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TechnoratiObama, JFK, and 'A Sense of History'
Quite a few pundits have compared Barack Obama to JFK, but not many have specified the terms of that resemblance. They include charisma, vigor, (relative) youth, wit, eloquence, intelligence, education, and grace under pressure. In combination, these are not ordinary qualities; they make a person, or a candidate, exceptional. Speed, strength, focus, a good eye, and quick reflexes are among the attributes of a natural athlete. A natural leader is more rare than a great athlete.
In one of the famous Kennedy-Nixon debates, Nixon was asked what he thought was the chief qualification for the presidency. "Experience," Eisenhower's vice-president predictably answered. JFK, who had recently been re-elected to a second term in the Senate, was asked the same question. "A sense of history," he responded. Nixon not only lost, but he also went on to give "experience" a bad name and to resign the presidency in disgrace.
Not many people remember Kennedy's remarkable answer to that debate question, but as Senator Clinton and Senator McCain tout their own "experience," we should remember that there are other qualifications for leadership. JFK talked about the importance of "vigor." Pundits praised the young president's "charisma." Charisma and vigor have been among the attributes of good leaders for thousands of years.
And we shouldn't regard youth as a drawback. When Alexander Hamilton and James Madison attended the Constitutional Convention and wrote most of the Federalist Papers, Madison was 36 and Hamilton was only 32. When Thomas Jefferson became the first Secretary of State, he was about Obama's age, 46.
The President of the United States is not only the head of the executive branch and the commander-in-chief, but also the American diplomat-in-chief. She or he is the face America presents to the rest of the world, the voice they hear when they listen to us on the nightly news, and the demeanor they mock or admire. Like Teddy Roosevelt, the American president occupies the "bully pulpit," exhorting us to be better citizens and better human beings. The American president represents rule by law, as opposed to a king or queen's rule by whim or fiat. Therefore, our president should uphold and respect the law and our Constitution.
For the past eight years, we have suffered through the regime of a president who has misused and abused his office. We've had a leader who speaks badly and carries a big stick; a man whose arrogance has alienated the rest of the world; a president who has taken this country deep into debt; an American who seems to care more about peace, infrastructure, freedom, and democracy in Iraq than in his own country. While the rest of the country worked too many hours for low pay, our president took naps, rode his mountain bike, cleared brush, had excellent medical care, and enjoyed long, frequent vacations. We've witnessed an administration that has abandoned any concern for American health and welfare in favor of lofty rhetoric about spreading democracy. We've listened in frustration as patriotic platitudes and fear-mongering have been used to manipulate public emotions. We've groaned as legislation has been given deceptive names - the Clean Air Act, the Patriot Act - to deceive citizens about legislation that benefits corporate bottom lines, not those Americans who breathe the air, pay the taxes, and fight the wars.
JFK wasn't a perfect president. Every president who has mattered historically has also been a disappointment in at least one major way. Therefore, we can't expect a perfect candidate, not when every word and deed, past and present, is subjected to the most critical scrutiny. Like our presidents, every candidate is bound to have a brother, friend, pastor, or close associate who has misbehaved or made unfortunate statements. But lack of perfection in a candidate is no grounds for cynicism.
We Americans can't hold anyone to impossible standards, but we can have reasonable expectations. We deserve a president who has the ability to represent our public face in its most honorable, dignified, thoughtful, and even charming fashion. We need a president who cares more about American citizens than about oil company profits. We deserve a president who selects the best-qualified candidates for high positions: not a family friend or a corporate ally; not a Spiro Agnew, a Dan Quayle, a Clarence Thomas, an Alberto Gonzales, a Harriet Myers, a Michael Chertoff, or a Michael Brown. We deserve a president who will instantly fire a Brownie when he doesn't do a heckuvajob and who is neither too afraid nor too indifferent to appear quickly at ground zero of a natural disaster like Katrina. We need a president who respects science and supports medical research for the public good. And we deserve a president who will not only listen, seriously and respectfully, to opposing or minority points of view but will also actively elicit these points of view.
