On this morning, November 22, in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was riding to the airport in Fort Worth, Texas. He was asking both Governor John Connally and Congressman Jim Wright, along with him in the car, to explain why Dallas was so ferociously right-wing and the city he was leaving so reliably Democratic.
It was the kind of inquiry Kennedy had engaged in since entering politics in early 1946.
His curiosity that morning had a purpose, of course. Kennedy was trying to figure out how to carry Texas, a state he knew he’d need, along with Georgia, in 1964. The rest of the south, he feared, was lost that June night he’d called on national television for a federal law banning discrimination in hotels, restaurants and other places of “public accommodation.”
Houston Chronicle via AP
President John F. Kennedy shakes hands with supporters during his visit to Fort Worth, Texas, Nov. 22, 1963.
But let me recommend that we find another day besides today, November 22, to remember John F. Kennedy, a president so heroic that the American people chose him in a recent poll to be up there on Mount Rushmore with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.
How about we honor this beloved president, just as we do other great figures of history, on the day of his birth, in this case May 29?
After all, what we hope to honor is not his departure but his arrival, that and what he managed to accomplish in his short presidency.
In that regard, I can think of other dates we could mark to honor the 35th president, all of whom pay honor to what he did and what he was doing when he was taken from us.
How about March 1, the day he by executive order, created the Peace Corps, which sent young men and women like me around the world to help developing countries make their way?
Or May 25 when he set as a national goal the landing of Americans on the moon before 1970?
Or June 10, when he gave the "peace" speech at American University which sent such a positive message that Nikita Khrushchev had it broadcast throughout the Soviet Union?
Or June 11, the following day in 1963, when he gave his historic televised address to the country calling for civil rights, specifically the end of racial discrimination in the country's restaurants, hotels and other places of public accommodation?
Or June 23, when he gave the "Ich bin Ein Berliner" speech in West Berlin, the greatest speech of the Cold War?
Or October 7, when he signed the nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union?
Or October 28, when he ended the Cuban Missile Crisis and thereby avoided a nuclear war?
Or November 8, the day he was elected, the first Roman Catholic president?
None of these achievements would have been his had he not devoted himself to the unforgiving career of an American politician. It was a life he’d come to love and to nurture.
It began when he entered the race for US Congress in the old 11th district of Massachusetts. That was James Michael Curley’s seat, would later be my boss Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill’s. He was warned early it was a “personal” district where you had to know people and be comfortable with them one-on-one. Making the rounds, he got stern warnings about his chances. Forget about being a candidate, one local suggested. He’d be smarter to take a job as his front-running rival’s top aide.
“He is the first man to bet me that I can’t win,” he jotted in his diary. “Says I’ll get murdered,”
Jack would spend the next seventeen years proving that local fellow wrong. He learned the importance of starting a campaign early, the power of personal contact, the value of loyalty up and down. He took lessons in television performance, speed-reading, and, of course, public speaking. He studied polls, knew the issues, became an expert in world affairs. Along the way, he learned how to become in his words, “a total politician,” one who could move other politicians to take his lead, either through charm, intimidation or a mix of the two.
For seven years, from his debut running for the vice presidential nomination in 1956 to the end in Dallas, John F. Kennedy was a shooting star in American politics. He did it by mastering the craft of the modern politician. Right up through that ride to the Fort Worth airport, he was asking questions, quizzing colleagues, learning what he needed to know.
Why was Dallas so rabidly right wing and Fort Worth so “yellow dog” Democrat?
Jim Wright blamed it on the Dallas Morning News which just that morning had run a full-page ad calling Kennedy a traitor. John Connolly saw the reason in the contrasting economic structures of the two Texas cities. Fort Worth back then was all livestock corrals and factories. People tended to vote the way people working alongside them did. Dallas was all finance and insurance. Its people worked in white shirts and took their political lead from those working on the floor above them, the managers they wanted to someday be themselves. Interesting stuff, don’t you think, to a president trying to figure things out?
And that’s what Jack Kennedy was doing the morning of November 22, 1963, doing his job as an American politician. He was on the road, doing the work of an American politician. He had goals, as I said, and needed to be president to reach them.
So let’s remember what he tried to do and how he’d come in doing it, not the horror that stopped him.
As his Navy buddy Paul Fay once wrote, "We must never let his tragic death shadow the triumphant victory of his life."
