Monday, July 09, 2007
JFK: "Resoundingly mediocre"
Joseph Epstein straightens the record on JFK in today's Wall Street Journal (you'll need a subscription to read the entire article):
Here was a president who initiated no impressive programs, was less than notably courageous in coming to the aid of civil rights workers in the South, got the nation enmeshed in one of the most unpopular wars in our history (Vietnam), and brought it to the edge of nuclear war in a probably unnecessary war of nerves with Nikita Khrushchev over the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba. In short, John F. Kennedy was a president who, based on the decisions he made or didn't have the courage to make while in office, deserves to go down as one of the resoundingly mediocre figures in American presidential history."
Here was a president who initiated no impressive programs, was less than notably courageous in coming to the aid of civil rights workers in the South, got the nation enmeshed in one of the most unpopular wars in our history (Vietnam), and brought it to the edge of nuclear war in a probably unnecessary war of nerves with Nikita Khrushchev over the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba. In short, John F. Kennedy was a president who, based on the decisions he made or didn't have the courage to make while in office, deserves to go down as one of the resoundingly mediocre figures in American presidential history."
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Monday, July 09, 2007 
