It's time to take a second look at JFK

American Thinker ^ | 11/25/2017 | Silvio Canto Jr.

[Neoliberalnot]

I don’t doubt you, but Kennedy ordered the first combat troops into nam.

[Neoliberalnot]

I’m sorry, I misinterpreted your post. My cousin did a couple of tours before 1965.

[Neoliberalnot]

Credit for the space race. He had nothing to do with it other than making a statement we should go to the moon. NASA rocket scientist put our astronauts there. Nixon deserves more credit than JFK.

[Neoliberalnot]

Wrong, the media pushed the narrative and the media can reshape opinions. They do it all the time. Many people believe anything they are told on TV.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I understand that Green Berets were engaged in combat during the JFK administration. On paper, at least, they were advisors and not combat troops. The first went in 1965, I think they were Marines sent to Da Nang.

My hat’s off to your cousin.

[caddie]

Agree with you.

He botched everything he touched, except for cutting taxes and for pushing the moon mission.

He had two chances, in dealing with Cuba (the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis), of both destroying communism in Cuba, giving us a captured new territory in the Caribbean, and utterly humiliating and intimidating the Russians and Chinese communists.

If Kennedy had invaded and captured Cuba at either juncture,

There would have been no Viet Nam.

There would have been no Iranian revolution in the late 70s.

There would have been no radical islamization of the Middle East and now, Europe,

There would have been no global islamic terrorist movement,

and most of all there would have been no ascendency of socialism and communism in the United States, whereby nearly all of our government and private institutions are overwhelmed by communist persons and leadership.

Kennedy was an especially bad choice for POTUS at a time when the world and the US were particularly vulnerable.

He was a terrible and weak president.

[Neoliberalnot]

Don died a year ago. He came back and went to med school and practiced for many years. He raised a fine son.

[Carl Vehse]

JFK was a serial adulterer with links to the mob. He had no major accomplishments while President except to let the Soviets have missiles in Cuba while publicly shipping empty crates back to Russia,

[gunnyg]

I expect you may very well be keerect....

[SauronOfMordor]

What in particular are you referring to?

[Oztrich Boy]

The Kennedys were more than a rich, bad family that gained temporary
political power. They were demagogues of oligarchy. Disguised as populists, they championed the definitely privileged and supposedly enlightened few. These few, when ensconced in the offices of government, would decide what was best for the many. The Kennedys saw political office as the source, rather than the result, of social order. They held government to be the fountainhead of privilege, responsibili- ty, benefit, and constraint. They did not know and probably couldn’t understand the idea of a free people chartering a government for the sake of convenience and paved roads. It never occurred to a Kennedy that the proper role of federal administration might be to guard the coasts and deliver the mail. And only in the vaguest, election-fixing way did any Kennedy realize public officials serve at the people’s sufferance. What’s worse, the Kennedys not only believed in the primacy of govern- ment but believed it to be good. With the exception of the disgusting Joe Sr., there was genuine idealism in the tribe. The rotting leftovers can still be whiffed in Teddy Kennedy’s speeches. There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls, and vipers, and this is knaves with moral justification for their cause. The Kennedys thought the world would be a better place for having them run our half of it. And thus their every excess and corruption could be excused as contributing to a larger good. - PJ O’Rourke

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

In my #47 I said:

Actually, according to what I recently read but can’t cite the source (seems like I read a recent book about Eisenhower that I can’t recall the title of), Eisenhower was asked by his inner circle (which was staffed by heavyweights) if it wasn’t dangerous to create the CIA group which invaded at the Bay of Pigs. On the basis that it might be used to launch a poorly prepared, ungrounded attack on Cuba. Ike replied, “Not while I am president,” and his adviser said that that caveat was what he was worried about.

Three Days in January: Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission is about the transition to the JFK administration, from Eisenhower’s perspective. During those 3 days Ike gave his “military industrial complex” speech and tried to get JFK up to speed - which of course depended on the willingness of JFK to listen, which was unfortunately far from unbounded.