We Americans need a break from past administrations: both the disastrous policies of George W. Bush, whom many historians consider our worst president ever, and the less recent past of the Clinton administration, with its policies of triangulation, compromise, and accommodation. Both John McCain and Hillary Clinton are too entangled in recent policies, from the war in Iraq to Nafta and Gatt. The relative "inexperience" of Senator Obama represents, as the other, positive side of the coin, a break from our most recent misfortunes and bad decisions.
Natural leaders don't come around very often. Look over the list of American presidents at whitehouse.gov, and you'll see how rare a remarkable, iconic president is. Voters in the remaining primaries have the chance right now to show that we do have "a sense of history." Senator Specter appeared on the Charlie Rose show last week. Asked if Obama reminded him of JFK, he said, almost reluctantly, in a low voice, "I think he could be better."
Carol V. Hamilton has a Ph.D. from Berkeley. Her articles and poems have been published in Oxford German Studies (England), the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, C-Theory.net (Canada), The Paris Review, The North American Review, and many other literary and scholarly journals. She has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and a number of alternative papers.
49 Comments so far
Show AllGlad to hear it, empirePie, but comments that include disparaging references to female sexual organs are as disturbingly essentialist as the n-word. HRC's politics have nothing to do with her "vagina"& should not be characterized as such.
Thanks for the comment bikemessenger.
I'll change the first line verse referring to HRC to: " Do we need a hawk with an apple" which goes better with the Cain and Abel line!
My verse was not meant to be offensive but simply point out that HRC is also part of the might makes right regime and also seems to be intent on proving how' three AM ready' she would be in this role.
I suppose we are all complicit in the crimes of empire and are on the treadmill to keep more of the same happening.
I think we *need* a President as described. I'm not so sure we *deserve* one. Look at what we've allowed to be done in our name for the past 8 years.
At least the more recent comments have been more sane and less abusive. But I still have to wonder whether most Americans, including those at this site, are capable of reading a text carefully without having their brains short-circuit. It's as if they read every third word, or every third sentence. And if people can't take in a carefully written text, it doesn't bode well for democracy.
As for Howard Zinn, his book is admirable in many ways, but I've spotted serious inaccuracies in it too. The Library of America sells a two-volume hardback set of debates on the Constitution, full of the opinions of minor figures you've never heard of. If you want to develop first-hand opinions, instead of borrowing them from Zinn on faith, you should get them. I think they're currently on special for only five bucks.
Those of you who are not conspiracy theorists, who did not drop too much acid in 68, or are not too whacko to follow a chain of thought, or who do not seize on one phrase in an essay and then go ballistic with self-righteous indignation, should read the following, from Alternet, about Obama's foreign policy plans.
http://www.alternet.org/audits/80623/?page=1
"Obama is doing something braver with foreign policy than McGovern or Carter. Much, of course, could go wrong. Right-wing demagogues are already implying Obama is a Muslim terrorist. Conservatives are using Obama's argument about the inextricability of international prosperity and U.S. national security to portray him as a "post-American globalist." Jewish right-wingers in the U.S. have begun a smear campaign not just about Obama, but also about Power, as writers for Commentary and National Review have baselessly implied that she is an anti-Semite. Expect more of this for the duration of the primary season, and, if Obama wins, beyond."
