Ask Not What J.F.K. Can Do for Obama-By FRANK RICH

[kpete]

Ask Not What J.F.K. Can Do for Obama
In other words, Kennedy needed two things. He needed poetry, and he needed a country with some desire, however vague, for change.


By FRANK RICH
Published: February 3, 2008

BEFORE John F. Kennedy was a president, a legend, a myth and a poltergeist stalking America’s 2008 campaign, he was an upstart contender seen as a risky bet for the Democratic nomination in 1960.

Kennedy was judged “an ambitious but superficial playboy” by his liberal peers, according to his biographer Robert Dallek. “He never said a word of importance in the Senate, and he never did a thing,” in the authoritative estimation of the Senate’s master, Lyndon Johnson. Adlai Stevenson didn’t much like Kennedy, and neither did Harry Truman, who instead supported Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.

......................

How did the fairy-tale prince from Camelot vanquish a field of heavyweights led by the longtime liberal warrior Hubert Humphrey? It wasn’t ideas. It certainly wasn’t experience. It wasn’t even the charisma that Kennedy would show off in that fall’s televised duels with Richard Nixon.Looking back almost 30 years later, Mr. Goodwin summed it up this way: “He had to touch the secret fears and ambivalent longings of the American heart, divine and speak to the desires of a swiftly changing nation — his message grounded on his own intuition of some vague and spreading desire for national renewal.”

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/opinion/03rich.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[Maribelle]

1. However, policy differences are not marginal between Hillary and Obama

in areas where most hard working Americans matter.

And all the while Obama supporters do not even have the background to intelligently discuss these vital differences to any depth of knowledge.

Obama's health proposal, which currently affects far too many in the gut, is more like trickle down economics than anything currently on the table. Obama supporters shrivel when this subject is broached, and respond with a scream that Hillary's is mandatory, what will she be doing throwing poor people in jail?

Obama's support of Kennedy's failed NCLB should be of concern to every parent with children in public schools, or that will be entering a public school in the next few years. Yet to try to discuss NCLB with an Obama Supporter is like swimming with alligators.

The list of policy differences obviously do not matter a bit to Mr. Rich. Telling, that.

[JimGinPA]

2. I'm Astounded...

At the audacity of those who have been sucked in by the shrill, sing-song phoniness of that coporate whore,the cuckolded Ms. Clinton, but still have the temerity to opine on the background or intelligence of those who see a better option. It boggles the mind.

[Tellurian]

9. Another tombstone prospect..they're here in horded hordes..

[w13rd0]

3. It is with these broad strokes...

"And all the while Obama supporters do not even have the background to intelligently discuss these vital differences to any depth of knowledge." ... that you alienate others and eliminate any possibility of intelligent discussion. And the sentence is really awkwardly formed at that. "to any depth of knowledge" Maybe "with any depth of knowledge" or "having any depth of knowledge", but "to"?

[Maribelle]

7. I said "to" because I meant "to". Your attempt at twisting my words would only ...

change the meaning of what I said when I said "to".

Please let me know if you need additional help understanding the English language, I would be more than happy to assist.

[LandOLincoln]

6. I agree, and I was with JFK all the way in 1960.

Of course I was 17 and couldn't vote anyway--but even if I had bothered to explore the issues of the time, and could have voted, my vote almost certainly would have gone to JFK.

But I'm 'way older now, and 'way more knowledgeable politically.

And as a born & bred Illini, I see some Obama/JFK commonalities that--quite frankly--give me the willies.

So I'm voting for Hillary.

Sue me.

[Nimrod2005]

4. Right on!

[BooScout]

5. Mr Rich has obviously been....

....reading DU. Nice to know this place is noticed.

[izzie]

8. I look at who is running in my own way. May be wrong but

I feel the govt. is a service not a business so we need no CEO who rules from the top. I feel the President is a leader who feels what the people wants and runs with it. He then becomes a good or bad President. It is why FDR was so good. He found what the people wanted and pushed for it, not always being right even then. Take WW2 he wanted it long before we got into it and even put England on the loan list but the people or Congress did not want that war. Pearl did that for every one. It is like health care. Looks to me like it is moving into a govt. system. I like Obama pushing it ever so slow as it will come but only when the people really want it. I think Kennedy had this same way. He would get behind what the people wanted like getting behind King. That was iffy if he was going to do it. You know there was a joke about Kennedy when he ran. 'We would vote for him is we also got a new Post Office in town.' If you recall he just made it into office. His percent was very very small. It felt new when he came in I will say that.

[jackson_dem]

10. For all the talk about 1960 being a "change" election...

JFK won by 0.2% and the only major policy disagreement he had with Nixon was on Taiwan. It was hardly the transformative election won in a landslide by a charismatic candidate that it has been mythologized as. JFK did bring change and great popularity but that was after he won a close election by the skin of his teeth.