Today's Poll: How do you grade JFK as a president?

He wasn't a Ronnie Ray-Gun type President, but his personality carried the day for him despite his perchance for the things of human fraility.

I read somewhere that he had danruff........
They found head and shoulders all over the car!!

50 years ago today, I was packing for a weekend trip to Newark, NJ when the news flash came across the screen. Had he lived, he would have been the first vote I ever cast for a president. This was a time when the press kept personal lives of our leaders on the back burner. He was someone who did a good job representing the US to other countries, Were there glaring errors? Of course. There are glaring errors in every administration. The American Conservative was an interesting choice to drive this poll.

Only reason I gave him a B was the Bay of Pigs...

However, for any organization to place Reagan as #1 says a lot (negatively) about them.

Sheesh - just saw the byline on that article... Pat Buchanan... 'nuff said about intellectual capacity right there.

I was eight when he was assassinated and at my Grandparents for the week when it was announced.

I remember my Grandmother crying when she made the telephone calls to the family in Batavia on the “party line” and helping my Grandfathers put the extra leaves in the old maple kitchen table. He sent me down to the basement to bring up a gallon bottle of Carlo Rossi Pisano.

We then walked to the corner store run on Ellicott St owned by Tony Bonadonna for his fresh Italian Sausage, oranges and other groceries and to discuss what happen.

I remember my entire family from Batavia arriving with their brown paper bags of groceries, crusty Italian bread or plates of early Christmas cookies; the olives, salami and pepperoni or assorted cold cuts for the kitchen table.

I remember the women hugging and crying while we gathered the black & white television.

I remember going to Mass on the following Sunday and all the candles lit in his memory of our first Catholic President.

My family are mixed Republicans and Democrats and politics aside, we respected and loved this young President.

That scene you describe sounds like the makings of a good movie.

Wonder if Tim got the no vote for the Reagan comment or the one about Pat Buchanan?

Tim, it was not the American Conservative that referenced ranking Reagan #1, it was the New York Times.

Perhaps you slimmed over instead of actually read the article. Buchannan simply pointed that out what the Times reported to bolster his argument.

From the article;

" The New York Times reports that in the ranking of presidents, Kennedy has fallen further and faster than any. Ronald Reagan has replaced him as No. 1"

Kennedy was a very charismatic figure and an unequaled orator in his time. He had international appeal and his greatest strength was his ability to energize the youth of this nation. However, much of what we see as accomplishment is actually magnified by the fact that he was assassinated.

His election in 1960 was marred with reports of poll tampering, at the time the election of 1960 was one of the closest in history. The reason why he was in Dallas that day in the first place was because his poll numbers were waning and his ability to get re-elected in 1964 was in question. Kennedy was extremely popular in the north but was unquestionably not well liked in the south, And that is a fact.

Unlike the progressive democrats of today and his brothers for that matter, Kennedy was markedly conservative he called for massive tax reductions, dare I say it, for the wealthy, a strong and aggressive defense posture and was an animate anti communist.

It is ironic that you berate Buchanan, because if you read the facts that he presented in The American Conservative, they are not only accurate but absolutely true without question and intellectually can not be denied.(And I am not by any means a Buchanan fan}

No one can take away from JFK his charisma and his political skill, nor can they take away his personal heroism during World War II. He was in fact a Great American and someone that should be emulated. That all said, Kennedy had great difficulty moving legislative matters through congress, a congress mind you that his party controlled.

Much of the lore about Kennedy, and this is unfortunate, is derived by his life being cut short on that fateful day. Again, JFK was a great American, but the success of Presidencies in history is not based on charisma, rather it is based on legislative achievement. While JFK was an iconic figure, because of the assassination his achievements and failures have been colored through the eyes of emotion rather than the impact of his platform., .

We should know there is a difference between lore and History. Stories, never mind how true they are, always trump cold fact. I don't recall who made the point; one's shadow is often bolder than one's substance. Kennedy's shadow-building began long before his political career and gained velocity with his demise. Kennedy's presidency was born of the 'right brain.' He was our mothers' president, anointed in hopes and dreams for an end to war, famine, poverty and bigotry. Our fathers stood by in utter dismay, muttering, "son-of-a-bitch," as the newspapers confirmed that Dick Nixon lost. ...And as often as the cynics attempt to lay waste to the prevailing myth, the tacky velvet paintings will not relent.

