lenin's tomb and reburied under the Kremlin Wall. He had been dead for 7 years when Kennedy took office. Therefore the need to associate Kennedy and resistence to Stalin is a bit strained. The Soviets had last invaded a country in 1956 (Hungary) and all of the subsequent superpower invading for the next two decades would be by the US: Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Laos, Cambodia, oh, and that amateur night at the Bay of Pigs. Neither Lyndon Johnson nor even the baneful Richard Nixon maintained such amateurish relations with the Soviets; both sought and lead to the new conception of peaceful coexistence and detente. Kennedy on the other hand seemed to treat the whole think like a competitive sport played on the Hyannisport lawn.

I am not, by the way, going back to the 1960 campaign, arguing that both sides lacked ICBM's. What I am saying is that there was no missile gap. The United States had military superiority over the Soviets throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In short, Kennedy made the gap up to run for office. He never corroborated his claim, and after his election he shit canned the whole idea, hoping people would forget about it.

As for the treatment of the train of women Kennedy seemed to need to get through the day, it would be irrelevant were it not involved in preventing briefings to prepare for the Vienna summit and other important government briefings, and had it not emboldened the FBI because it has the goods on Kennedy. But as it was, he was so damned casual and nonchalant that he comprimised the security of our government. That is why I mention it, and to evoke the sort of manipulative sleeze that permeated the Kennedy culture.

[wtmusic]

122. 9,000 times? You must be really smart

but despite all that knowledge of Lincoln you seem to be amazingly ignorant of Kennedy's civil rights record. OK, now pay attention...

* Kennedy put pressure on federal government organisations to employ more African Americans in America’s equivalent of Britain’s Civil Service. Any who were employed were usually in the lowest paid posts and in jobs that had little prospect of professional progress. The FBI only employed 48 African Americans out of a total of 13,649 and these 48 were nearly all chauffeurs. Kennedy did more than any president before him to have more African Americans appointed to federal government posts. In total, he appointed 40 to senior federal positions including five as federal judges.
* Kennedy appointed his brother (Robert) as Attorney General which put him at the head of the Justice Department. Their tactic was to use the law courts as a way of enforcing already passed civil rights legislation. The Justice Department brought 57 law suits against local officials for obstructing African Americans who wished to register their right to vote. Local officials from Louisiana were threatened with prison for contempt when they refused to hand over money to newly desegregated schools. Such a threat prompted others in Atlanta, Memphis and New Orleans to hand over finance without too many problems - few if any were willing to experience the American penal system which had a policy of punishment then as opposed to reforming prisoners.
* Kennedy was very good at what would appear to be small gestures. In American football, the Washington Redskins were the last of the big teams to refuse to sign African Americans. Their stadium was federally funded and Kennedy ordered that they were no longer allowed to use the stadium and would have to find a new one. The team very quickly signed up African American players.
* Kennedy created the CEEO (Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity). Its job was to ensure that all people employed with the federal government had equal employment opportunities; it also required all those firms that had contracts with the federal government to do the same if they were to win further federal contracts. However, the CEEO was only concerned with those already employed (though it did encourage firms to employ African Americans) and it did nothing to actively get employment opportunities for African Americans. The CEEO was concerned with those in employment within the federal government…….not the unemployed.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/john_kennedy_and_civil_rights.htm

Re: "all of the subsequent superpower invading for the next two decades would be by the US": google "Prague Spring" and get back to me.

On to the rise of Communist China, one of several remarkable coincidences you accept with aplomb. Just a freak accident that at this particular juncture in their 5,000 year history this government sprang into being...couldn't have ANYTHING to do with the Chinese Communist Party receiving massive aid from the Soviet Union, or the fact that the CCP lists its official guiding ideology as "Marxism-Leninism".

On to detente, and another incredible coincidence its rise followed immediately on the heels of the tenure of that warm caring individual Nikita Khruschev. Remember, the one who banged his shoe on the table and said "We will bury you"? Nah, couldn't have anything to do with that...

Now I'm gonna hand you a few points. JFK was a womanizer. He either made up the missile gap idea or didn't know (most likely the latter). If you are indeed completely fixated on these points and feel they destroy his legacy, then have a nice day. I can't inform you or give you perspective. But the rest of your argument is remarkably dependent on your subjective feelings about the man, not to its advantage.

[NNadir]

128. Well for me history doesn't focus on two minute sound bites.

Khrushchev's shoe certainly justifies the cold war doesn't it? The CIA murders? Vietnam?

Look, I lived through the cuban missile crisis. I remember going to the bus stop thinking I would be killed in the afternoon. I bought every bit of right wing propaganda about the Soviet's that went on at that time.

I don't say I "supported" the Communist revolution in China - I just note that anyone who says that "Truman" was responsible for this event is a fraud. Can you make that distinction. Unlike, Kennedy, I don't and didn't see the US as a grand imperial force whose job it was to enforce American standards on third countries. What in any case, did Mr. Kennedy recommend? Sending General McArthur with his desired fleet of nuclear armed aircraft?

Mr. Truman, for whom the rich spoiled sex-crazed brat Mr. Kennedy had so much contempt, was the President who brought forth the Marshall Plan. Let's face it, Dean Rusk was no George Marshall. Harry Truman during his visit to the White House must have had occassion to marvel at the callow young man who had acceeded to his seat.

All I said that Kennedy was a cold warrior, not a peace maker, and therefore was aligned with the right wing. Everything you write supports that, including a diatribe on the evils of commununist this and communist that. I note that in the event communism ended in most places without war, so obviously there was a way to end it, wasn't there, without having a nuclear war?

