Baby Boomers and JFK Worship

[KRonn]

JFK was a big deal in my house as a kid. We had a picture of him and such. I probably had some hero worship of him as a kid but as I got older and more informed I lost the hero stuff, regarded him based on how I would regard any President. I feel he started off as a mediocre President but as events ocurred he became a lot better leader and decision maker. When I read the book "Killng Kennedy" shows that pretty well, IMO. I never cared much about his romantic dalliances, though they would have been even more scandalous in his time, or maybe not as we saw with Pres Clinton.

I do wonder how he would have changed the country if he had completed two terms, and if his brother Robert had been elected. They were pretty tough minded, pragmatic politicians. RFK went after the mob. JFK sent in the Feds and helped propel the civil rights movement. We may not have gotten the social policies of LBJ, or who knows, maybe similar if the politics of the time were moving that way. But those two Kennedy's seemed politically quite different from their brother Ted.

[Sheilbh]

Disgustingly over rated.

He's one good, revisionist biography away from a critical reassessment as an underappreciated, important President.

But those two Kennedy's seemed politically quite different from their brother Ted.

I don't think so. I think the country moved to the right.

[Admiral Yi]

He's one good, revisionist biography away from a critical reassessment as an underappreciated, important President.

Give us the outline.

I don't think so. I think the country moved to the right.

The Drunkard made a career out of being a bag man for Big Labor.  I don't see much of that in Jack or Bob's careers.

[MadImmortalMan]

I don't think so. I think the country moved to the right.

Really? How so? We didn't even have medicare then.

[Sheilbh]

Give us the outline.

I'm not an academic

But I think these things move in cycles. The last few years we've had huge reappraisals of Truman (McCullough) and LBJ (Caro) as well as continuing debate over Nixon, and I think Ike's been moving steadily up in opinion too. Incidentally I think those have influenced our contemporary judgements on Obama and Bush.

Kennedy's more difficult because he died before even completing a term, but the critical view seems pretty negative now so it'll only go up. But I bet it would be along the lines that his mistakes have been blown out of proportion, he had some successes and some of his decisions policies laid the groundwork for future Presidents.

Really? How so? We didn't even have medicare then.

I think the Reagan era was a significant shift.

[Admiral Yi]

I think the critical views are not so much critiques as they are myth-puncturing.  I don't think many people say "gee, what a shitty president."

[Sheilbh]

I think the critical views are not so much critiques as they are myth-puncturing.  I don't think many people say "gee, what a shitty president."

No doubt but I think that's why the reaction's maybe gone too far. There's nothing more fun for academics than myth-busting. I get the feeling a corrective is coming.

[DGuller]

I don't think so. I think the country moved to the right.

Really? How so? We didn't even have medicare then.

It's not about what we had back then, but the trajectory.  Back then the trajectory was towards strengthening the social safety net.  Right now, we're in the middle of the War on Freeloaders.

[Admiral Yi]

No doubt but I think that's why the reaction's maybe gone too far. There's nothing more fun for academics than myth-busting. I get the feeling a corrective is coming.

The only possible corrective to Kennedy myth-busting is to make the case that the myth had some basis.

[Grey Fox]

Is Siege a baby boomer?

[Sheilbh]

The only possible corrective to Kennedy myth-busting is to make the case that the myth had some basis.

What?

[Admiral Yi]

What?

It's pretty tautological.

[Gups]

Think it's pretty hard to make the case that JFK was anything other than mediocre save on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Eddie Teach]

Nor was he terrible on anything but the Bay of Pigs.

[PDH]

RFK is the "what if?" one anyway.