ACTUAL votenader.org issues:
1. Screw it up for the Democrat candidate.
2. Doom us to 4 more years under McBush.
Some people despise Obama for his lack of experience; I despise him for his PLAN. The only experience for the Presidency is the office itself. Clinton was first lady for 8 years presiding over whether to serve crumpets and tea. Then 8 years as Senator serving corporations. If that is what passes for a quality candidate in this moment then we are indeed doomed. As long as the Democrat party keeps serving up pathetic candidates then people like Nader and other Green candidates will carry the cultural creatives representing maybe 3% of the population. Gore won in 2000 when the Supreme Court decided to stop counting votes. Kerry promised that every vote would count then stuck his tail between his legs and reneged on his promise. We know now that there was massive vote fraud in Ohio and Karry caved in (against his word) and let Bush waltz in for another term. Where were all the Nader Bashers when the Supreme Court successfully presided over a judicial coup? Where were the massive protests against it? All the sheeple instead sitting in front of their computer screens lobbying soft balls of discontent. When the crash comes (and it is coming) maybe you people will finally take the red pill.
PeopleFirst,
JFK's handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis saved us from war. Although I believe that Johnson was a man who had his heart in the right place, his vision was limited and could not see the disaster in escalating the Vietnam War. Barack Obama will bring his own skills and natural talent at a time when the challenges facing us calls for a unique individual such as he. The American people are being empowered by his campaign and we will be much more involved in our governance, as it should be. That is why, when Obama says we will accomplish much, if not all we wish to change, together, it resonates within us.
"We deserve a president who has the ability to represent our public face in its most honorable, dignified, thoughtful, and even charming fashion." = Yes, not a president, who like Obama, asks a supporter of the opposition if she will change her vote for "a kiss." So like GWB. "We need a president who cares more about American citizens than about oil company profits." = Yes, not a president who, like BO, according to FactCheck.org, accepted more than $213,000 from individuals who work for companies in the oil and gas industry and their spouses, and two of Obama's bundlers are top executives at oil companies and are listed on his Web site as raising between $50,000 and $100,000 for the presidential hopeful. "We deserve a president who will instantly fire a Brownie when he doesn't do a heckuvajob..." = If Tony Rezco hadn't been indicted too soon, would if have been a member of an Obama administration? There's no reason to think he wouldn't.
Yes, the country needs a real leader. Obama is a lightweight, sexist man who claims credit for work done by others and has no track record, who lacked even the good judgment to leave a racist and anti-American church, much less disassociate himself from Rezko. His so-called "charm" (non-existent to anyone not wearing blinders) doesn't make for a leader.
heavyrunner April 4th, 2008 5:56 am
"When the choice is Obama or McCain, you have to choose Obama."
Duh! I'd vote for Sponge Bob Squarepants over McCain. But then again I am not a closet sponge bigot nor am I worried that cartoon figures are plotting a violent overthrow our way of life.
Obama ain't no JFK. But then neither was JFK. The JFK image is just another myth in Amerikan politics.
When the choice is Obama or McCain, you have to choose Obama. Amy Goodman had one of Barack Obama's principal foreign advisors on, Samantha Powers, a woman from Harvard about his age. She had resigned her position at Harvard to work with Obama, so she is a serious adviser to him in a way that Brezinski is not. While Brezinski has had conversations with Obama, the assertion by Jame Ridgeway and others that he is a principal adviser turned out to be incorrect, but the rumor is still around.
You can read or watch the interview with Ms. Powers here:
http://i2.democracynow.org/2008/2/25/barack_obamas_senior_foreign_policy_adviser
I found her a little scary, but not nearly as much so as Brezinski. She must be a chain smoker because she has a very raspy voice and has trouble breathing. As an avid outdoors person and healthy living adherent who eats organic food and lives in the mountains and exercises regularly I find it alarming that Obama has as his adviser someone who so clearly is making bad life decisions, but no one is perfect. At least she made the statement that Obama recognizes that Chavez is an elected leader, but she was a long way from honoring and respecting Chavez's commitment to making life better for the poor at the expense of international capital as a virtue. She wasn't quite rattling the sabers, but she wasn't as far from that as I would have liked.
Don't expect Obama to nationalize our oil industry any time soon, but I would rather have a constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago than a deranged former prisoner of war liquor salesman as President, and it appears that those are our choices this time around.