Eisenhower didn't send kids to school worrying if they'd be nuked that afternoon.
Johnson didn't either.

Nor did Nixon, nor Ford, nor Carter, nor Reagan, nor Bush I, nor Clinton. Clinton got the first program together to destroy weapons grade fissionable material.

I concede that Kennedy was good at small gestures, and said as much. Robert Kennedy is mostly famous for his "negotiations" with segregationist senator James O. Eastland, during the freedom rides. But he was not a big cog in the Civil Rights machine, nor an active leader. I stand by that.

[cureautismnow]

130. Lincoln's Your Hero?

Would you agree with his message below?

I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. . . . And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

- Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate (18 September 1858).

Archie Bunker would be proud.:puke:

[NNadir]

135. The difference is between what he said in 1858 and what he did by 1865.

No less than Frederick Douglass remarked that Lincoln was the first great man he'd met who did not remind him of the difference in their races.

In his now famous letter to James Conklin, in which he faced political pressure to rescind the Emancipation proclamation he famously wrote:

You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but, no matter. Fight you, then exclusively to save the Union...

Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonnet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, they strove to hinder it...

The fact is that Lincoln moved his country from the need in all political campaigns to assert de riguer racism, where people were considered disposable property, to the point that pride in African Americans could be openly pronounced by the President of the United States, a first.

I note that the only person for whom Lincoln personally sought a literary judgement on the 2nd Inaugeral, which is one of the most beautiful political utterances of all time, was Frederick Douglass. Douglass, in fact, was the first African-American person ever to be invited to the White House as an honored guest and as an advisor.

Kennedy, by contrast, did not invite Martin Luther King down for a cup of coffee, even though he was in town.

Leadership involves leading. Lincoln lead his country. Some of the things a leader needs to do involve some triangulation, but if this triangulation achieves its goal - if one even has goals - then it must be viewed in the course of results.

Lincoln was a great President. Kennedy was a TV character.

[cureautismnow]

138. Stanford Disagrees with your Kennedy Slight claim

28 August, 1963

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts more than two hundred thousand demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial. Organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, the march is supported by all major civil rights organizations as well as by many labor and religious groups. King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech.

After the march, King and other civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/king_events/print.htm


Lincoln was a bigot until his death.

[cureautismnow]

140. More Proof that JFK met MLK on 8/28/63

http://blackvoices.aol.com/mlk/photogallery

There's even a picture of the two together.

"Kennedy, by contrast, did not invite Martin Luther King down for a cup of coffee, even though he was in town."

Care to retract?
-------------------
Douglass, himself, thought Lincoln was a white supremist, albeit a gentler one.

Douglass on Lincoln, "Though Mr. Lincoln shared the prejudices of his white fellow countrymen against the Negro, it is hardly necessary to say that in his heart of hearts he loathed and hated slavery."

Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, p. 485-486 (Speech at the Freedmen's Monument, April 16, 1876).

[NNadir]

174. Oh gee. There's a picture.

I guess Kennedy did have MLK over for coffee, just like George W. Bush hugged some black folks in Mississippi after Katrina.

I'm so impressed and I retract. The rich white boy did take time out from kissing the ass of Southern Segregationists long enough to have his photograph taken.

I guess John F. Kennedy was a real Civil Rights leader. He had his picture taken with Martin Luther King after all. Maybe you should write to the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic site and send them this picture; they seem to be misinformed about the great Kennedy era end to segregation and racial violence:

As Congress began to debate the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960, ER used her column to critique those Democrats who tried to evade the issue and bitterly condemned the decision to include the jury trial amendment, which placed voting rights obstructionists in front of an all white jury instead of a federal judge. She wrote to activists that she understood their frustration and struggled against despair. She opposed John Kennedy's nomination as much for his non-existent support of civil rights as she did for his silence on McCarthy...

... But it was the violent treatment the Freedom Riders received that provoked ER's harshest comments. Asked by CORE and the NAACP to chair a hearing investigating the conduct of the federal judges before whom the assailants were tried, ER lost her temper with those administration supporters who urged that the committee go into executive session to hear testimony, brusquely responding that she did not come to the hearing to equivocate...

By 1962, ER was dying and the slow progress to a race-blind society depressed her immensely. While praising the courage of King and other civil rights advocates, her columns and interviews became more pessimistic. She criticized the president for showing more profile than courage on civil rights issues. Yet she struggled to trust "the future of essential democracy." It was a disheartening and delicate balance. When she learned of the violence greeting James Meredith when he tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi and attacks on Birmingham churches, she phoned Martin Luther King to ask him to appear on her television show to discuss racial violence. He agreed, but the show was never taped. Two days later, ER entered the hospital.

When she died November 7th, King summarized her commitment to racial justice. "The impact of her personality and its unwavering devotion to high principle and purpose cannot be contained in a single day or era." Three months later, Tomorrow is Now was published and ER issued her own call for civil rights activism. "Staying aloof is not a solution, but a cowardly evasion."

http://www.nps.gov/elro/teach-er-vk/lesson-plans/notes-er-and-civil-rights.htm

Kennedy having his photograph taken with MLK was so much better than actually doing something like protecting the lives of the Freedom Riders.

