As an ardent Democrat (and Hil supporter), I want to know if anyone else wonders at the the whole JFK thing? I'm only 27, so perhaps it's generational?

But to me, JFK seemed to be a handsome guy with a good speechwriter who was a mediocre-to-bad president. His judicial appointments alone were a generational setback to civil rights in the south. He got us into Vietnam. Was bookended by presidents of far greater accomplishment - Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ. Sure, he had nice rhetoric... but it wasn't rhetoric that got us to the moon, but the simple concentration of billions of dollars of research for our brilliant scientists and engineers.

I dare say, I think Obama would make a better president than JFK - he exhibits better judgment. That said, Hil's my girl! =) May the best person win!

The Vietnam debacle can't be laid at JFK's doorstep. When Kennedy was assassinated US involvement in Vietnam was limited to advising and training the South Vietnamese Army. It was under Johnson that combat troops were committed to Vietnam.

Commitment got us to the moon and Kennedy made that commitment. They don't call it the John F. Kennedy Space Center for nothing.

In all likelihood, you owe your very existence to JFK. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest we've ever come to global destruction. Averting nuclear war was Kennedy's greatest legacy.

Finally, the day Kennedy was assassinated is burned into my memory. And I remember that the whole world mourned the loss of a great man.

For sure, Johnson bears a lot of the responsibility for Vietnam. But Kennedy sent more than *ten thousand* military "advisors" to support the repressive undemocratic south vietnamese government. Kennedy can't get off the hook for Vietnam just because he died just before the heavy, heavy troop escalation started.

The Cuban Missile crisis was a face-down. The Soviets backed off. Sure, it was a crisis... but it showed that we had reasonable leaders on both sides. Owing our very existence is a bit of stretch. But he did show good leadership here, I grant you that. But on the scales of foreign policy... this versus Vietnam and Cuba. Kennedy had a penchant for disastrous meddling in the affairs of others.

The moon... Sputnik gave us our commitment. Kennedy speechified and Congress funded. I hardly see how he personally was instrumental in that national accomplishment.

Finally, his domestic agenda? Civil rights? At least, LBJ had the Great Society... and Nixon began our withdrawal from Vietnam.

And, of course, Kennedy's assassination was tragic - but it would've been tragic had it been anyone. I detest President Bush. However, if he were ever (heaven forbid) assassinated, I would mourn and remember forever. An assassination of a president is a personal attack on our very society - it is political.

So, again, sad that he was murdered... but that doesn't make him a great, or even a good, president.

I suppose Nixon can be credited with winding down the Vietnam War in the same sense that Jefferson Davis deserves credit for winding down the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, if you prefer).

Ask your parents about Kennedy's speech committing the United States to a moon program. It galvanized the nation. This is what great leaders used to do. Granted, there hasn't been anything like that in your 27 years but if Barack Obama is elected president you just might see it again.

Finally, someone who uses their brain! I had all but given up hope here.

What galvanization, that's what I don't understand. Churchill telling the Brits that they'd fight the Germans in the hills, in the streets, etc... and the entire nation having fortitude through the terror. But the moon program? The nation didn't need to do anything - certainly not be galvanized. Sputnik snapped us out of our complacency, showing us that we couldn't sit on our technological laurels. Congress supplied the billions with public support... and, voila, the moon!

As for Nixon, if beginning to withdraw our troops doesn't count as winding down, what does? He might've been a republican and a crook... but he deserves credit for that among other things, like normalizing relations with China.

Obama might be a great leader, sure. However, in three years in the Senate, he has not shown, despite his celebrity, any exceptional ability to inspire or create some new style of politics. Nor was he remarkable in the Illinois General Assembly for leading some post-partisan style of governing. And yet I'm supposed to believe that, as President, he would begin to exhibit these qualities. The only President I can think of who was able to do that was George Washington... and he was *the* founding father and so inviolate. ;)

Oh! good a happy post
May the right person win

Kennedy started the civil rights program that Johnson was able to get enacted. Anyone who thinks that his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis was anything but brilliant is really ignorant of history. He was advised by the hawks of his day like the nutty Curtis LeMay to bomb the Cuban missile sites, a course that would have backed the Russians into a corner and might have started nuclear war. Instead he cut a deal that got the missiles out of Cuba and allowed the Russians to save face. You will notice that almost all the principles in the Cuban crisis are now dead, but Fidel Castro and the rest of the world are still here. You can thank Kennedy for that.

I agree that the Cuban Missle Crisis was one of JFK's finest diplomatic victories in terms of his ability to thwart, what appeared to be, impending mutual assured destruction. But let's not forget that the Soviet missile deployment in Cuba was a response to JFK's ill-advised positioning (privately opposed by Sec. of State Dean Rusk) of Jupiter IRBMs in Turkey when the US already had the same nuclear strategic capability coming from their Polaris SLBMs.
But to defend Kennedy, many presidents would've made the same strategic misstep but few, very very very few, could redeem one such as this.