Please don't vote for Barack Obama - he's a disaster waiting to happen. One term only. Read what he has said, listen closely to his actual words - he's not what the media keeps on telling us he is; he's Republican lite, with his corporate sponsors salivating at the opportunity to abuse all of us on the ground.
bikemessenger, Brzezinski actually is one of Obama's foreign policy advisers, but almost all the foreign policy team favors diplomacy over war and wants to distribute global wealth more evenly to reduce poverty and despair and terrorism. They believe this is the only effective way to end terrorism. And all of them, including Brzezinski, opposed the invasion of Iraq from the start.
Certainly Bush policies have made things worse. But his policies have never been about ending terrorism.
kathyodat
I'd reiterate the comments that JFK was not a model president, and pose the following question:
Somehow JFK has this aura of peace about him. Indeed, he seems to have given the Democratic Party it's anti-war or less-pro-war reputation, which is surprising, considering his administration's behavior in foreign policy.
How exactly did this happen? The only things I can think of is that he gets a pass because he was young, physically attractive and a smooth-talker, or because we get confused between his domestic policy and his foreign policy. In either case, it's an important issue in order to know how to stop giving current Democratic candidates credit for being anti-war. Many of us keep pretending they're anti-war except that the Republicans keep cornering them on the issue, no matter how much evidence comes out to the contrary.
JFK approved the Bay of Pigs Operation which was conceived before he took office. However, it was an operation that as presented to JFK, was doomed to fail without active US Military intervention. This was not told to JFK, since he was clear that the approval was conditional on no active military intervention that could link the US to the attack. It had to succeed on it's own. They went ahead anyways, expecting JFK to cave when he was informed of the disaster. He didn't. The CIA blamed it on JFK, and told the operatives that JFK changed his mind, not daring to tell them they never had a intervention plan approved.
JFK could have been killed for so many reasons
Big Oil (wanted to take away the oil depletion allowance)
Fed (he authorized the printing of our own money)
Big Business (he wanted to tax capital leaving the US to export US jobs)
Israel (he wanted to inspect and shut down their nuclear program)
Lansky and his Jewish Mafia (he didnt deliver Cuba as his old man promised, and RFK was making life difficult)
Catholic (an issue for the British influenced Scottish Rites that gave us the KKK and dominated Texas politics),
CIA (he fired Allen Dulles who served on the Warren Commission, and planned to dismantle it)
Vietnam (he had plans to remove troops and not involve us in a civil war, war which infuriated Big Oil and the MIC)
Cubans (anti-Castro)
In fact all of these issues had interlocking players. It is no surprise the assassination took place in Texas. His successor was Texan and they are heavily dominated by Scottish Rite Masonry (not to mention Big Oil) who might have taken some offense over JFK's actions. Who knows.
Interesting stuff below if true, might explain some things going on today too.
http://itwasjohnson.impiousdigest.com/kkkmas.htm
What's up with the quotation marks, anyway? Who is being quoted?
It's not true that Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of Obama's advisors. That's an Internet myth being used to alienate possible Jewish supporters.
"Manchurian candidate": more conspiracy theories. The rightwingers say the same thing, only they think he's a Manchurian candidate for the Muslims.
And anyone who chooses the word "douchebag" as an insult is a sexist swine. Too bad your mother went to the trouble to bring you into the world, you angry old white man.
"If Senator Obama possessed truly exceptional qualities of leadership or morality, it would not be necessary to make this argument against him. But he possesses no such superiority. Quite the contrary. He has called very explicitly for the bombing of Pakistan, a country 2 ½ times larger than Iran. Obama spoke against the Iraq war in 2003 when he was not required to vote on the issue, but he has also voted for every Iraq military appropriations bill in the Congress, until this year. Most important, he is a Manchurian candidate, reminiscent in the many ways of the disastrous Jimmy Carter of 1976. Jimmy Carter had been chosen and groomed for the presidency by David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the leaders of the Trilateral Commission. When Carter reached the White House, he turned US foreign policy over to Brzezinski. The results were the seizure of power by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the founding of Al Qaeda by the CIA (Brzezinski's strategy) as an Arab Legion to fight the Soviets in that country.