And now, while we're playing at history, how about we put Frederick Douglass's famous (and yes I am long familiar with them) remarks in context:

"President Lincoln was a white man, and shared the prejudices common to his countrymen towards the colored race. Looking back to his times and to the condition of his country, we are compelled to admit that this unfriendly feeling on his part may be safely set down as one element of his wonderful success in organizing the loyal American people for the tremendous conflict before them, and bringing them safely through that conflict. His great mission was to accomplish two things: first, to save his country from dismemberment and ruin; and second, to free his country from the great crime of slavery. To do one or the other, or both, he must have the earnest sympathy and the powerful cooperation of his loyal fellow countrymen. Without this primary and essential condition to success his efforts must have been vain and utterly fruitless. Had he put the abolition of slavery before the salvation of the Union, he would have inevitably driven from him a powerful class of the American people and rendered resistance to rebellion impossible. Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical and determined."42

http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/content_inside.asp?ID=27&subjectID=3

http://www.claremont.org/writings/000901morel.html

Again, leadership involves leading. Lincoln led. He began with the prejudices of his country, worked through them, and led himself and his country out of them. This made him a great leader, a great President, and a great man. Most historians rank Lincoln the highest among the Presidents, and the reason is obvious.

Kennedy, on the other hand, had his picture taken. A lot. He was very handsome after all and had a beautiful wife. He was also weak and ineffectual. People often try to compare him to Lincoln, but basically the similarity comes down to getting shot in the head. There isn't much else.

One should not confuse style with substance. Ever. Such confusion is exactly why we are in such an intractable mess.

[cureautismnow]

178. Bunnypants is Lincolnesque

Sarcasm aside, I'm glad you find the ancestral skinhead President very dissimilar to JFK. Indeed, Lincoln had many characteristics of the current occupant of the WH. W's followers consider him a "Leader", too. Funny, I wouldn't want someone to lead me to the worst loss of American lives in U.S. history. Lincoln's "leadership" could have also relocated the freed slaves (thanks to the 13th Amendment, not Dishonest Abe) back to Africa or the Caribbean. White Supremist Lincoln didn't want African-Americans voting and I'm sure Shrub could go along with that proposal as well. Furthermore, Junior shares Lincoln's historical lust for power by shredding the Constitution and acting in a blatant, dictatorial fashion.

"As for the Gettysburg Address, H.L. Mencken put it quite truly when he said it was one of the most beautiful prose poems in the English language, but added that the trouble was it was the South, not the North, that was fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Lincoln practically imposed a dictatorship on the Northern states, closed down nearly 300 newspapers and had thousands of people arrested. Any critic of his administration or the war was dubbed a traitor. Virtually everything he did was unconstitutional. And his administration was corrupt."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese169.html

As for Eleanor R., why didn't she convince FDR to enact widespread Civil Rights legislation from '32 - '45? It seems that she had more power and persuasion to do so then rather than later as an elder stateswoman.

In any event, you can go on believing that "greatness" is achieved through mass murder of your own people, advocating white supremist rule throughout the land, disregard of oath to preserve, protect, and defend the COTUS, and to reign as a virtual dictator. I'll continue to believe otherwise.

Peace.

"Don't follow leaders. Watch the parking meters." - Zimmerman

[Media_Lies_Daily]

167. Speaking of China, that hole you're digging should take you there soon.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

70. You're pretty much dead wrong about JFK....

...but far rightwingers will love your rhetoric.

[NoPasaran]

56. McKinley

McKinley was revered following his death. For example, in 1903 a monument was erected at the Antietam battlefield in Maryland to mark the spot where then-sergeant McKinley served sandwiches and hot coffee to the men on the firing line.

[Blue_In_AK]

60. Plus, they renamed our beautiful Denali after him... n/t

[NoPasaran]

100. Although that had happened earlier

And seems to have been done to tweak proponants of Free Silver.

We named our peak Mount McKinley, after William McKinley of Ohio, who had been nominated for the Presidency, and that fact was the first news we received on our way out of that wonderful wilderness. We have no doubt that this peak is the highest in North America, and estimate that it is over 20,000 feet high. <20>

When later asked why he named the mountain after McKinley, Dickey replied that the verbal bludgeoning he had received from free silver partisans had inspired him to retaliate with the name of the gold-standard champion. <21> For those dedicated to perpetuation of Native names on the land, beginning in the Denali-McKinley controversy with Charles Sheldon, this frivolous reason compounds the naming error.

http://www.nps.gov/dena/home/hrs/hrs2.htm

[JVS]

155. You mean I'm the only one who cares about that? SHIT!

[erpowers]

37. No

I really do not think so. Bush does not have the idealism of Kennedy. While Kennedy asked the country to dream. Bush asked the country to be afraid of everything. I do not think the Republicans will be able to pull off the job of making Bush into a great president no matter what they do.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

164. Do you really believe JFK was killed by the act of a "lone gunman"?....

...How quaint.

[MasonJar]

16. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do

for your country." sums JFK up for me.

[H2O Man]

17. Your math is off .....

and even putting FDR above JFK makes little difference.

[DFWdem]

28. If my math is off...

Please correct me. Regardless, my main question is how much did he accomplish during his short time in office, and do those accomplishments warrant the status he has been given. The replies on the thread have been enlightening, although the poll I referred to did say "most popular" as opposed to "greatest accomplishments".

[H2O Man]

33. The best book on

the Kennedy administration is titled "1000 Days." It might be worth your while, if you are indeed interested in learning about JFK's accomplishments, to read that book. With all due respect to this thread, it is not possible to have as enlightening a discussion of a serious subject like this, as in a good book.

[WinkyDink]

20. You didn't say "compared to FDR".

Yes, FDR was the best, IMO! But then, he had other challenges to meet, and more years in which to meet them!

