Was John F. Kennedy the flat-out absolute worst U.S. president of the 20th century?

Foreign Policy ^ | 07/15/2011 | Thomas Ricks

[rollo tomasi]

“The Ohio Gang” stuck together like glue. Are you implying that Harding was ignorant of the the Teapot Dome scandal and the rest of his gangs antics?

[ansel12]

While true that JFK got us involved (sending Special Forces "advisers")

You are confusing Eisenhower and JFK, Eisenhower kept a few hundred advisers there, but Kennedy started sending in the troops and had 16,000 there when he was killed.

[shadowcat]

Woodrow Wilson started the money grab!!!

Love to piss on his grave.

[RedMDer]

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[dools0007world]

Sorry. Nobody holds a candle to Carter’s disastrous presidency. Sure Kennedy had the Bay of pigs embarrassment, but Ike had the U2 incident. There is no credible info that can unequivacably show his Vietnam engagement was flawed. He simply wasn’t around long enough to say his policies were good or bad.

There is little doubt in my mind that LBJ set the stage for the ultimate communist take over. Nixon followed with equally inane war policy. At least he had the sense to cut our losses and get the hell out. The main problem: A total lack of American political will to win. And guess what, we are repeating all the Vietnam mistakes in the WOT.

[ansel12]

JFK also had a John Kerry like, questionable and very, very short, war history.

[Theodore R.]

I don’t know if Harding knew about the crimes of the Ohio Gang. Maybe he coveted plausible deniability. His house in Marion was nice but not particularly lavish for that day.

[hummingbird]

I did not know that one could be gay AND Jesuit.

There goes my understanding of being Jesuit.

[Iron Munro]

Robert Kennedy left office in September of 1964. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 was signed into law October 3, 1965, more than a year later and almost 2 years after JFK was assasinated.

There is no doubt the Kennedys supported the law and pushed for passage but the only Kennedy serving in office when the act was passed is Ted who was a Senator at the time.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Jesuits had DADT long before the US military.

</sarcasm>

[Ken H]

I nominate LBJ. His Great Society and War on Poverty screwed us royally. These two programs are most responsible for sending the country into a tailspin that we never recovered from and may never. Look at the crime stats in the US between 1960-2009, with special attention to the LBJ years:

http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

[OA5599]

I would imagine that people even in Marion, OH, consider Harding a failure. I wonder what the ‘’Marion Star’’ says about him now. People in OH probably hardly know him, and he was the last OH president, even the last OH nominee, I believe too.

I could see how he was a failure. He only dropped the unemployment rate in half, and only dropped the top marginal tax rate from 73% to 24%. He could have done much better.

He also only dropped immigration rates to 3% per year of the of a country's representation of the population, and authorized deportation of illegals. That simply wouldn't fit in today's society.

He advocated a Jewish homeland in Palestine. He gave an in-your-face speech in the south about importance of racial integration a few times. He eschewed the League of Nations. He established the VA. All clearly failures.

And perhaps his biggest failure of all? His budget. He cut the budget from $6.3 billion from 1920 (before he was in office) to $3.3 billion in 1922. He paid off 1/3 of the national debt.

What a dismal failure of a president!!! (Well, if you're a progressive at least.)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Democrats of the 20th Century:

Woodrow Wilson

Franklin Roosevelt

Harry Truman

John Kennedy

Lyndon Johnson

Jimmy Carter

Bill Clinton

Throw in Rinos to include

Herbert Hoover (whose election was favored by FDR, and who set the records for government spending that FDR broke)

Nixon, and

Ford - and, some will say, Theodore Roosevelt -

and you have to say the competition is pretty stiff.

[scbison]

Funny, most of new many years ago that JFK foreign policy was a distaster..

However, I give JFK credit on one thing, he understood economics as he cut taxes which grew the economy.. I also read books where he thought hard core leftists of his party were nuts to the point where he voted for Eisenhower instead of Stevenson in 1956.

[truthfreedom]

Wilson was far worse.

Wilson gave us the Federal Reserve.

Kennedy gave us United States Notes. They were printed, issued, completely bypassing the Federal Reserve. He was shot less than a year later.

I don’t see anything that bad that JFK did. Was the peace corps really worse than the income tax and the federal reserve and WWI and the League of Nations, and, and, and, with Wilson. FDR’s list of bad stuff and LBJ’s list of bad stuff is much longer.

Kennedy’s adminstration was bad for Republicans, because it helped lock Catholics to the Democrat Party for a long time.
Maybe that’s what you meant.

[M-cubed]

lots of folks don't know about Kennedy's EO 11110...the end run around the Fed...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11110

also I don't find the conspiracy theory of his assassination because of it that far fetched...but I'm partial to tin foil too so who knows

[yarddog]

JFK was an incompetent Captain of a PT boat but was ultimately brave after his bad leadership got his boat cut in half by a destroyer.

I actually got to know one of the captains in Kennedy’s PT Boat squadron. He said they all liked Kennedy but getting rammed was considered the very worst thing you could do as a PT boat commander. After all they were the fastest thing on the ocean.

[jwalsh07]

Let me introduce Mr Ricks to Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barack Hussein Obama. LBJ has always been the runaway worst but Obama has potential.

[Ken H]

LBJ has always been the runaway worst but Obama has potential.

I absolutely agree. (see post #92)