Zbig is also Obama's foreign policy controller. Zbigniew Brzezinski's entire life has been dominated by his consuming, fanatical hatred of Russia. As he approaches 80 years of age, Brzezinski feels that he has one last chance to dismember the Russian federation and to partition European Russia. This will be the great foreign policy project of a future Obama administration. It is certain that Zbigniew Brzezinski will join Napolean and Hitler in failure, but what will become of our country? The Bush neocons have been addicted to aggressive war, but they were at least cunning enough to pick countries which had no ability to strike against the continental United States. Brzezinski lacks this cunning. He proposes to court confrontation with Russia, the one country, which maintains the capacity to incinerate the United States several times over. The Brzezinski project to be carried out under an Obama regime is a project of incalculable folly, tailored to the obsessions of a clique of old central European revanchists left over from the 1930's, not to the needs of the United States in the twenty-first century.
In the area of economics, Obama's handlers and advisers are a group of right wing thinkers. The first is Austan Goolsbee, a 1991 member of Skull and Bones at Yale. Goolsbee is a member of the monetarist Chicago school founded by Milton Friedman, he is a free trade ideologue. Another Obama advisor in economics is Jeffrey Liebman of Harvard, who has proposed the partial privatization of the Social Security system, in addition to the increasing the regressive payroll tax, while lowering and delaying Social Security benefits. This is not materially different from the proposals of George Bush in 2005. Then we have David Cutler, who thinks that high health care costs are a stimulus to the overall economy. He has proposed more financial incentives in the healthcare field, meaning that he wants to transfer more and more money into the hands of the insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms. Is this politics of hope?"
Your are a DOUCHEBAG MR OBAMA
Pretty depressing to read most of these comments. The guy longing for a revolution, as if it were still the 19th century. The rude, preening guy (chlamor) who rags on the writer rather than writing and submitting his own outstanding, critically flawless, historically informed piece of deathless prose. The Naderites, who can't recognize a lost cause and won't compromise their principles at any price. The inevitable sexist pigs (matti & empirePie). (Can anyone attack HRC without referring to her sexual organs? Jesus, it's the 1950s on this site.)
Too many of you sound like the Rush Limbaughs of the Left--cynical, jaded, angry, contemptuous, name-calling. Would we be better off if YOU were running things? Obviously not. Like Stalin you'd be sending people to the gulags. Like Robespierre you'd have them carted to the guillotine.
Every time I log on Progressive Dreams, I get so bummed at the notion that I'm reading the opinions of the progressive left. So back to the Daily Kos, where people are civil ...
Ah yes, Nader is the answer. But the question is will he ever even launch a serious campaign? Not in his life time. No matter how many times he runs. He is a loser. So, go ahead Nader-nuts. Just think, we could have Al Gore as president for the last 7+ years. Perhaps no 9/11, certainly no Iraq war, continued surpluses in the budget. Hundreds of billions saved, 4000 American lives not lost, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis not killed.
A greener energy policy and a seven year head start in finding alternative fuels to offset 4 dollar a gallon gas prices.
But go ahead and support Nader. It worked out so well in
2000.
Well the last three posters have saved me the time from a lengthy post as to how JFK and Barack are cut from the same cloth that is deeply woven from the threads of American Exceptionalism.
But I guess it's more important to ask how it is that such a politically incoherent and historically illiterate piece as this is deemed worthy on a political website?
I wish I were surprised. Good to see that many people get it even if the author doesn't.
Kennedy was seeking to accelerate the absorption of foreign societies toward a liberal, democratic, and capitalist modernity, reiterating a deep sense of America's vital strengths and essential benevolence. You'll find similar language dripping from Obama's tongue. More American bathos.
