Deja vu all over again.
</ce nter>Posted on 07/26/2004 11:00:50 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
BOSTON - In the fall of 1962, a crowd of Yale students — some toting signs such as "How about Less Profile and More Courage?" or "Why Not Free Cuba?" jeered President Kennedy when he stumped for Democratic congressional candidates on the New Haven Green.
The taunts troubled a 17-year-old freshman named John Kerry (news - web sites), who had met his hero several times through mutual friends during the summer of 1962. He had joined Kennedy on a yachting trip in Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay and aboard a naval ship to watch the America's Cup sailing races there.
Through these social contacts — and as a young Democrat attracted to Kennedy's ideals and vision — Kerry felt a connection to a president not unlike himself.
"I think it's fair to say that while John F. Kennedy excited a great many people of our generation, it struck more closely to John for many reasons — the initials, a Catholic from Massachusetts, because he saw him in person, because he saw the famous speech at the Boston Garden" on the eve of Kennedy's 1960 election, said Cameron Kerry, Kerry's younger brother who recalled that Kennedy was a frequent topic at dinner in the Kerry home.
"But as John came into politics, he needed to define himself independently," he said.
Four decades later, a nation is reminded of the similarities between the two men: Both Democrats and Roman Catholics. Products of a privileged upbringing and naval war heroes. Massachusetts senators determined to oust Republicans from the White House. Candidates campaigning with a nation under threat, one from a familiar Cold War enemy, the other faceless terrorists.
Kerry will accept his party's nomination on Thursday in Boston — Kennedy's birthplace — with the dream of becoming the next JFK (his middle name is Forbes) to occupy the Oval Office.
Colleagues say the four-term Massachusetts senator has not made a conscious effort to model himself after Kennedy.
"You don't hear John Kerry quoting President Kennedy. He doesn't wear his strong feelings about Kennedy on his sleeve," said John Shattuck, who attended St. Paul's prep school and Yale with Kerry and is now head of the JFK Library Foundation.
"I'm sure he's the way I and other members of our generation were — very much captured by Kennedy and what he had to say."
Although he hadn't participated in the taunts aimed at Kennedy during the October 1962 demonstration near the Yale campus in New Haven, Conn., Kerry felt compelled to apologize for the "disrespect shown the office of the president."
"It is possible that you personally were not bothered by what happened here, but the insult was made and there is no one here who is not now conscious of it," Kerry wrote in a neatly typed letter. The letter, on embossed Yale stationery bearing his name and address, is in the Kennedy library archives.
Comparisons to Kennedy have endured from Kerry's earliest days in the national spotlight. When he returned from Vietnam and testified to Congress against the war on April 22, 1971, the White House took wary note of the similarities.
In a taped conversation with President Nixon, White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman said Kerry did a "superb" job in his testimony.
"A Kennedy-type guy, he looks like a Kennedy, and he, he talks exactly like a Kennedy," Haldeman said.
One of Kerry's greatest champions has been longtime Senate colleague, Edward M. Kennedy, brother of the late president who invoked his own family history as he has campaigned tirelessly for Kerry.
It was Kennedy who suggested that Kerry employ several of his Capitol Hill aides after a Kerry campaign shake-up late last year. Among them was Mary Beth Cahill, who has served as Kerry's campaign manager.
In past campaigns, drawing links to President Kennedy has been a frequent strategy, though it can be fraught with peril.
Former President Clinton (news - web sites) often quoted Kennedy and spoke of being inspired to a life of public service after meeting him in the White House Rose Garden in 1963. In the 1980s, Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart was accused of mimicking the president by putting his hand into the flap of his jacket, as Kennedy often did.
And perhaps most notably, Vice President Dan Quayle (news - web sites) was famously admonished by Lloyd Bentsen, "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy," after comparing his length of service in Congress to that of Kennedy.
"I do think that John Kennedy certainly has been a very dangerous icon ... because it's been such a mammoth image to live up to," said John Hellman, author of "The Kennedy Obsession: The American Myth of JFK."
"In a lot of ways, he's been the uninvited, sometimes invited ... guest at each presidential campaign," Hellman said.
Tah Rayyyy Zaaaa is no Jackie
Kennedy beleived in getting the government off the backs of the american people so the economy could grow. Does Kerry? Kennedy was ardently anti-communist - is Kerry?
Deja vu all over again.
</ce nter>
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites), D-Mass., gestures to fans behind the Boston Red Sox (news) dugout during the third inning against the New York Yankees (news) at Fenway Park in Boston Sunday, July 25, 2004. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
and that America was basically a force for Good in the world and should be strong. There is NO indication of either sentiment in Kerry's sorry years of voting in the Senate.
almost seems like The Boys from Brazil thing is going on,, or should I say, The Boys from Brussels (home of the EU)
kennedy beleived in diplomacy - but saw that it had serious limitations. he beleived that it needed a strong backbone not only in the possession of a strong, well equipped military, but in the wise use of it. (key word: use)
someone who can only mouth words with no backbone to back himself up has a name...
Kennedy vastly overrated. Stole an election, was a playboy, was heavily medicated on prescription drugs, and fought a half-hearted war on communism.
(not you...sorry...shooting the messenger...but..."many similarities"? NOT!..."no conscious effort to model"? NOT!!...aargh! Lies! And if Kennedy's administration hadn't been tragically ended, and framed/reframed as "Camelot", we'd all be talking about what a poor President he really was, as opposed to how much people loved him...and even at that, Kennedy did a couple good things, I seem to remember, and Kerry is a terrible excuse for a "pretender"...)
/ rant...feel better now! ;)
Liberals have a psychotic obsession with President Kennedy.
Although he hadn't participated in the taunts aimed at Kennedy during the October 1962 demonstration near the Yale campus in New Haven, Conn., Kerry felt compelled to apologize for the "disrespect shown the office of the president."
"It is possible that you personally were not bothered by what happened here, but the insult was made and there is no one here who is not now conscious of it," Kerry wrote in a neatly typed letter. The letter, on embossed Yale stationery bearing his name and address, is in the Kennedy library archives.
This from a man who routinely disrepects George W. Bush in all manner of public and on-the-record comments, regardless of the fact that G.W. is better known as the man who holds "the office of the president"!!!
And I'm sure it was totally possible that President Kennedy was not "personally bothered" by the protestors "near the Yale campus", but doubtless he found Kerry's sympathetic letter personally apologizing on behalf of Yale University to be very comforting...NOT!! Typewriters are neat by nature, BTW, and Kerry's an obvious, shameless, "main chancer" by nature...
On second thought...this is a great article, NR! A child could see through this "letter to Kennedy" episode...LOL! (and then there was Kerry the anti-war veteran, so "respectful" of Nixon, who after all was the one that got them out...have the media jumped the shark in all the convention excitement??? bwahaha!)
Kennedy believed in tax cuts - Does Kerry?
Maybe I'm not an expert in this matters, but I think that JFK was a good President.
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