Chris Matthews is the host of Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC, and author of "Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero."
To order the book, click here.
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We remember and honor our brave president JFK on this day.
The best explanation I have ever seen regarding the truth of the JFK murder is the book "The Cold Six Thousand." This book is disguised as a novel, but it really is journalism, and far more believable than the BS Warren Commission and the other whitewash mythology. JFK was not the hero everybody believed he was, but he was gunned down by far more than just poor little Lee Oswald, the ultimate fall guy.
Cold Six Thousand is an excellent book, and does present a logical and plausible scenario as to the planning and carrying out the assassination.
Thanks, Beth. I just heard that the author of The Cold Six Thousand had written a prequel to it that further outlines the plotting of the killing. I was hoping that the new J. Edgar Hoover movie would go into it too. It is sad what happened to JFK and his brother, and that the American people were so misled about who was involved in the killings.
I was in High School when JFK ran for President. It was the first time I paid attention to politics, he inspired me. My entire family were Republicans but that was the year I became a Democrat much to the dismay of my parents. Of course things were different then, not so much bitterness between parties like today and I think today's bitterness will be the downfall of this great nation. JFK taught me to believe, that we as a nation could do anything, that I as one person could do anything. He was not perfect but he was much better than what we have now in this country. We need another JFK.
JFK was a politician from the get-go. But as a politician, he knew when and how to respond to pressure. His actions seeking nonviolent conflict resolutions to international crises and human rights issues were forced by people holding his toes to the fire. But as a politician, he knew he had to respond since those who brought pressure on him were inspired by his rhetoric.
If there is ever a statue of him in Washington, let it be of JFK handing a torch to a child - perhaps of recognizable minority affiliation. I feel that of all he said and did, he is best characterized by the statement from his inaugural addrerss, "Let the word go forth from this time and place that the torch has been passed to a new generation, . . ."
“Now I know there are some people who say that this isn’t any business of the President of the United States, who believes that the President of the United States should be the honorary chairman of a great fraternal organization and confine himself to ceremonial functions. That isn't what the Constitution says. And I did not run for President of the United States to fulfill that Office in that way.”
-John F. Kennedy to the United Auto Workers Union May 8, 1962
JFK spoke the truth here with this speech and was murdered for it. All President's since have been total puppets to what Kennedy was talking about here.
I was twelve when the president was assassinated. It became the event that molded my political beliefs for the rest of my life. You have to wonder how America would be now, had he been allowed to finish his term, possibly another, and how things would have been different.
I'm sorry for this country. We'll never know how much this man could have accomplished for the American people.
We were the same age. I'm with you, from that day forward I believed no one was ever safe. There isn't a politician on the face of the earth without issues. There hasn't been a real President since then.
Though the times were certainly different then, than they are today. I fear that with the two term limit imposed, JFK may have been a lame duck, as many second term presidents tend to be yes even Reagan, Clinton and GWB. Added to the fact that the "Bully Pulpit" loses sway as the election of a new draws near. I understand the reasoning for term limits especially in the House and the Senate, but in the highest office I believe it is a hindrance and a way to mute the voice of the people. I think LBJ understood this, thus he did not run. RMN did not and paid the price. FDR was an exception, given the times he was the only real choice two international disasters back to back a steady familiar hand in the Oval Office was from a world perspective as well as a national one, perhaps saved the world from the utter tragedy of slipping into a thousand year dark age. It may be time to rethink the two term limit for the president and reconsider the apparent lifetime seats in the House and Senate.
I was 10 in 1963, the consunsus amongst my class mates on the bus ride home that day, LBJ did it. And we did not even know who Machiavelli was.
JFK is the one responsible for our financial mess today - he never did the math on the cost of the entitlement programs he supported - we can not afford them today. Let's of course conveniently forget that he was a philanderer and got elected after his Dad cut a deal with the mob to get the West Virginia Unions to put JFK on the ballot!
Time heals all wounds - they will just take longer now!
Ah, the revisionist history of Fox News no doubt. SB, were you their? Have you lived and seen how this country has decayed both in prosperity and in spirit since the death of this great president? Absolutely none of that decline is related to any policy of this president. Sorry.