Please remember that at the height of the Cold War Kennedy's platform of "modernization" was nothing more than the warmed over ideologies of Manifest Destiny and imperialism.
And today it continues unabated, all manner of political players paying homage to "The Free Market", "Liberal Democracy" etc. with Obama right at the top (meaning bottom) of the heap.
Obama would be the bestest King ever!
Maybe we could even call his reign and family "Camelot" too?
The world's first modern democratic Republic undone by school-girl royalist romantizing.
So tragic it's funny.
-matti.
Yes, Obama has vigor an speaks forcefully for change. What he does not have is an environmental plan written by environmentalist but rather by lobbyists. What he does not have is the guts to take on the health care industry. Just another corporate stooge like Clinton. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Lady. you have to be kidding. I don't care about his vigor or charm.
I got bills to pay. How is his vigor going to help me?
JFK put a charismatic face to US war crimes. He repeatedly violated both international law and the US constitution.
Note the facts of JFK's record and one might agree that it was far worse than simply 'not perfect', just a few facts:
he escalated the war in Vietnam,
initiated the used of agent orange there,
initiated the 'strategic hamlet' program (massive relocation of rural population into concentration camps)in Vietnam,
initiated death squads and internal security military systems in Latin America,
initiated coups against multiple foriegn leaders, etc
while those in the US were being inspired by his speaches and charm, thousands of others around the world were suffering and dying from his policies.
(Many thought Bill Clinton had charisma and he killed, by M. Albright's admission, half a million Iraqi children. Obama inspires, what are his stated policies regarding: Israel, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq...he's been quite hawkish, no?)
http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/sector.asp?id=N00009638&cycle=2008
This will help to let you find where Obama's contributions are coming from and how much they have donated. Interesting site...
.
http://www.votenader.org/issues/
Nader Issues:
Adopt single payer national health insurance.
Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget.
No to nuclear power, solar energy first.
Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime
and corporate welfare.
Open up the Presidential debates .
Adopt a carbon pollution tax .
Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East .
Impeach Bush/Cheney.
Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law.
Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax .
Put an end to ballot access obstructionism .
Work to end corporate personhood.
.
.
I'll say it again…
We needed Ralph Nader as President in 2000.
We needed Ralph Nader as President in 2004.
We NEED Ralph Nader as President in 2008.
Never before as we do now
http://www.votenader.org/index.html
.
Be for Kids, on Obama's campaign donors.
Granted, he's raised a lot in small donations via internet, but he's done very nicely thank you from corporations not exactly "dirt poor." For example Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs has contributed (so far) a cool $522,228 to his campaign (as well as $440,300 to Clinton) http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/moneyweb.asp?cycle=2008 With that kind of corporate support, do you think the dirt poor Mr. O. is going to stand up to the corporatist juggernaut that is destroying this country and the world?
resistor April 3rd, 2008 1:57 pm............Suspended or stolen.....Will Obama make it to the WH? ..Sure would not bet the farm on that. As you have said...TOO much has been invested in getting to their nefarious place. I used to hope and dream..now, I wait for a revolution.
The Changing of the Puppets
Do we need a hawk with a vagina
a Mc tired Cain to smite one Abel
or....
a suited one to ensorcell
or sell same old
with more dignified freedom drops
a sort of good cop to soothe
our topsy turvy plot
to dress up the brown shirt
of the DOW clicks
as we await
our puppet changing fate
or..
Could we start a love-olution
to redeem the mirror
of crimes committed out of fear
and bondage ever dear
As far as a "sense of history" goes, MOST people in the US don't. They believe that the US was founded on high moral principals and that the founding fathers were great men. That's not entirely true. I HIGHLY recommend reading Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States"... It's VERY enlightening. Of course, you should buy the book to support Howard BUT it's also available online in PDF format here: http://depositfiles.com/en/files/1496383
Jerry D, unlike other politicians, Obama has little personal wealth, and none to contribute to his campaign. Compared to me he's well off; compared to other politicians (except Kucinich), he's dirt poor. He's raising huge amounts of donations from small contributors, mostly online.
kathyodat
Below is a link to an interesting Guardian story about historical virtues, and pertinent to the evolving discussion about Obama and what his candidacy is bringing out in the electorate. A fundamental shift is happening in spite of enormous institutional resistance, including Hillary Clinton.
