Rate John Kennedy as president

[A18]

I have no clue why anybody likes this guy. He amounted to absolutely nothing.

[True Democrat]

4

[ATFFL]

2- Lowered taxes, so not a 1.  Screwed up the Bay of Pigs causing the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I refuse to reward him for managing to get out of the hole he dug for himself.  Started US involvement in Vietnam along with the damn foolish idea of not fighting to win.

[Emsworth]

2 (or, if I could give such a rating, 2.5). JFK did defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis, but he did suffer a disastrous failure with the Bay of Pigs, and got the U.S. involved in Vietnam. He did little in domestic policy; for example, he did not actually achieve the passage of civil rights legislation. Of course, he has been glorified since his assassination.

[J. J.]

The Cuban Missle Crisis and improved foreigh relations rate high, as does the space program.

He was good, but not even Polk good.  He might have done much better if not assassinated.

[bullmoose88]

3.

[Beet]

1, bay of pigs was a leftover plan from the eisenhower administration that was pushed by leftover eisenhower administration officials. Kennedy's only mistake was not being inaugurated in January 1960 when Castro was still weak, and being inexperienced.

2, Cuban missile crisis-- brilliant. Not only prevented nuclear annihilation, but turned the corner on the cold war (along with the space race) Khruschev was the last dynamic leader the Soviet Union ever had who really believed in communist victory worldwide. After being crushed by Kennedy he was a lame duck until being forced to resign.

3, setting off the '60s boom-- greatest economic boom in US history, if you take into account the distribution of benefits

4, restoring dynamism to the US-- the US became a dynamic power not just a conservative power in the cold war. By far his greatest achievement. This led to the true turning point in the cold war.

5, vietnam-- Fog of war tape recording shows he was going to Vietnamize in a Nixonesque fashion by the end of 1963

6, established council to look into status of women which helped spark the womens' liberation movement

Overall -- 5

[TheWildCard]

1, bay of pigs was a leftover plan from the eisenhower administration that was pushed by leftover eisenhower administration officials. Kennedy's only mistake was not being inaugurated in January 1960 when Castro was still weak, and being inexperienced.

2, Cuban missile crisis-- brilliant. Not only prevented nuclear annihilation, but turned the corner on the cold war (along with the space race) Khruschev was the last dynamic leader the Soviet Union ever had who really believed in communist victory worldwide. After being crushed by Kennedy he was a lame duck until being forced to resign.

3, setting off the '60s boom-- greatest economic boom in US history, if you take into account the distribution of benefits

4, restoring dynamism to the US-- the US became a dynamic power not just a conservative power in the cold war. By far his greatest achievement. This led to the true turning point in the cold war.

5, vietnam-- Fog of war tape recording shows he was going to Vietnamize in a Nixonesque fashion by the end of 1963

6, established council to look into status of women which helped spark the womens' liberation movement

Overall -- 5

1.
Didn't the original plan incorporate our own American troops?

2.
Okay, yes I agree it was a good choice.

3.
I like Tax Cuts and stuff so yeah

4.
What?

5.
Okay

6.
Okay

I still think he was President for such a short time that its hard to give him a 5. I gave him a 4 btw.

[12th Doctor]

4

[dazzleman]

I voted 3, but he could be 4.

He was strong on defense but flexible and willing to reduce hostility.  He lowered taxes.

Kennedy was not a liberal.  His brother turned out to be a disgrace compared to him.  JFK would be run out of today's Democratic Party.

[MasterJedi]

Defintily 3 if not for the Cuban Missile Crisis I would have rated him a 2.

[Rob]

4. He cut taxes, and he was a strong Cold Warrior. The Bay of Pigs was ed up, but as was mentioned earlier in the thread, that wasn't entirely his fault. He also won the war of ideas against the Soviets- look at his famous Berlin Wall speech, for example.

He grew notably as a leader in office, and I believe that he would have become genuinely great had he not been killed.

[MaC]

2- Lowered taxes, so not a 1.  Screwed up the Bay of Pigs causing the Cuban Missile Crisis.  I refuse to reward him for managing to get out of the hole he dug for himself.  Started US involvement in Vietnam along with the damn foolish idea of not fighting to win.

Yeah, but I'd give him a three because by comparrison he's better than a lot of the presidents who came after him.

[dazzleman]

A lot depends on what he would have done in the years that followed had he not been assassinated.

While some argue that another few years of Kennedy would have produced nirvana, and he would have been a great president, I don't necessarily agree.

Within the confines of his short term in office, he was a pretty good president, but if he had followed the same course LBJ did in Vietnam and domestic policy in the 1960s, he would have left office with his reputation in tatters. 

And I don't buy into the argument that he would necessarily have been so much better than LBJ in these areas.  Ironically, he probably couldn't have gotten as much through Congress as LBJ, and that would have helped his reputation in the long run, as some of the Great Society stuff that LBJ put through Congress was highly ill-advised.

But Kennedy set the basic course that LBJ followed in Vietnam, and I think it's highly revisionist of liberals to conveniently argue that Kennedy would have magically avoided the Vietnam disaster.

There is also the matter of his flagrant extra-marital activities, and the fact that there was an ever-widening circle of people who knew about them.  After the Profumo scandal earlier in 1963, there was a high-profile newspaper article that mentioned extra-marital affairs by a high-level government official.  They meant the president, but didn't say so.  Bobby Kennedy became very aggressive and threatening (a typical Clinton tactic also), which shows he understood how devastating a disclosure of this nature would have been at that time.  Those tactics may not have worked for the rest of Kennedy's presumed second term.

[??????????]

"He absolutely was a war hero. But he was still a terrible man and deserved to be killed" -NixonNow

lol