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 ...
The reason they fail is that they want to be “popular.”
EMK got the immigration law pushed through in 1965, but I don’t know if it had first been a JFK initiative, may well have been.
2. Barrack Obama -
3. Jimmy Carter
4. FDR - The first Liberal President to put Wilson's ideas in practice
5. JFK
6. Truman
Yes, the American people would be unable to accept the truth of JFK if presented to them. Even Dan Quayle wouldn’t defend himself when ol’ Bentsen snarled at him.
One of the most corrupt yes, his cronyism was legend, but in the face of a post war depression he led efforts to cut spending in half (Telling his big spending RINO partner Coolidge to go to hell in the process) along with deep tax cuts that led to economic growth.
Progressivism started with TR, not Wilson.
Today a man with the political views of JFK would be to the right of many republicans in congress and wouldn't even be allowed in the democrat party!
Anyone who "studied the Vietnam war over the last 14 months" would know there were only about 16,000 troops in Vietnam when JFK was assasinated. By 1968 LBJ had increased that number to 537,000 and that same year there were 16,592 war deaths
ONE YEAR = 16,592 DEAD!
What JFK might have done or not done is a moot point. The nightmare of Vietnam rests 99% on LBJ's shoulders.
I am unsure if Harding was corrupt at all. He had some corrupt Cabinet people, Harry Daugherty and Albert Fall, a few others? But Harding had not good press to survive his death.
We also have Tom Dooley to thank for JFK's creation of the Peace Corps.
He should hang down his head and cry.
Tom Dooley “hang down your head and cry” is a 19th century bandit, isn’t it? I don’t know much about the Tom Dooley who wrote about Vietnam, didn’t know he was a priest.
See post 37, JFK knew that he had to replace the American voter with imported voters.
Re: Worst Presidents. I was taught early on that U.S. Grant was one of our worst. I believed it until I read Jean Edward Smith’s Grant. Smith shows Grant warts and all, but he comes out an outstanding President. He has great words about Grant’s magnanimity, treatment of Indians and his handling of the financial crisis of ‘73. There is also a quote from David Herbert Donald who states that Grant is the most underrated American in history. What a book! It’s over 600 pages and is history at its best, one of the best books I’ve read in the last twenty years.
Woody Wilson is probably the worst followed by Barry and Jimmah.
My take is that LBJ was the worst domestic policy President of the modern era, and Carter the worst foreign policy President of that era, results to be seen. Obama is working hard to unseat both. JFK, while not great, isn’t even in the running.
Correct - it was 1965 and JFK was stone cold in the ground.
The Kennedy who pushed the immigration law through was Ted.
The only president in history worse than Carter is Obama.
My thoughts exactly.
Carter used to be the worst President ever and is still No. 2 in my book, now that we are saddled with this Narcissistic, Fascist, Neo-Commie
Of course we can not overlook LBJ, who with moonbat, moron, and so called "wiz kid" McNamara micro-managed the Nam War from the oval office and instituted Rules of Engagement which resulted in many un-needed casualties.
Likewise the wholly corrupt and cowardly LBJ could have ended that little military engagement in 6 months or so, had he not been so afraid of the Rooskies and Chinks who were supporting No. Vietnam and without their aid, could not have lasted very long.
While true that JFK got us involved (sending Special Forces "advisers") it was LBJ who really screwed the pooch and was responsible for tens of thousands of my brothers not coming home, not to mention hundreds of thousands of wounded.
Now *that* I agree with regarding JFK.
“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.”
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