JFK was the right man at the right time: a young man who connected with the Boomers hitting their teens and the vibrancy of the 60's; a decorated WWII vet whom the "Greatest Generation" could vote for as one of their own; a wealthy man who showed concern for the least of us (as with FDR); a handsome man with a lovely, young family, who epitomized the New Post-War American Family; A father whose new-born son died, experiencing a private tragedy in public; a literate, brilliant man, who brought poets, classical musicians, and other brilliant people to the White House and to our attention (Robert Frost at the Inauguration, e.g.); a bold visionary, who gave us the space program and the Peace Corps; a remarkable politician, who stared down Khruschev in Cuba; a learned man, who clearly knew history; and, of course, a tragic hero, killed in his prime, quite possibly in part due to the classic requirement of a tragic flaw, in JFK's case it's being sexual addiction (that led to entanglement with Judith Exner, Mob mistress).

ETA: To #13~~~ JFK like GWB?? In what universe?! The former believed in noblesse oblige; the latter, in total self-interest. JFK railed against U.S. Steel; Bush would have taken $$ in bribes! Yes, Joe, Jr., was supposed to be the one to be promoted, but JFK did win a Senate seat! And both had youths to cover up? I think being a Casanova beats blowing up frogs, personally. JFK prevailed in the face of immense physical suffering from many ailments, becoming a football player and a Naval officer; Bush, in the pink of health, became a cheerleader and a war-avoider. JFK DID NOT ACCEPT HIS PRESIDENTIAL SALARY; GWB has benefitted his adult life from shady $$ deals. JFK HATED the CIA; Bush loves secrecy and the power misuse of the CIA offers him (a lesson from Poppy).

In summation: JFK was not corrupted by the temptation of money or power. THIS is the antithesis of Bush.

P.S. January 1961-November 1963 is essentially 3 years. That's the math, okay?

[DFWdem]

48. Ah, okay

I was thinking November 1962, not 1963. Thanks for the correction

[cmkramer]

101. Jackie

Actually, the culture stuff was pretty much all Jackie's doing. She was the one who knew about the arts -- music, art, theatre, etc.

One big difference between Kennedy and Bush is that strings were pulled to GET Kennedy into the military, not keep him out of it. Kennedy had always been a skinny sickly kid and could easily have been classified 4-F. But for whatever reason -- patriotism, machismo, Daddy thought it would look good, etc. -- Kennedy served.

[Freddie Stubbs]

21. those who die young are often held in higher regard than if

they have lived to a ripe old age.

Jimmy Hendrix, Janice Joplan, Jim Morrisson, Falco...

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

27. Falco?

the one of "Rock Me Amadeus" fame? He died???? :shrug:

[Freddie Stubbs]

29. He is dead

http://www.falco.bkl.at/index.asp?lg=EN&sid=91&bid=8&det=on

It was an 'accident.' At least that is what they what us to beleive.

[YOY]

31. And Rob Pilatus of Milli Vanilli along those lines

Yes..Falco died. Truly "a gangbangin' thug what never seen it comin'." Car accident. They have a Falco festival every year in Austria in his name...

[hedgehog]

23. JFK was learning, and learning fast.

He came into office as a Cold Warrior, and figured out that that was the path to destruction. He started to turn away from the iceberg, but was shot down before he could finish setting us on a better course. If he had lived to serve out a second term, this country would be a much better place today. Correction, this world would be a better place. Do some checking and you'll see he started to put the brakes on the nuclear weapons testing.He was the only one in power back then to understand that the tests themselves were killing us.

[erpowers]

25. Hope for the Future

One of the things I think Kennedy is so revered for is the hope for the future he gave to Americans when he was president. When you look back at what he said it seemed like he had big dreams. He was the guy that pushed on to go to the moon. Also, I think since he was assassinated people do not know if he would have accomplished the things he wanted to accomplish. So people can still believe that if he had not been assassinated he would have done great things and this country would have been a better place.

Also, at times he seemed to be a nice guy. Some people believe that if Kennedy would have stayed president the Vietnam War would not have lasted as long. It also seemed that he might have shut down the CIA.

Another thing might be that Bill Clinton was supposedly inspired by Kennedy. We see the type of presidency Clinton had so some people might think had Kennedy stayed president he would have done many of the things Clinton accomplished. So really I think Kennedy is so revered because people still hope that he would have been a great president and made this country a better place. I think much of it is about hoping and dreaming about what Kennedy would have done.

[2Design]

32. he liked people and people like him - unlike current pResident

he was liked because he was a democrat and cared about people. His extended family has tried to do much for the poor. His brother was killed for similar reasons - they cared about the down troddent - they were for civil rights - they were for woman's rights - they stood for all that was part of this great democracy -

Most that have followed only stand for corporate greed and imperialism

[WI_DEM]

39. FDR certainly had more achievements

I think part of the reason why JFK is ranked so high is because his life was cut short and he had a glamourous image. In terms of actual achievement in office FDR, Truman, and even Johnson have more to point to.

[Historic NY]

40. I think when he took the blame for the "Bay of Pigs".....

fiasco, the planning of which was done before he came into office, it showed the people he could be trusted. He took responsibility for the bad as well as the good, and publicly stated it, we don't see that today. He then also stood up to the military that wanted to make Cuba a vast wasteland, during the missile crisis. JFK personally managed this and we know the outcome was bloodless.

[wtmusic]

42. How would Dubya have handled a "Bay of Pigs"?

I shudder.

[AntiCoup2K4]

76. Let's put it this way....

None of us would be here to talk about it. :nuke:

[Zen Democrat]

43. Well, for one, he bucked the JCOS in not starting a nuclear war over Cuba.

For a quick understanding of this, watch the movie Thirteen Days.

Also, he imposed a nuclear test ban treaty that was also not popular with the Joint Chiefs.