By the way, JFK's opportunity was shortened by 5 years, not 1, since he most surely would have been reelected.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/03/barackobama.uselections2008
kathyodat
From HalCroves:
"To Jerry Rose: I disagree that Obama seems in any way "arrogant." And Daniel David is correct that he's made it this far without the help of family connections and wealth. Also, to meet Jerry Rose's high criteria, we'd have to have a real historian as professor."
1. "Arrogance": well maybe I mistake Obama for his supporters (some of them) who seem to patrol these comment boards like loyalty cops to blow a whistle on anyone who challenges "Dear Leader" in any way. I'm not the first to note the cult-like quality of (again some) of his supporters.
2. He's made it "without wealth?" Have you checked his campaign donor list lately?
3. You'd have to be a history professor to meet my qualification for President? Not at all, a real "sense of history" will do. As with other presidential candidate, look at his advisers. JFK had Arthur Schlesinger and some other Harvard-type Professors. Beyond that, there's such a thing (really) as READING history. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine that I (a lowly sociologist) am now reading will give you enough of that "sense" to raise a mountain of questions for our would-be leaders.
The sad thing is if Obama does even half of willybill
suggests, we won't be much further ahead if at all
from the time Bush grabbed power.
Yes, I know JFK's term was shortened, but was it all
going to happen in the last year? What were his
progressive policies that he was unable to implement
because of LBJ? As I remember it also, it was RFK
that did the pushing of any sort of progressive agenda
while JFK just talked and looked pretty. Of course
there is something to be said for an ability to hire
or nominate the right people to positions, even if
it is your brother.
HalCroves, I take your point. I considered that as well, but didn't want to give him even that much credit. I would have been satisfied if she had said "pretends" instead of "seems".
kathyodat
Here, here, willybill!
I can only dream that Obama might do these things, but alas, I don't think he has it in him. Kucinich, who is neither charismatic enough, or "presidential" (read tall and photogenic) enough, was, and is, the only person in politics that would even attempt these things.
At this juncture, we can only hope that Obama may make it to the Whitehouse, because he is inspiring, although he won't do what willybill and I both would want him to do, but I'm still expecting the election to be suspended due to a "national emergency" declared by the current occupant. They aren't going to give up the power they've stolen easily.
Be for Kids: the writer only says that Bush "seems to care more about...Iraq," not that he really does. I know what she means. Bush has been assuring the American people in recent speeches that Iraq is in better shape, as if that justified the loss of lives and US treasury, and as if that is our main concern.
To Jerry Rose: I disagree that Obama seems in any way "arrogant." And Daniel David is correct that he's made it this far without the help of family connections and wealth. Also, to meet Jerry Rose's high criteria, we'd have to have a real historian as professor.
And of course, JFK didn't even serve out his first term before he was assassinated. It's not fair to ignore that.
Ms. Hamilton - thanks for articulating what I've been thinking about the Presidential race for the last couple weeks, but couldn't put into words.
Back in the beginning of the 20th Century "radicals" such as the Wobblies talked about people having a "political consciousness", of understanding in a practical way, shorn of "party" and "policy" what was going on, who benefitted and who didn't. "Sense of history" sounds like a parallel to that idea, and it's a fine requirement for President.