You can go on hating Unions, but unless you are one of the privileged rich, your lot would be seriously worse had it not been for Unions to demand a fair share of the capitalist profits. A strong labor force was how we got what is referred to as the middle class. Now it is being destroyed and the likes of you are helping to kill it.
John F. Kennedy was our last real President, and besides Mr. Matthews's very moving post, we should honor him on 11/22/63 -- for not only did he die on that day, but so did our democracy. He was taken out by his own national security state -- a monster which has eaten everything valuable, human and decent this country once stood for. It has become a cesspool dominated by the life-haters obvious even in this thread.
His real heroism: to not use force when all the force in the world is on your side.
This is why he died:
Kennedy refuses troop involvement in a collapsing Laos, instead helps form a neutralist-coalition government which stands until the middle-1970s.
Kennedy refuses United States air cover and troop involvement during the rout at the Bay of Pigs.
Berlin Wall goes up. Kennedy takes no action.
South Vietnam on the brink of collapse, as most of JFK's government pushes strongly for the sending of 250,000 troops to stabilize the situation. Kennedy sends 10,000 "advisers" instead.
Kennedy takes on U.S. Steel, forcing the leaders of the steel industry to rescind a price increase which violated a Kennedy-brokered agreement to combat inflation.
Refusing calls to bomb and invade Cuba, refusing the calls of some to launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Moscow, Kennedy resolves the Cuban Missile Crisis by agreeing to not invade Cuba and to remove U.S. nuclear missiles stationed in Turkey, on the Soviet border.
Kennedy and Indonesian President Sukarno take steps to form a neutralist government in troubled Indonesia, JFK again refusing to approve any covert actions aimed at the country, a refusal reversed two years later by LBJ, leading to the murder of over 1,000,000 suspected "leftists" and the overthrow of Sukarno.
Kennedy forms back-channel to Castro government.
At American University, JFK calls for an end to the Cold War, reminding us that "we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal."
The next day(!), Kennedy announces his intention to help lead the Black Revolution instead of fighting it.
Kennedy forms back-channel to North Vietnamese government, through the Ngo brothers.
Signs the Nuclear Test Ban treaty with the Soviets, banning all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underground, or underwater.
Kennedy orders first 1,000 Americans withdrawn from South Vietnam by the end of '63, in phase-one of a planned total Vietnam withdrawal.
At the United Nations on September 20, 1963, JFK calls for world disarmament, for a world government in the interests of peace, a world center for conservation and food distribution, and a world system of health bringing all people of the earth under medical protection.
This country does not deserve a John F. Kennedy anymore.
JFK -- RIP
SB- it is one thing to read history, it is quite another to understand it. Keynesian economy made America the greatest economic force in history from 1945-1970. During that time national debt was a non-entity, production with local/union labor was robust and the average middle class family could afford a home, a decent car, 2 weeks vacation, benefits, etc.
Reagan and EVERY president since then (both Democrat and Republican) have dismantled what made America strong by opening the doors to Wall Street and Banking speculators and open doors to American corporations to take advantage of cheap foreign labor. All of that was by way of the neo-liberal economy out of Chicago University: Supply Side Economics. We have seen the national debt double nearly with every President since (with exception of Clinton who left a surplus thanks to his repeal of Glass-Steagle and "reforming" welfare.
Those are just a very few FACTS of history you would do well to LEARN.
Let us not forget, either that JFK was a fiscal conservative. That the budget was in balance and that he predecessors (not all, but many) have done all they can to increase the deficit.
The politics of today are not what they were nearly 50 years ago. So were the social mores of the time.
Perhaps we were more gullible or accepting of what was done behind closed doors. To cite JFK as a philanderer is a desecration of the good that he did in motivating people - the young, the impoverished, the minorities et al. He had stated goals to achieve and he did what he could in 1000 days to be the best President he could be. Revisionism will not taint the image of this man.
No Boo-Boo. That was Ronald Raygun and his "trickle down" bullpucky.
Oct. 3, 1963 NYTimes article by Arthur Krock titled "The Intra-Administration War in Vietnam" mentions a source inside the White House stating: "The CIA's growth was likened to a malignancy which the very high official was not sure even the White House could control any longer." and "If the United States ever experiences an attempt at a coup to overthrow the Government it will come from the CIA."
JFK tried to eliminate the CIA and a month later his brains were blown out.