He fired Dulles, Cabell and Bissell from the CIA and threatened to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the wind" over the Murder,Inc. assassination units operating at Langley beyond presidential control.

He was the first to approach a detente with the Soviet Union for nuclear arms control.

He rejected "Pax Americana".

He presented the first meaningful civil rights legislation to Congress (that passed after his death).

He stood down the steel industry's price increases by threatening to nationalize the industry.

He was about to get rid of J. Edgar Hoover by forcing the mandatory retirement age, but JFK's death prevented that -- and LBJ ultimately named Hoover "Director for Life".

He created the Peace Corps.

He created the Alliance for Progress in Latin America. The theme was "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable".

JFK proclaimed in his inaugural address that the common enemies of man are tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.

JFK sent in federal marshals to protect the Mississippi Freedom Riders.

JFK sent federal marshals to enforce the admittance of black students to the University of Alabama, forcing Gov. George Wallace to back down from blocking the entrance.

Is that enough? He only had three short years. Think of it in terms of GWB - if his presidency had ended in November 2003, what could we say about his accomplishments? (I know, I know, don't answer that.)

[wtmusic]

45. Anyone who lived through October 1962 --

and experienced the very real possibility of nuclear annihilation -- will forever be grateful

[Media_Lies_Daily]

75. Absolutely. I was 11 years old living with my family in St. Pete, Florida.

[wtmusic]

79. yikes

I was living in the Chicago suburbs not far from the Glenview Naval Air Station. My dad built a bomb shelter and stocked it.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

80. The local government advised taping windows to keep glass from....

...flying around when the nukes went off.

Even I knew back then that was pure bs.

[wtmusic]

81. Ha...kinda like "duck and cover"

oh well, whatever makes you feel good (in those last few seconds...)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

88. Exactly! I remember looking up from under my desk at the big glass....

...wall on one side of the classroom wondering how we were going to survive being diced and sliced. I asked my teacher about it, and she had this horrified look like she had never thought about it.

Yikes.

[dflprincess]

111. I was 9 and living near Buffalo, NY

it was assumed that Buffalo would be a target because of the steal plants. We had an air raid drill at school that involved timing how long it would take kids to walk home - no doubt so we could hopefully die in our mothers' arms. I remeber our TV set broke the day JFK was going to address the nation. Our TV repairman couldn't fix it at our home so he took it back to his shop - then he came back with a loaner TV so my parents could watch the speech that night. My dad had just been getting ready to go out and buy a new set when the repairman came back. As it never seemed to bother my folks when the TV was out - and the repairman had never brought another one over before this made an impression on my 9 year old brain that this speech was a serious thing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. He was a breath air after the stifling '50s.

Other than that he was a rather average president who spoke well and played politics with the best of them.

[Golden Raisin]

49. Back then we also didn't know

about the womanizing, the affairs and all the rest of the negatives. The press at the time left his & Jackie's private lives private. In addition to the entire "package" everyone else has commented on: sparkling wit/humor, articulate (compare JFK's formal speaking style and his off-the-cuff repartee with reporters at press conferences with Dubya's at your peril), good-looking, intelligent, a young man with a young family, etc. this is a guy who fucking had Pablo Casals performing at a State Dinner in the White House!!!! Not the latest country music yodeler from Nashville --- Pablo Casals!!! (As an aside about how far we have fallen, it was broadcast nationally by NBC and ABC radio and a recording was distributed commercially by Columbia.) He and Jackie had style, elan and class and they elevated the entire atmosphere. SHE could charm the birds from the trees --- she had Charles De Gaulle of France (the toughest of old birds) totally conquered in about a nanosecond. We didn't see or know about all the bad stuff then. They were just glittering and after stolid Ike and Mamie in the stolid 1950's it was truly like a new era had begun. I'm sure there's a huge dividing line between those who actually lived through the Kennedy era and those born long after who have the immense benefit of distance, time, much more information and historical facts/accuracy.

[CTyankee]

72. Do I ever remember that Paris trip!

De Gaulle was just enchanted with Jackie, she was so beautiful. It was probably the best time ever to be a Democrat. We had the charm, style, wit, intelligence and beauty to lead the nation. Gawd, we were young and we were awfully good lookin'!

[WinkyDink]

93. In Paris, JFK apologized for Jackie's being tardy, and added,

"But then, she looks so much better than us."
(Paraphrase!)

[TahitiNut]

50. A large part of being President is appealing to our "better angels" ...

Like it or not, the role is mostly as the "representative" of our nation. As such, we should apply the same spectrum of attentions that we apply to each other. This is why we did not, until Clinton, give public attention to private sexual relations. We don't do it to our family, friends, and neighbors. If my friend has kinky sex with a coworker, it's between them and their spouses. Unless I'm a friend to a spouse, I pay little attention. As our attentions change, it's fair game to change. But I digress.

The job of a president is to influence as much as it's to administer and manage. In that vein, JFK awakened the "better angels" of our nature - in most cases. He was, of course, widely detested in the South. (Sometimes the quality of a person is seen in the enemies he has.)

He inspired us to reach the moon.
He inspired us to move forward on civil rights ... continuing the better acts of the Eisenhower era.
He inspired us to view our government as more representative of the mainstream ... not being a dinosaur from the past.

He was an antithesis to the days of McCarthy.
He demonstrated that a Roman Catholic could be elected and inspired us to unburden ourselves of ages-old bigotries. (Few people today realize that "catlickers" were regarded as second-class citizens, even into the 60s.)

No, JFK really didn't have huge legislative or political scalps on his belt.

