Democrats versus Republicans

[chucklesR]

SCK
It was the failures and weakness of the JFK administration that caused the Cuban Missle Crisis.
He didn't WIN it, he SURVIVED it.

[PBzeer]

Actually, about the only thing JFK got right, is the one thing you're opposed to sck, tax cuts for everybody.

[sck5]

You guys are at odds with most of the population. You are entitled to your opinion but the fact remains that JFK was tested by the Russians with the missile crisis (though he may have invited the test) and he passed with flying colors.

And I'll see you a Bay of Pigs and raise you an Iraq debacle.

[PBzeer]

All I remember from those days is a sigh of relief, not the joy of victory. The larger point is, it never should have come to that point, and only did because of the perception, fueled by JFK's inexperience, his performance at the Summit after the election, and allowing the Berlin Wall, that Kennedy was weak and could be pushed around.

[Sailormon6]

Sck, your statement that we "won" the Cuban missile crisis is a poor choice of words. We were at the brink of a nuclear holocaust. That's what Khruschev was threatening. Kennedy called his bluff, but Kennedy didn't really know that Khruschev was bluffing. He rolled the dice in the biggest gamble in history, and by God's grace we survived it. If Kennedy had been a Republican, you'd still be damning him to hell for taking such a risk with all our lives, and you'd be calling him a bomb-crazy maniac.

In fact, at the next presidential election, after your guy damned near got us all killed in the Cuban missile crisis, you Dems had the chutspah to use the fear of nuclear holocaust to defeat Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, by calling him bomb-crazy.

[US27inKS]

Dog-

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not using IE right now. I've had the same problem with IE, firefox, and now I'm using Google Chrome. Same issue with all 3. There seems to be a weird glitch with my account. I thought it was fixed, but apparently not completely. I can now embed about 1/2 of the video's I would like to, which is a 50% improvement.

Originally Posted by sailingdog

US-

This is often due to which browser you're using. Try FireFox, since some versions of IE seem to have issues embedding youtube code without screwing it up IIRC..

[PBzeer]

For those of you all agog over the "little guys" part in Obama's fund raising, according to the Washington Post, only 25% of donors have given less than $200. A percentage of small donors well below the 37% and 31% for Kerry and Bush in 2004. In other words, for all his talk of his campaign being funded by the little guys, it's really the big money boys that are provided 75% of the cash.

But hey, it's no biggie. He lied about public financing, and now he's lying about his reason for lying about it.

[camaraderie]

Sck...a little history...we didn't WIN the Cuban Missle crisis. Kruschev cut a side deal with Kennedy to get OUR missiles out of Turkey under the table.
Before the crisis...we had missles in Turkey and they had none in the Western hemisphere. After the crisis we had no missles in Turkey AND had come within minutes of a nuclear exchange. (Recent revalations indicate that a Soviet sub nearly launched on the authority of her captain...there was no fail safe on the Russian side!)
I don't call that a win.
I remain a fan of Kennedy...but he did have some failures and on the job training. Yet...he was far more prepared than Obama. He would be somewhere to the right of McCain today I believe!

[sck5]

the end of it was the russians humiliated and having to withdraw their missiles. Khrushchev eventually lost power as a result - and any infighting we could promote in the ruling party of the USSR was a good thing. The missiles in Turkey were no big loss - we didnt need them with the new sub based missiles and bigger better ICBM's

YOU may not think we won but my point is that the PUBLIC thinks we won. So comparing Obama to JFK is a PLUS for him as far as the election is concerned.

So keep it up!!

[sailaway21]

sck5,
You're playing a lonely trumpet. The generation that actually remembers the Kennedy presidency is at a minimum of sixty years old. And much of their memories are colored by the blatherings of the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. who made his life career the perpetuation of the Camelot myth. History always has it's say. You'll notice no recent biographies on the Kennedy administration and it's successes. To the extent it is mentioned in the history books it is a record of failure.

Bill Clinton was able to use his affection for Kennedy to good effect because a good portion of the voting public had actual memories of Kennedy. That was sixteen years ago. Today the average voter does not remember the Reagan administration.

The Kennedy reference is appropriate though because Khrushchev's actions were based upon his impression that the US president was a weak light-weight, which turned out to be correct, and he thus felt emboldened to act as he did.

Joe Biden's recent comments in Seattle, calling for support for Obama when he is inevitably tested and fails, yeah-fails, harkens back to the the inexperienced, but oh-so bright, Kennedy administration. Biden is confused, a congenital condition in his case, and is speaking as if he were still in the primary campaign running against Obama. Perhaps a kernel of wisdom has emerged. Then again, it is Joe Biden, and even that could be an erroneous assumption.