He was the first president I ever voted for.. as a third grader in the autumn of 1960. He inspired Americans to think bold, to be bold, to do bold, and to be better and do better. He wasn't perfect, but who is? I now own 'Jack Kennedy : Elusive Hero', and I look forward to learning more about the first president I really remember. Thanks, Chris Matthews, for personally taking JFK up on his challenges to us all.
I remember back to Eisenhower. John Kennedy was one of our great presidents. Those who have followed are largely clowns by comparison.
Eileen, How could you vote for President when you were only in the third grade, or did I miss something.
Didn't your grade school have mock elections to teach understanding of the voting process? Mine did, at least during Presidential election years. The candidates were covered, their platforms explained in a manner befitting the age of the class, and then we all voted and everyone waited to see if the 'real' outcome was the same as ours.
You missed something.
The first President she voted for ( DOT ) ( DOT ) as a third grader in the autumn of 1960. It was a mock election. First President I "voted" for was Clinton.
The first President I voted for, in a MOCK ELECTION, was President Truman. Maybe she should have spelled it out better. BTW, most mock elections, at least up to the 10th grade, voted along the same political lines as their parents.
I was in the second grade that tragic day and I can vividly recall being bussed home early from school. Some of the teachers were crying and I had no idea why.
I was two. It was my earliest memory, we were watching it on the news. I remember my mother crying.
If Kennedy were to have run today he would have been ridiculed and perhaps rightfully so...he and his family have enough skeletons to start medical school...but that doesn't matter to Mathews, he's the guy who constantly wanted us to believe BO was the second comming of JFK and I believe if JFK were running today he wouldn't be so idolized. BTW Chris, you seem to have left a few other events off of your list like Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, the Clintonesque use of the White House. Camelot was the version 1 of our current President, tears streaming from the eyes of fanatic loyal while ignoring the reality and lack of substance of their idol.
LOL!! "Clintonesque use of the White House" 32 years before anyone had heard of Bill Clinton. Ridiculous.
Oh I'm sorry Rick, should I have said that Kennedy set the moral standards for Clinton to follow?
DanBowen, you obviously have an obsession with sex, or wish in some sad way you could be as sexually active, but either way, what people do, President or otherwise, behind their own doors is THEIR business and has NOTHING to do with doing a job! Period! Get over it. JFK had more human decency for the poor and those who were in need than all the Repugs put together in the last 50 years! Again, Mr. Clean, I am not condoning sexual infidelity but, again, that should remain THEIR PRIVATE AFFAIRS (pun intended) and has no business on pout tv sets! You can thank that sad pos Jerry Falwell for making sexual values a part of the political dialog. Sad.
I must say the sex-capades of people are their own business. It does not impede their ability to lead and have ideas. Yes, it may leave them open to blackmail and on national issues, but the cure for that is to come forward first and in the process expose the blackmailing SOBs. Yes, the Bay of Pigs was a mis-step and if worse came to worse WWIII would have been better fought then than now. The term Clintonesque is odd as well, the White House has been used that way, since well...Jefferson? We are human, that is what we do best, right. Finally, the Kennedy family didn't start to disintegrate until June 1968 in California. This has been half a century of trans-generational tragedy both public and private for that family in the uncompromising glare of the public spotlight. Agree or disagree with their politics, they are us.
With all due respect "Citizen of the world" if one of my employees is having sex in my office it is my business. It's even more so when that person's integrity can become compromised because of the acts...both of which happened with Clinton. I could care less what anyone does in their bedroom, but when Clinton's inconsequential indiscretion as you've so described ended up with him lying to a grand jury, becoming impeached and disbarred, I'd say there was a little more to it. Your hatred for the republican party, of which I do not belong, has clearly tainted your ability to accept fundamental right and wrong.
JFK and his self aggrandizing, self indulgent family are the epitome of corruption. He, like Obama would only have been a one term president because all of his dirty little secrets were beginning to unravel.
Where do you people get this s**t? Fox News, correct? Rush Blimpbow, correct?
That's "RUSH DIM-BULB" ....sounds better and it's more accurate.
I stand corrected.
The entire Kennedy clan were never anything but CRIMINALS, who built their fortune on Bootlegging, Gambling, Prostitution, Lying and, of course, always CHEATING on ALL their wives.
Thanks to "their lifetime of backstabbing everyone to get to the top" the "entire family has continued to pay the ultimate price for their decades of dishonesty.