But it was in how we improved our behavior toward one another based on how we saw him.
We became a better nation.
For a while.

[Zen Democrat]

54. For everyone commenting on his "womanizing" ....

I would have thought apres Monica that we would have learned that we don't elect presidents for their faithfulness to their wives, or how they treat they children, or whether they got along with mom and dad ... but whether they are able administrators with a positive vision for the future and a calling to meet human needs.

Jackie knew JFK screwed around, just like Hillary knew Bill screwed around, and Lady Bird knew LBJ screwed around, and Eleanor knew Franklin screwed around, and Mamie knew Ike screwed around ... and so on, and so on. That's a personal matter. I venture to say that men who are attractive, powerful, and charismatic, very easily succumb to available sex. And I don't give a damn. That's between the husband and wife -- and doesn't involve me. Those types of men are faithful only when deeply involved in a love affair with their wives -- and this can last a lifetime in the best marriages.

Whether JFK had sex with 10,000 women is not important to me. Nixon probably couldn't have gotten laid for a million bucks.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

77. ...and Babs knew Poppy screwed around, and Pat knew Nixon.....

...had a mistress in Hong Kong.

[WinkyDink]

94. Named Bebe Rebozo?!

HAHA!

As for Poppy: Eeewwwwww!!!!

[citizen snips]

59. That is a good question.

I guess people saw him as the light at the end of the tunnel during the Cold War.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

61. His Civil Rights program was passed by LBJ, adding to JFK's....

...reputation among liberals and the black community.

JFK also attempted to keep us out of foreign wars, despite the pressure applied by the military and the CIA to militarily attack Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam where we already had agents in Cuba and Laos, and military advisors in Vietnam.

JFK was very popular among the large unions...he had given the strong impression through voice and deed that, despite his personal wealth, he was a champion of the little man.

The international community really liked JFK. They saw him as attempting to ease world tensions due to the Cold War.

Jackie Kennedy was hugely popular at home and abroad. She was an basically unofficial ambassador of international good will.

The way JFK was killed, and the subsequent controversy which lasts to this day, has added to the overall image.

[AnnieBW]

62. A Couple Of Reasons, I guess

1. The Space Program

2. Taking down the Mafia

3. Banging Marily Monroe (supposedly)

4. Having a gorgeous, fashion-plate wife and two young children

5. Being a handsome guy who got killed.

[proud patriot]

67. the moon challenge / civil service

and the Promise of Camelot.

[BuyingThyme]

69. He died for you.

Like Jesus, but for real.

[JVS]

157. Gee. I had always though that he died for fucking over the mob after...

using their help to win the WV primaries against HHH and then sending his younger brother after them as Attorney General. That certainly doesn't match your claim that he died for us.

[BuyingThyme]

159. He died because he attacked the CIA for our benefit.

The mob story is strictly for suckers.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

165. Pitiful. How lame.

[SoCalDem]

71. "Camelot", cute toddlers, gorgeous wife, wealthy, handsome, well-spoken,

and yet assassination at a young age..We mourn over what might have been.:(

Americans have always loved our mythology.. We have so many..

The Pilgrims ... just a bunch of pissed off people who wanted a new start

The rugged Pioneers who went west..(they really went for free land, and would have relished an easy life if one could have been had)

The cowboy...Mostly uneducated, unemployed men trying to make some money (lots were running from the law back east too)

The Kennedy Mystique was no different.. The media turned the family into a mythology.. As much as we pretend to loathe the aristocracy, we secretly long for it too, and try to invent one whenever we can.

[DemGirl7]

73. He was handsome looking, had a great personality, and was killed in office

My only problem with these presidential popularity contests, is that Reagan is always in the top 5.

[Redstone]

74. People admire him because he got to pork Marilyn Monroe.

Guys do, anyway.

Redstone

[Media_Lies_Daily]

85. I wonder if rightwingers called their JFK smear project....

..."The Massachsetts Project"? You know...just like "The Arkansas Project" that was aimed at Bill Clinton.

[WinkyDink]

95. Who didn't?

It wasn't an exclusive club!

[Redstone]

107. Well, there was that.

Redstone

[JVS]

156. That was something you could be proud of.

I was so mad living in Germany in 1998 and having to be the "guy from the country where the president fucks dumpy interns" As leader of the free world, Bill owed us something better than that. Had he been snorting coke off a $5,000/night hooker's ass it would have been so much more respectable. Instead he bangs his freaking intern. If you want to do something lame like that, why not just manage a supermarket and screw the cashiers?

[TallahasseeGrannie]

91. It had nothing to do with what he did

and everything to do with who he was.

First, the son of an Irishman not too long after the Irish were among the most reviled of immigrants. And Catholic to boot. And a war hero, handsome. With a wife who was cultured, lovely, intelligent and yet "knew her place." (hey, it was still the 50's)

He was promise and he was cut down in full flower.

[WinkyDink]

99. Erm, no, 1960 was officially the 60's.

And Jackie had been a career woman prior to her marriage.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

105. dupe

[TallahasseeGrannie]

106. But he died in 63, only three years into the next decade

They were married in the mid-50's and he was a Senator in the 50's. She knew her "place." If you have ever seen any interviews of her, or of the two of them, you can see that. She was extremely quiet and circumspect. All the Kennedy women knew their places, and that is not necessarily casting aspersions. They were women of their times and accepted the prevailing mores and wisdom.

It was not for another ten years or so that women really got uppity!

But you are right, she WAS a career woman. And she had a fine education. Just like I did. My parents insisted I have a career in case I was "left alone."