"The whole damn family ain't nuttin but thieves and liars"

"He was our mothers' president, anointed in hopes and dreams for an end to war, famine, poverty and bigotry." Sounds eerily like another bill of goods we were sold 5 years ago.

If the mothers only knew that after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy and his brother Robert virtually gave the CIA anything it wanted and instigated many of the famed assignation plots by the CIA.

It intervention and subterfuge so massive that Lyndon Johnson referred to the CIA under the Kennedy Administration as MURDER INC

** DUPLICATE POST***

He only won by 100,000 votes..I wouldn't say he was that popular back in 1960...Some say his father bought him that election...What great thing did he really do?..I gave him a C.And that was only because he lower taxes..

Despite Gary's negative thumbs up. He is completely right. The Kennedy Fortune was amassed by rum running and boot legging. The same activities that established the Mafia and other criminal enterprises. Also made corruption very commonplace and even acceptable in the police and govt.

Scanning several sites they all bend back and forth on the origin of the Kennedy fortune. However this site seemed to me to sum it it up in a brutally honest fashion.

"J.P. Kennedy was what we call an operator. He made his money by (1) pulling various hustles before it had occurred to anyone to make them illegal, and (2) possibly pulling other hustles that were definitely illegal but generally winked at."

The nuances of the truth can be argued til your blue in the face. But that just about summed up a few hours of web surfing the subject. Here is the link if you are interested in reading it...

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/716/what-is-the-true-source-of…

Bea your are a few days ahead of the actual day.
It was November 22nd 1963 when the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy happened. I was in the 9th grade at that time and remember it very well.
This Friday will be the 50th Anniversary

since Ronald Reagan's name was brought up, let me say he was the worst president in my lifetime. the whole iran-contra arms deal and firing the air traffic controllers...a true blue union buster...and they name an airport after him.....I hope he's rotting in a place I don't want to go........

Did those of you that gave him an A or a B forget how he deepened our involvement in Vietnam to the point of 53000 lives lost - for naught?

First of all Mr. Spaulding, it is illegal for Federal Employees to strike, period, before Reagan fired them, the union was being fined $1,000,000 per day by a federal judge. Frankly, PATCO was violating the law

They wanted a $10,000 across the board raise and a reduction of the 5 day 40 hour work week to a 4 day 32 hours per week- At tax payer expense. Reagan did exactly the right thing for the nation. Federal Employees have no business being unionized anyway, they work for us, not some 'greedy' corporation, they live off of tax dollars,

As far as Iran-Contra goes, yes the Gipper's boys were wrong on that one.

Wow, 50 years later......and some of you are still bustin' the guys balls.......Wow.....

Gary, Caroline was just named an ambassador. Please tell us what she did to be called a thief and liar?

Bob, that is just not true.
While he had advisors there, it was President Johnson that got us deep into Viet Nam. We will never know if Kennedy would have kept the troop level where it was, pull them out after the assassination of their president, or expanded the involvement.

John,

In 1961 when Kennedy was inaugurated there were 575 advisors in South Vietnam.
In 1963, at the time of his death there were 16000 advisors

It is true however, that combat troops did not arrive there until March of 1965 when the 4th Marines landed ashore and quickly escalated under Johnson

It really isn't busting on the guy Richard, at least from most of the post that I have seen, it truly holds to the poll question of how JFK is ranked as president.

Like I said in an earlier post,

He was a great man, and a great American, however was his Presidency actually successful is totally another question. The empirical information that is now before us suggest not so much so.

Was he a war hero? Yes
Was he charismatic and inspirational? Yes beyond any doubt
Was his presidency successful? History is telling us not so much so.

We can only speculate if that would have changed should he not have been assassinated, but none of us and not a soul can say that they do know that.

John, Kennedy implemented the policies that , IMHO, placed us on a course that Johnson could not veer from. It was the international commitments by Kennedy that forced "Light Bulb"'s to send more and more troops. At that time (not like today) this nation's word was it's bond.