Or do some people actually believe ALL THAT DEATH was just an "odd coincidence?" If so, perhaps "doing a little reading and studying" about the Kennedy Presidency or the Kennedy marriages or the Kennedy Mafia affiliations or the Kennedy prostitutes or the Kennedy and Fitzgerald "ballot box stuffing" and an endless trail of crime and corruption that goes all the way back to Ireland.
No single family EVER suffers that many assassinations, tragedies and deaths unless they have SERIOUSLY SCREWED WAY TOO MANY PEOPLE ALONG THE WAY!
JFK, Bobbie and fat, drunken Teddie were nothing more than CHEATING little sluts.
If a guy did something "heroic" in a war, is that supposed to give him a pass to SERIOUS SCREW others and not expect to suffer any penalties?
Apparently not.
Bottom Line: The Kennedy family SERIOUSLY SCREWED way too many of the "wrong kind of people" and LOOK what they got in return?
Now their "survivors" get to spend their time visiting Cemeteries... and their money on FERTILIZER for all the graves...
Payback realy is HELL... obviously and especially for the Kennedys.
"As ye sow... so shall ye reap!"
Speedy. It is quite true that Joe Kennedy was a bootlegger. Now you are telling us that a pair of assassinations are the payback for the sins of the father?
You hate the Kennedy's, obviously. It sounds almost pathological. You must be a good Christian church goer to quote the Bible so well in justifying this tirade against men who devoted and lost their lives in order to better their country.
Go back to drying out what's left of your humanity in the Florida sun.
Well said TooMany! Nothing worse than a Pharisee extremist Christian who don't think their own sh*t stinks!!!!
Lest everyone forget, "Camelot" is the musical version of "Morte D'Arthur", a story of murder, incest, betrayal, nepotism and the selling of one's soul for power. This is the version that comes to mind when I think of the Kennedys.
Shall we go into the historical significance of the illegal shenanigans that some of the Republican Presidents entangled themselves with? Certainly President Kennedy's faults are well documented as are many post Kennedy Republican Presidents. The stories of Nixon's schizophrenic time in office with many of his well documented illegal activities. Even George Bush's final story is yet to be told on the Iraq war, he and his enabler, Dick Cheney, pulled on the American People. And certainly the "Gipper" had his troubles with Oli North and others during 'Iran Contra.' Hell, George W. even hired some of Reagan's 'Iran Contra' henchmen to work in his administration. Now that's a good deal!
You can go back to Warren Harding and Teapot Dome...maybe farther back than that...but that's the 20th century. Ah McKinley helped the US take over Hawaii...sold out the natives and made the white man king. Especially those who wanted the land for sugar, pineapple, etc.
I was in high school at the time and I was outside running an errand for one of the staff members when the Dental Hygienist came running full bore down off the hill where one of the schools adjacent buildings was located. She was in tears as she ran past me on the way to the main office. She shouted to me that President Kennedy had been shot. I was the first student in my school to hear of the tragic news. I'll never forget seeing her running down that hill in her white uniform in tears.
People aware of his indiscretions and illicit personal life cheered. He would have become a bigger embarrassment to the country morals then the blue dress boy from down home Arkansas!
So many negative comments............Are you all really so perfect? No skeletons in the old closets.......yeah that's what I thought. Get over yourselves!
Yes, we all have skeletons, that's the point and Matthews is an arrogant pompous
clown who always sees the one glorious side of the argument that he frames and
he ridicules anyone who ever challenges him. He's a hack and this piece is like
the rest of his babble. Matthews is a Washington insider that the masses
complain about and MSNBC couldn't be happier with the hypocrisy.
I can only think that comments like this come from know-nothing children who believe the litany of lies spouted by today's right-wing demigods.
John Kennedy was loved by the people in his time. Republicans like my own father were deeply sadden and disappointed by his death. I saw businessmen cry over his senseless murder.
Today it is all rewritten and distorted by the monsters of the right-wing revisionism. A revisionism not only of John Kennedy but of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and the founding fathers themselves.