I don't know what JFK meant by a "sense of history," beyond the arrogance he seems to share with Obama of seeing HIMSELF as history, as the one "we have been waiting for." I don't disagree with a single thing Hamilton asserts about what we "need" in a President. What I miss is a single compelling indication that Obama is the fulfillment of those needs, beyond the admitted need for a President who speaks well and looks "presidential." If a sense of history means anything, it should mean a sense of the history of how we have come to the present situation in our country and our world, how we have devolved into a nation whose policies operate to the benefit of the privileged, a world in which U.S. imperial ambition and the drive to spread that privilege world-wide are creating universal conflict and justice when the people cry for peace and justice. A candidate who brushes aside one of his own supporters (Reverend Wright) with the charge that HE distorts history by "elevating" this history above all that is good about U.S. history is not, I submit, the President we need. Neither is Hillary Clinton nor John McCain but that's another story.
ClassAct has it right. LBJ was undercutting Kennedy and don't forget, Kennedy's career ended abruptly and prematurely.
Carol Hamilton wrote a great essay, but got one thing wrong in my opinion. Bush cares no more about peace, infrastructure, freedom, and democracy in Iraq than he does in the US. Let us not award any credit that is not his due. He is leaving them in even worse - much worse - shape than he is leaving us.
I agree that Barack Obama has the qualities of a great leader. Perhaps most important is that he makes people feel that they can take action to control the future of this country. Which they can if only they believe. And he makes them believe.
kathyodat
I believe Obama's potential reminds me more of the expected potential of RFK than of JFK. Not only that, but there are a couple of more things to like about Obama even in comparison with either of those ground-breaking brothers.
Obama has ascended on the political scene without need for the "family connections and family money" that was required to propel the Kennedys (especially John.) And Obama has had the courage to try (in some ways) to emulate these guys, even knowing what historically happened to both of them.
What JFK did, in part, was to inspire us. Just as does Barack Obama.
Peoplefirst:
JFK "did" relatively little because LBJ, despite being the former "King of the Senate" and as VP presiding over the Senate would not lift a finger to usher any Camelot legislation through. As President himself, LBJ rode JFK's funeral train to push through all that legislation rejected by Congress before, plus Civil Rights legislation in response to MLK – but LBJ provided no means to pay for it between cutting taxes for oil companies with the oil depletion allowance and expanding US commitment in Vietnam. LBJ would not wear a "hat" on behalf of the Kennedys.
"JFK wasn't a perfect president. Every president who has mattered historically has also been a disappointment in at least one major way."
But when you actually think about it, what did he really DO? A satisfactory outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis is the only thing I can remember. Not that that
is insignificant. LBJ may have had lots of warts, but
the most progressive advances since FDR were made under
his leadership not JFK's.
I was actually thinking about this comparison between
Obama and JFK last night. If we have to wait for real
progress, we may have to wait for the president after
Obama (if he should be our next president). Of course
if you're trying to reverse the course of a speeding train
wreck, you may spend all your time just getting it stopped
before you can even attempt to get back to your starting
point.
Maybe I can bungle in Bush fashion. Is it "All hat
and no cattle"? I look at JFK and Obama that way.
Bush, Clinton, McCain more aptly fit a discription of
"All hat leading a bunch of rustlers and rattlers".
Thanks Ms. Hamilton for reminding us why Clinton should drop out immediately. A president is more than simply a really really good manager. She may be one, but America needs alot more than the usual "great" management.
I'll tell you what we need in a president. Someone who will help to convene an international tribunal and demand the present cabal be held responsible for ALL their illegal activities...domestic and foreign. We need someone who will re-establish our constitution. We need someone to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and any other nation in which we are interfering with their sovereign right. We need a president who will re-open the 9/11 investigation. We need a president who will get rid of the Federal Reserve. We need someone who will NOT CONDONE TORTURE IN ANY FORM. We need a president who will bring back habeas corpus. We need a president who will make "signing statement" illegal and rescind ALL past signing statements.AND, we need someone who will establish WE THE PEOPLE as the true government. And this is the short list.
Experience? Like the experience of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush? That kind of experience? If we require experience of a candidate, maybe we should stop.