[misanthrope]

152. Culturally...

...and sociologically, it was still the '50s. Decades don't end by the calendar, but by watershed events. The '60s began in Dealey Plaza.

[Marleyb]

96. JFK was the anti-bush

dueling presidents MP3 Bush vs JFK
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/bolivia/jfk-w-dueling_presidents.mp3

[BlueIris]

98. Clearly you've never read Philip D. Zelikow's "The Kennedy Tapes."

'S okay, most people haven't. Even better are the actual tapes recorded in the WH during the JFK years. If more people actually bothered to listen to the evidence of JFK's presidential and political acumen, instead of just buying the ignorant RW spiel about him all of these years, particularly post-RR, JFK would be even more revered. Even I, already a fan of Kennedy's administration's achievements, was shocked at how different a picture you get of him, his brilliance, his patriotism, his compassion, when you actually listen to hard evidence of his day-to-day activities as president, especially when you consider the major social and personal obstacles he was facing during the melee. So, before you continue to ask any more of us Americans who are actually h-i-s-t-o-r-i-c-a-l-l-y l-i-t-e-r-a-t-e why we love Kennedy, get the facts. All it would take would be a library card, maybe some time in a well-stocked Borders.

[H2O Man]

104. Edited by Zelikow

and Ernest May of Harvard. One of the best books on perhaps the scariest time to be an American. This 1997 book shed light on the actual goings-on inside the small group dealing with a crisis that threatened to lead to a nuclear nightmare. I think that this episode in our history is the primary reason that people of a certain age have the utmost respect for JFK. In truth, Truman, Ike, LBJ, or Nixon would probably not have resolved the conflict in the manner JFK did.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

108. I wonder what the tapes at shrubco's WH would show, LOL...

[ProSense]

102. He established the Peace Corps.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whatispc.mission

[omega minimo]

109. WHY DO YOU GOOD FOLKS FALL FOR THIS LAME BULLSHIT?

"...assassinated, etc.?" :puke:




Oh, and Happy New Year! :toast: :hi:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

117. What, Is He Living In An Apartment With Elvis Somewhere?

Even at the hands of his own government it is still an assassination.

Not sure what you consider lame bullshit, unless he is in fact living with Elvis somewhere LOL

[rman]

143. why are you so gullible in accepting the offical story?

see "Ultimate Sacrifice"
by Lamar Waldron, Thom Hartmann
http://ultimatesacrificethebook.com/

based on newly declassified state documents
amongst other issues, it is revealed there were 2 assasination attempts shortly before Dallas

"The book reveals for the first time John and Robert Kennedy's top-secret plan to stage a coup against Castro and invade Cuba on Decmber 1, 1963.

But the Kennedy coup plan was infiltrated by three Mafia bosses—of Chicago, Tampa, and Louisiana/Texas—who were under intense pressure from Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

The mob bosses used parts of the Kennedy coup plan to kill JFK—first trying in Chicago, then Tampa, and finally Dallas—in a way that forced key officials to cover up crucial information to protect national security."

[omega minimo]

158. If I was gullible

I would have thought the OP was genuine. This is the lame bullshit I referred to-- OPs on DU that are either extremely uninformed or total plants are not worthy IMHO of all the energy and info that well-meaning DUers contribute to them. I don't believe anyone so flippant about "assassination, etc." That sort of cluelessness doesn't seem credible or even possible.

Maybe threads that present a lot of important information and hearfelt responses are valuable in themselves, no matter how they were engendered........:shrug: I hate to see "good folks" taken for a ride.

:hi:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

166. The story you're championing was part of the batch of red herrings....

...scattered about by the real plotters designed to through off any possible pursuit.

I'm surprised that anyone still believes that members of the Mafia were the prime movers and shakers behind JFK's assassination. They may have played a role in the assassination but there were too many actions put in place following the assassination that were designed to cover up the plot, actions that the Mafia couldn't control.

[rman]

175. The story in which the mob had infiltrated govt agencies,

to compromise a covert plan for a coup in Cuba - where the main point of the infiltration was to make sure that the government would -want- to cover up the JFK assassination because a real investigation into that would also reveal the covert plan to overthrow Castro? That story?

Though personally i would not be surprised if the mob were mere operatives in a game where the players are higher up in the food chain.

[Vidar]

110. Kennedy was an extremely powerful symbol with a lot of substance behind it

He was certainly not the equal of FDR, nor probably of Truman either, but he had immense ability, courage and charisma. HIs spirit took us to the moon and for a few years Camelot seemed real. His tragic young death cemented the vision.

[wadestock]

112. "Ask not what your country can do for you....."

It was the epitome of selflessness in a land of opportunism.

Get the picture?

You can't simply reap the rewards of capitalism unless you understand the responsibility that goes with it.

The freepers don't get that part of the equation.....

[wadestock]

114. Before this thread is locked....

I might get in one more comment.

Since you don't understand the most important parts of US history...I'll explain it to you.

JFK took the upper tax rate from 90% to 70%.
The economy thrived.

Reagan got in his first term and lowered the rate from 70% to 50%
Things didn't go to chit just yet...although the debt started to rear it's ugly head.

Reagan second term it was lowered from 50% to 30%.
Clinton/Gore put it back to 40% which allowed our capitalistic system to thrive, yet pay down the debt.

NOTE:- you will here LIEberman talk about how he believes in "JFK" style economics or something to that effect..which means simply that the economy of our country is fueled when the upper tax is lowered.

LIEberman is an idiot and anyone else that believes a progressive tax is effective when the upper rate is as low as 30% is a retard.

For all intents and purposes...the upper tax being lowered to 35% and with other perks for the rich....we have a flat tax....and the end of hope for capitalism.