Really? I'll take my 43 years, 15 in the military, my multiple businesses and my own thoughts as my right to speak my piece. You immediately jump into the "right-wing demigods" argument? Base on what "TooMany?" What has been said that is anti-left? I'm critical of Matthews; I'm sickened by those that idolize Kennedy, Regan, or any other politician. You dilute any argument you wish to make by instantly assuming the distain for Matthews, or a true critical review of Kennedy, is anything other than right-wing opportunist. Got news for you, I belong to neither party which you clearly do not understand as you spout repeatedly your view that anything critical stated against your idols comes from the mouths of the evil right wing. You should look in the mirror before you cast your aspersions against those you think you know...
do you feel the same about Eisenhower's indiscreations or is it only directed at Democratic Presidents?
Dan, you make my point. You were not there, you don't know what America was like then and how the American people felt about John Kennedy.
Hate to tell you this but being in the military does not make you an unbiased speaker. In fact it really makes you suspect. Military training is to teach you to hate the enemy and kill with indifference. Sorry, but that is just a fact. The military tells you who the enemy is and trains you to hate them sufficiently to kill remorselessly. Arguably this is necessary for defense but not something to use on your objectivity resume.
I said nothing about disdain for Chris Mathews, in fact I can't watch Chris due to his annoying hyper-activity syndrome. He can't stay on one subject for more than 3 seconds.
I think you made it abundantly clear what your position is with this:
"He would have become a bigger embarrassment to the country morals then the blue dress boy from down home Arkansas!"
Now tell us please. Who does not embarrass you? Newt? Cain? Palin? Bachman? Perry? A legion of embarrassments to the American people.
With all due respect TooMany, did you serve? Where? Did you have unfortunate benefit of taking someones life without remorse? You're sick to suggest those that serve do so and I have the mental scars to know better.
Don't lecture me about being there or not being there, I also wasn't at Gettysburg, or Normandy or countless other historical events, but I can read and do and I am confident I'm much more objective than you suggest. At the very least, I assign quotes to the proper authors which if you go back and read you will realize you didn't do with me.
I may not have lived under Kennedy's term in office but I also look at those years and reflect on what those wonderful people who came to be have provided us...ah yes, the 60's were a grand time of growth and spirit, not unlike the brilliance of the sit-ins on Wall Street today...a shining example of the American strength. I'm sorry, I'll look to my friends in uniform first.
As I also mentioned, I don't belong to a party, can you say the same? Do you review Newt, Cain, Palin Bachman & Perry along with Clinton, Kerry, Carter and countless others? Get the blinders off.
I was simply asking who did not embarrass you and you did not answer.
I'm know soldiers have mental scars. I had a friend at work in the early seventies, my age. He was very damaged by the Vietnam war. I feared he was going to shoot himself or someone else. As much as I tried to help him I could not get him to keep his job. He was drinking. It was very sad.
I did not serve in Vietnam and would have refused. I had no gripe with those people and today I happen to be friends with a number of young people in Hanoi Vietnam. Why? Because my company like so many is hiring Asians to replace us. In order to keep my job, I had to take responsibility for leading a group of Vietnamese computer programmers.
I'll tell you something about these North Vietnamese people that we bombed, slaughtered and burned in the name of our holy war against communism. They are people and very good and gracious people at that. More polite and friendly than most Americans are. They live in a "communist" country but you would not know that by being there. They are like us, just trying to get along in life, just human. And yet 50,000 of my generation of Americans died trying to beat the crap out of them.
It does not stop. We continue to invade countries with lame excuses. There is no way this would work anymore if it required a draft. People would refuse. It's only through a volunteer army that we are able to keep promoting our lame attempt at global domination of resources.
What exactly am I blind too?
The comments are not "about other president's indiscretions" but about VALID comments regarding Kennedy that Matthews attempts to create some "imaginary and glamorous person" who, in fact, was not really THAT PERSON.
The comments are NOT about "what people have been led to believe" but about the factual history of this supposedly honorable man who was not much more than a hard-drinking, backstabbing, lying CHEAT of a man.
ANY many who "falsely honors his wife" the way ALL the drunken Kennedys did to their wives are simply NOT HONORABLE...
If you cannot honor the VOWS taken in a church with a Priest, in front of your family, your church and your God...
WHY should anyone EVER trust you regarding anything?
People can DREAM UP ALL the pathetic excuses they want for Kennedy's behavior, but in the end...
Jack and the rest of his rotten dead brothers were nothing but pathetically dishonest cheats. The horror and tragedy they brought down upon themselves was AT THEIR OWN HAND...
it was just "payback".
