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Was John F. Kennedy the flat-out absolute worst U.S. president of the 20th century?
Foreign Policy ^ | 07/15/2011 | Thomas Ricks

Posted on 07/17/2011 5:32:01 PM PDT by izzatzo

As I studied the Vietnam war over the last 14 months, I began to think that John F. Kennedy probably was the worst American president of the previous century.

(Excerpt) Read more at ricks.foreignpolicy.com ...


TOPICS: Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: kennedy; worst
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To: yarddog
Concur, but give FDR an honorable mention.
21 posted on 07/17/2011 5:48:19 PM PDT by MileHi ( "It's coming down to patriots vs the politicians." - ovrtaxt)
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To: izzatzo

The crabs in Kennedy’s underwear were a better president than Carter.


22 posted on 07/17/2011 5:48:59 PM PDT by San Jacinto
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To: Cringing Negativism Network
I’ve been of the opinion that if JFK was still alive, he’s be a Republican by now.

Me, too. In many ways he was as conservative as today's RINOs, if not more so.

Didn't JFK and RFK think MLK was a communist.

I didn't like RFK.

23 posted on 07/17/2011 5:54:05 PM PDT by lonestar (It takes a village of idiots to elect a village idiot.)
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To: izzatzo

For my 50 plus years it would be Carter for my memories.


24 posted on 07/17/2011 5:55:30 PM PDT by badpacifist (All species have subspecies... in some species the subspecies appears to be the dominate one.)
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To: izzatzo

JFK cut the tax rates which elevates him above most 20th Century Democrat Presidents. Jimmah Carter was the worst in the second half of the 20th Century and a candidate for the most incompetent/clueless of all time, until the current occupant. Wilson, FDR ... now we’re talking “worst” of the 20th century.


25 posted on 07/17/2011 5:55:32 PM PDT by steelyourfaith (If it's "green" ... it's crap !!!)
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To: Psalm 144
That's what I was going to say also. Lots of competition for that title.

But then reality stepped in, 0 wins hands down.

26 posted on 07/17/2011 5:55:49 PM PDT by skimbell
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To: izzatzo

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Crisis_of_1961

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_South_Vietnamese_coup

His presidency was one foreign policy catastrophe after another. But you’re not allowed to criticize him since he got his head blown off after just 3 years.


27 posted on 07/17/2011 5:57:37 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: SES1066
My vote is for that sanctimonious racist, Woodrow Wilson.

I consider Woodrow Wilson to be one of the two Presidents who injected the greatest quantity of slow-acting poisons into the political bloodstream of the United States of America. Unlike his competition for the "worst," Wilson was something of a proto-Obama insofar as absolutely nothing he did by design or accident was actually beneficial to the US.

JFK doesn't even come close to being the worst; moreover, he is now only runner-up in the category of "Most Media Sycophants."

Mr. niteowl77

28 posted on 07/17/2011 5:58:11 PM PDT by niteowl77 ("Born in a well? Let me see that birth certificate again!")
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To: izzatzo

The worst?
Next to 0bammy, Carter and Johnson? Not even close.
0 is gonna really reset the standard for worst presidents.


29 posted on 07/17/2011 5:58:25 PM PDT by sillsfan (Reagan and Sarah are right- WE win, they lose!)
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To: izzatzo

Gee, the Washington Post hates JFK like they do Republicans.

The Wapo is universally wrong anyhow.


30 posted on 07/17/2011 5:59:07 PM PDT by Luke21
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To: izzatzo

The term “worst” is ambiguous. Does one mean the most corrupt, then of course LBJ; does one mean an inept administrator, then of course Carter; Kennedy was an average individual who was totally created by the media. Kennedy was probably the first president in history to have the honor of being an absolute creation.


31 posted on 07/17/2011 5:59:59 PM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: izzatzo

Jimmah Cawtuh was just a hayseed doofus, but FDR and Wilson did massive damage to the economy. I’d put Kennedy way down the list.


32 posted on 07/17/2011 6:00:35 PM PDT by bigbob
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Comment #33 Removed by Moderator

To: Waco

The JFK Presidency, is what killed America.


34 posted on 07/17/2011 6:03:02 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Bristol Palin's book "Not Afraid Of Life: My Journey So Far" became a New York Times, best seller.)
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To: izzatzo

Keep reading.

There’s little disagreement that Warren G. Harding, President of the United States from 1921-23, was the worst president of all.


35 posted on 07/17/2011 6:03:17 PM PDT by delacoert
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To: lonestar

Yep, JFK would have been thrown out of the Democrat Party if he was alive today...he definitely was far more conservative than most Republicans in D.C. right now....I read a book on JFK and Nixon and it talk about that both of them were not that far apart on issues or thinking and both were FRIENDS!

Joe Kennedy even donated $1,000 to Nixons Senatorial campaign

JFK said once that he describing himself as a “fighting conservative”


36 posted on 07/17/2011 6:07:56 PM PDT by Bigtigermike
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To: Paperdoll; Army Air Corps

“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s. In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin. After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”


37 posted on 07/17/2011 6:08:45 PM PDT by ansel12 ( Bristol Palin's book "Not Afraid Of Life: My Journey So Far" became a New York Times, best seller.)
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To: izzatzo

No. Actually, JFK might’ve been the best Democrat President since the 19th century.

Obama, worse
Clinton, worse
Carter, worse
LBJ, worse
Truman, worse
FDR, worse
Wilson, worse


38 posted on 07/17/2011 6:11:15 PM PDT by truthfreedom
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To: izzatzo
We have the gay Jesuit priest Tom Dooley to thank for bringing Vietnam to JFK's attention.

We also have Tom Dooley to thank for JFK's creation of the Peace Corps.

39 posted on 07/17/2011 6:11:15 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." - Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins)
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To: izzatzo

And let’s not forget it was JFK that unionized Federal employees.


40 posted on 07/17/2011 6:12:05 PM PDT by twoputt
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