BTW, just to be sure of my facts before responding to you, I checked some sites about troop levels by year. The ones I visited say we were down to about 50 by 1973. That is SO far from the truth. I participated in Operation Frequent Wind in April '75!! Thousands of us were involved!

Side note, it amazes me (spelled pisses me off to no end) that in spite of our defeat in southeast Asia (YES IT WAS!) and essential losses in EVERY military engagement since then, we have not learned that you cannot run a war out of Washington.

Give the commanders their objective, then get the hell out of the way. "Rules of Engagement" has cost thousands of our sons and daughters their lives.

Bob, Frequent Wind was a Seaborne operation, the troops involved were not stationed in Vietnam, they came from the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade (Camp Shwab Okinawa] and the 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade [Camp Hansen Okinawa]., the US Navy and Special Air Units from the US Air Force (Launched From the deck of the Aircraft Carrier USS Midway but stationed at Kadena AFB Okinawa)

Although that constituted thousands of Marines, Airmen and Sailors to conduct the operation and go in to withdraw the troops and mostly US civilians stationed in Vietnam, the bulk of those forces Primarily the Marines and Airmen were stationed on Okinawa.

The actual military personnel stationed in Vietnam was the Marine Security platoon at the embassy, and a handful of officers at the CIA's Air America compound known as the DOA [Around 50 between the two locations] During the fixed-wing evacuation 50,493 people (including 2,678 Vietnamese orphans) were evacuated from Tan Son Nhut.[ In Operation Frequent Wind a total of 1,373 Americans [Mostly Civilians] and 5,595 Vietnamese and third country nationals were evacuated by helicopter.

So the sites that you found were not a lie, as the troops involved in the evacuation which Frequent Wind actually was came from elsewhere. I know this because I was attached to the 4th MAB S-2 at the time.

So in summary, yes Marines flew in, established LZ's, then loaded the 1,373 Americans and 5,595 or so AT RISK south Vietnamese and others and subsequently left. It is all in how you look at it I guess, but from my perspective, we went in pulled those stationed there out and left. I never considered myself as stationed in Vietnam and from what I witnessed at that time, I am glad that I wasn't.

There were plenty of lies told about Vietnam, but the numbers from your website research wasn't one of them.

Mark, I was on the Enterprise. My squadron flew A7's in close air support during the evacuation. I was on the flight deck and saw hundreds of US military personnel disembark from the arriving helicopters along with the Vietnamese.

Most of what you say is true about the majority of us not being in country during Frequent Wind - but I'm an eyewitness to many more Americans than just embassy staff and security coming out.

Bob because many of us went in to secure LZ's and embarkation points, 1st BN 9th Marines flew in on April 25th to create a perimeter around the DOA that was 660 men, G company 2nd BN 4th Marines landed at the Embassy to reinforce the security Platoon and F co company crested a perimeter around the Embassy LZ's because of the Massive flow of refugees through the embassy gates that was another 320 men

I am not saying that we did not put troops on the ground to accomplish the evacuation mission because we did, approximately 3500 of us. But they were not stationed in Vietnam, they were part of the evacuation force however, not the troops being withdrawn.

I have no doubt what you saw, but I know that many of the troops that you saw were the trailing elements of the evacuation force not of personnel stationed there. In fact, one company from my regiment went to the Enterprise once their mission was accomplished.

Your research showed 50 troops in 1973 yes, but the majority of troops landing on the enterprise I assure you were part of Task Force 76, almost half of us exited to your task force 77 when the mission neared it's end.

This is neither here nor there however, I could drag up tons of documents posted on the Marine Corp Gazette I doubt that would be of much interest to anyone but you and I. It also illustrates that once a government tells a lie, everything that they say comes into question.

It also illustrates that once a government tells a lie, everything that they say comes into question.

Damn right, Mark. And the US government has told some whoppers.

Thanks for the clarification... I'll re-read the article and try to find the NYT survey.

As to Kennedy calling for tax breaks for the wealthy - even this die-hard liberal would call for lowering the top tax rate of 91% at the time (http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Federal%20Tax%20B…). I believe the proper term for some of those rates is "yikes!"