[Time for change]

121. I agree that FDR should be rated higher than JFK

And so do almost all historians. In any poll of historians that I have seen, FDR is rated # 2, behind Lincoln.

But JFK was very good too IMO. He was a great communicator. He was honest with his country, and I believe that that came through in most of his actions and words.

He learned from his mistakes. The Bay of Pigs was a big mistake, and it occurred just a few months into his Presidency. He admitted responsibility for that mistake, and he made sure that nothing like that happened again.

He did an excellent job IMO of handling the Cuban missile crisis. I've heard him attacked for the way he handled that from both the right and the left, for opposite reasons. But he got us through it without casualties. If Bush would have been in charge, or even a lot of other Presidents, we could have had a nuclear catastrophe.

He was also beginning to move strongly on civil rights, and I believe that he would have been quite successful in that area had he lived.

I also believe that he was killed because of his leftist leanings, which we probably would have had better evidence of had he lived longer.

[rman]

173. both Left and Right like FDR, for opposite reasons

The Right likes the internments and masculine foreign policies - but not the New Deal.
The Right even likes JFK - for certain reasons.

--

The Republicanization of the Democratic Party
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory69.html

<snip>

In particular, here is what Rush Limbaugh said shortly after Bush’s inauguration speech this January:

<snip>

If you go back and look at FDR's speeches and look at the number of times he mentioned God in his inaugurals. Go back to JFK. "We will fight any foe. We'll go anywhere. We will do whatever it takes to spread freedom and liberty." Hey, he couldn't be a liberal Democrat today. JFK couldn't be. Truman couldn't be. They were committed to the triumph of liberty in the world, and that's what this speech was about today, the triumph of freedom and liberty in the world – and it is now conservatism that is propelling this.

<snip>

[Time for change]

176. I don't agree -- I think that there's a huge difference between

Truman and JFK, etc. and what we're seeing today.

When JFK and Truman talk about spreading freedom and liberty that's exactly what they meant IMO.

Today we hear the rhetoric, but the rhetoric is simply a cover for imperialistic repressive actions.

You can't point to two different people and say that they are similar because they espouse the same rhetoric. You have to judge them on their actions, not their rhetoric.

[Orangeone]

125. JFK

Didn't put the Japanese Americans in internment camps. FDR is not my favorite president.

[Kralizec]

126. Ignorance.

Sick.

[angrynwhite]

129. Like Lincoln

It's because he was assassinated.

136. He did a lot of good with the power he had

but he was selfish and narcissistic and spoiled. We will never have a saint as president though, so I guess we just have to accept the narcissistic and "royalty" aspects in our presidents. (And I am sure he would have put Jackie in a closet if she ran around sleeping with men the way he slept with women).

[WLKjr]

145. I think that was the last time where America was actually

leading the world in everything:

Education
Science & Mathematics
Technology
Jobs (good jobs)
and the list goes on.......

And it might have been even more if he hadn't been assasinated.

[rndmprsn]

147. nixon said it..."when they look at you, they see what they want to be..."

"...when they look at me they see who they are."

from the olive stone movie, but i could see him really saying something similiar.

[Orsino]

148. Like Clinton, he talked a better game...

...than even the best presidents actually played. They had charisma and the oratorial skills to match. They gave us hope, and made us believe in a larger world than the corporations wanted us to have.

[brentspeak]

154. In truth, Teddy has had a more lasting impact on the country than JFK

Teddy's three decades in the Senate vs. JFK's one Senate term + 2 1/2 years in the Oval Office.

[Clara T]

169. Cult of personality- Political icons rather than issues oriented politics

is the way the game is played in USA. Bush is demonized and of course he's a corrupt war criminal and Clinton is lionized despite the fact that he was very ordinary and Kennedy was worshipped though he wasn't a champion of the destitute and lepers among us.

The arena of politics, or what passes for such, is filled with television characters and caricatures and the issues which are impacting our daily lives take a back seat to the personalities. The system that Destroys life is in place firmly and has a stranglehold on us all and all we do is demonize idiot emperors or look for some superhero(ine) to swoop in and save the day rather than getting organized ourselves and taking matters into our own hands.

[walldude]

170. He is revered because of what he could have been.

He showed great promise and was cut down before he could live up to it.

[bigtree]

179. John Kennedy believed in our country and its people and the possibilities

for our future.

A lot of focus is put, rightly on the major events which defined his presidency, many forced upon him, some initiated by him. But, there is another dimension to Kennedy which was developing right before he was killed. At that time, there was no American who believed in the possibility and promise for our country as Kennedy did, and he was in place as our leader. I think we celebrate his life because of that extinguished promise that he gave us, as well as for the way he held our country close and safe in his leadership.

President Kennedy gave a speech at American University which showed that promise. He spoke of peace:

President Kennedy:

"I chose this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is to rarely perceived - - yet it is the most important topic on earth : world peace.

What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace - - the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living -- the kind that enables man and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - - not merely peace for Americans by peace for all men and women - - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by the wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles - - which can only destroy and never create - - is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war - - and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament - - and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must re-examine our own attitude - as individuals and as a Nation - - for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward - - by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many of us think it is unreal. But that is dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable - - that mankind is doomed - - that we are gripped by forces we cannot control.

We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade - - therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable - - and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of universal peace and good will of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the values of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace - - based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions - -on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace - - no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process - - a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor - - it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable - - and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly - - by making it seem more manageable and less remote - - we can help all peoples to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it."

http://www.american.edu/media/speeches/Kennedy.htm