Don't you righties have to still have to finish criticizing the embarrassing worthless hack job of O'Really's Lincoln novel?!? Finish that (should take a year or three) and then come back to criticizing this.........
-_-
Most politicians embarras me TooMany, from both sides of the isle, can you say the same? I doubt it, your posts here suggest just the opposite, the radical right is to blame for all of your problems and of course those of the world as a whole; but you're not biased at all are you? I'm an independent, are you?
TooMany you're a classic radical extremist hack, cherry pick your points and ignore the facts. You lecture me and others on this blog because we weren't alive during Kennedy's Presidency yet you now have this incredible insight into the mind of the military because you knew some Vietnam Vet? Really? The hypocrisy is dripping off of you. Just how old are you TooMany? Did you generate your incredibly eloquent view of the military from your 'friend'? How dare you lecture me about how and what I was trained on and how we carried out our missions? You know nothing other than that which you have concocted in your deranged mind. I've traveled the world as well, I've met communists, socialists and just about every religion and they all have their flaws and yes, we are all fundamentally the same people, but it is the politicians who pull the strings...just like Kennedy.
Politicians start wars, not the troops. Politicians like Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson and Bush...both sides of the isle TooMany and I'd argue that America would be a vastly different place had we not been involved in most of the wars we've been in...we would perhaps even be speaking a different language.
As you shift the argument now to our endless quest to drain all of the oil from the earth, I assume you don't drive a car, you traveled the world via three masted sailing ship and your residence is powered by wind, sun and biofuel. I would love to see us move towards energy independence, but it will take decades to do and suggesting otherwise is ignorant. We have vast resources here that if we stopped buying from the rest of the world, and thus needed no military to influence those parts of the world, perhaps it would light a fire under us to make the changes...but the left ironically won't let us use our resources...so now, who's pushing us into taking others?
You assume far too much about me as well. One righteous war does not justify all wars.
This is the kind of nonsense that comes from the right wing. No, we do not have vast untapped oil resources. We have very little that can be profitably exploited at current or even projected prices (only deposits like oil shales are large but currently completely impractical to exploit). The land (excepting perhaps parts of the arctic) has already been drained of oil. And yet the marching song of the right is "drill baby drill".
Do you know what happens to the oil that is drilled in US territory? Do you seriously believe that it all goes to benefit the American people? How does it help our transition to other fuels to consume what domestic supplies we have left as quickly as possible? That is beyond foolish. It is totally reckless.
In the sixties it was predicted that American oil production would peak in the 70's and it did! There isn't any hidden Saudi Arabia type wealth of oil offshore here. That is at least not according to any geological scientists that I have heard from. It is a myth promoted by the right in order to make more profits from selling our remaining oil on the WORLD market.
The major remaining known supplies are in the Mideast and the Caspian and this is indeed the real reason for the current wars. Iraq may have reserves comparable to Saudi Arabia. Afghanistan is a key part of the pathway for oil and gas from the Caspian through American-dominated nations to the ocean.
That is the real reason we are in Afghanistan, not be cause there were training camps for terrorist. After all, the terrorist were trained to fly planes in our very own flying schools in this country. By that logic, we should bomb ourselves.
In a meeting in Texas before 911 and the wars, the Taliban met with our oil men and had the audacity to refuse their deal for building pipelines through Afghanistan to the Caspian. That was the real falling out with the Taliban who we helped create to kick out the Russians. The training camps and capturing bin Laden are the monumentally stupid excuse for a ten year long war costing thousand of our troops theirs lives and limbs and the taxpayers over a trillion dollars.
Please, go learn about where in the world the oil is. Large quantities are not here.
Ok TooMany, are you getting your oil facts from the same group of people you get your military facts? Do a little study on the 10-02 Area of ANWR just to get started my friend, then come back and take a bite of reality. You live in this vast-rightwing conspiracy world that clearly makes any question of your neighborhood sources nothing short of crazyspeak I guess but don't let me upset the balance of nature in your personal utopia. I've already wasted enough time on your paranoia so please continue to write me off, and of course anyone else that doesn't buy off on your 'facts' as crazy right wingers...while of course ignoring the fact that you are the far left extreme who simply claims to be correct at all costs, regardless of facts.
