Liberals, on the whole, never said an unkind word about "Uncle Joe" Stalin, or 'Agrarian Reformer' Mao. As far as JFK being a Cold Warrior, his actions in Cuba, or for that matter, in Vietnam, wipe out any public utterances he may have made.
I'll grant you this, JFK spun himself, and he and his Dad were mighty spinners, as a Cold Warrior.
All baloney. He stands up in Berlin and proclaims himself "Ein Berliner," which fittlingly enough means he's a jelly donut, and the Soviets respond by building the Wall, which he lets go unchallenged.
But then his Dad's Hollywood-style PR operation spun JFK as a War Hero, when the Navy had originally scheduled him for a court martial. They spun him as devoted father and family man. They spun him as the picture of health. They spun him as an author, hiring their own people to write his book. Dad single-handedly turned it into an instant best seller by buying 50 thousand copies. They spin the Kennedys as Civil Rights crusaders, when JFK voted against civil rights bills for 20 years in Congress and the Senate.
All we know publicly about JFK is pure 'Myth of Camelot' spin. Ted, Patrick, Bobby,JFK, and Dad, in short the lot of them, were all cut from the same crooked cloth.
Always post facts and tear away the veil of mythography from the eyes of the ill informed.
My point (and that of the author under discussion) isn't so much focused on JFK as on the fact that modern "progressives" are far less willing to see the USA as a force for good in the world than many earlier "liberals."