I think conservatives let the Left off easy on JFK.
” Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity to yield and INCREASED... flow of revenues to the federal government “
...JOHN F. KENNEDY...(what Democrats used to be)
We should hammer them on the fact that the Leftists have taken over their Party.
Hell Kennedy was to the right of Reagan and Bush on foreign policy. He actually supported fighting for freedom everywhere and sent 15,000 advisers and Special Forces he invented just for Vietnam, to fight for freedom in Vietnam.
Think about it.
He was George W Bush before Bush an without a 9-11 to provoke him.
“...sent 15,000 advisers and Special Forces he invented just for Vietnam...”
And this concept of Special Forces should have been used to train and assist the host government forces while on the strategic level conventional forces cut off and punished the aggressor nation. So eventually we had conventional forces in Vietnam playing a counter-insurgency game while the NVA were able to march down unopposed.
A well-engineered menacing and conventional (Maginot) Line along the 17th parallel all the way through Laos and into Thailand is what was needed. Not just a static defense but also a launch area for operations oriented toward the north when the NVA created mischief. The counter-insurgency part would have been successful.
Kennedy does not deserve the blame for putting half a million men in a counter-insurgency roles while the NVA invasion was allowed to continue unchecked. That was all LBJ and the “best and brightest” JFKers he retained.
“Hell Kennedy was to the right of Reagan and Bush on foreign policy.”
ummm, Bay of Pigs .....
JFK wasn't quite that noble. He was mostly thinking about himself.
Why JFK picked Viet Nam. I believe it happened this way.
James "Scotty" Reston revealed this in 1966 IIRC.
The hapless Kennedy was savaged by Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961, especially over being chicken at the Bay of Pigs. So badly did JFK represent his Country that he asked for one more chance, a personal meeting with Khrushchev with only the two of them and two interpreters. JFK agreed to meet with Reston first after the meeting. This account is from, "Scotty," by John F. Stacks.
'How was it?' Reston asked casually.
'Worst thing in my life. He savaged me,' Kennedy responded. The president seemed to Reston to be almost in shock, repeating himself and speaking with astonishing candor to the journalist. 'Not the usual bullshit,' Reston wrote in his notepad. 'There is a look a man has when he has to tell the truth.' Kennedy went on to say that to counter the battering by Khrushchev, which he attributed to the Soviet leader's underestimation of Kennedy's resolve, the United States would have to stand more firmly against the Soviets' demands in Berlin and against the mounting Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Reston wrote later that he was 'speechless' when Kennedy mentioned Vietnam, since that troubled country was at that point nowhere near the heart of the Cold War conflict and, in Reston's estimation, did not carry much weight in the superpower tug-of-war. Ever afterward, Kennedy's remark to Reston was seen by historians and by Reston himself as the moment marking the beginning of America's long slide into the tragedy of Vietnam." [End excerpt]
Yes sir, the JFK people took tens of thousands of Americans into war with the same "resolve" as they had at the Bay of Pigs.
Then LBJ took over caring more about his "Great Society" plans than any thing else including war -- fight the war but it must not in any way hinder getting his "Great Society." Lie, lie, lie whatever it takes. (see McMaster's. "Dereliction of Duty")
Not knowing this in 1961-62 I actually believed that Africa would be the place we'd confront the U.S.S.R.'s wars of liberation.
Are you democrat worshipers now saying that JFK "invented" the Army Special Forces?
Notice the first thing this democrat worshiper did, on a thread about a lefty hero trying to move Canada to the left.
He jumps on the thread and posts to “ALL” what a great hero JFK was and superior to a real foreign policy expert, perhaps the greatest in history, Reagan.
This guy wanted to hijack what could be an informative thread on the foreign policy disaster called JFK, and protect the myth.