I was in Jr High school....................A day I will never forget! This country has never been the same!
The senseless murder of a young President who did so much to bring this nation together.
I was in 7th grade this day, 47 years ago...I will never forget it as long as my mental capacity allows me to. I remembered the entire weekend through the funeral on Monday, and can recall details that should have long since been forgotten. Years later when I was teaching the 7th grade (1975)...only 1 student knew what happened on this day 12 years earlier, and as I related the story of my experiences that weekend, also as a 7th grader, I had never experienced a classroom of 7th graders so quiet and so attentive throughout the entire class period(s). It was a sad day in American History and I can only hope that in my lifetime the truth is told of the forces behind such a vile and dastardly deed...and I have always been convinced that should that day come, a name that will appear is that of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
President Kennedy was my "Commander in Chief" I served in the Navy when he was in Office. Not once did any one ever have a bad word for him.
Even when we lost at the Bay of Pigs, We still stood behind him.
Who ever was behind the shooting of this man should be found and punished.
(Oswald did not shoot the President)
If Kennedy had lived there never would have been a Viet Nam.
I still miss this manyet today.
Victor Hesman
Thanks for that Victor. The young are told lies. History is rewritten by Fox News.
Victor - if anyone other than Oswald would have been the culprit after all this time do you not think someone would have given a deathbed confession of some sort?
The only viable alternative is the Mob. They gave Joe Kennedy CHicago which won the election for JFK. Then Bobby went after them. Needless to say that gave them motive to kill Kennedy. But someone would have spoken up by now if that were the case.
Oswald killed Kennedy. He was a defeated man of low self-esteem who wanted to remembered for something. He got his wish much to our misfortune. It matters not what the politics of our presidents are what matters is nothing devious or murderous happens to them - ever.
The theory that conspiracies are not possible because people would talk is wrong. Oswald talked, very briefly. He claimed no part in the shooting, but was quickly taken out of the picture by Jack Ruby who was locked up and died of brain cancer not too long afterward.
You underestimate the power to pull such things off. The basic forensic facts were sealed by the Warren Commission for 50 years and remain secret. Why?
Oswald may have actually killed Kennedy, but there is much evidence to doubt this conclusion. Yes he was a marksman, but the shots he supposedly took at a moving vehicle were nothing short of amazing. One directly through the necktie and another directly through the back of the head.
They were not amazing considering Oswald was graded with excellent markmanship in the Marines. And some now say it is proved he had 11 seconds and not 6.
the kennedy's are nothing but a bunch of frauds and liers. The only people that can get away with murder and who knows what else. Best to let them lay where they are and not bring up their names, so much more of their wrong doings will start to emerge. Now dont get all your panties in a bind, thats my opinion so deal with it.
Sure, I'll take it for what it's worth, to the trash barrel.
I think it wise to consider a few things before proclaiming Kennedy as one of the great presidents.
First, his stance on Civil Rights legislation was not the first legislation introduced in our country. Republicans in the Senate introduced meaningful Civil Rights legislation in 1955. It was defeated. Kennedy co-opted them in '63 and Republicans never get any credit from the biased liberal media for being the first.
Second, Matthews loves to identify Kennedy as a brilliant tactician in diplomacy relevant to the Cuban Missle Crisis. What he always forgets to mention is that if Kennedy had not failed so miserably in his summit with Kruschev a few months earlier Kruschev would never, ever have been so bold as to even try putting missiles in Cuba. Fact: Kennedy's dismal performance marked him as weak in Kruschev's eyes and emboldened him to make the Cuba play. Kennedy admited his performance there was horrible.
Third, Matthews thinks being an excellent politician makes one an effective leader. Wrong. We can see that right now with President Barack Milhouse Obama. Kennedy had a great intellect and was a great politician to be sure. But it does not make for an assured effective leader.
Lastly, signing a nuclear test ban treaty does not mean it was a great accomplishment. Fact: the Russians cheated on these Agreements on all of our presidents from Kennedy through Carter. Only Reagan finally said detente was for the Russians - their were two parties to these Ageements and only one was in compliance. And, of course, Reagan became a warmonger in the eyes of "journalists" like Matthews and others in the early 80's.
Kennedy was an excellent politician. I respect his service to country. I am glad he got Civil Rights moving in a positive direction. But my leg doesn't get tingly when I think of him.
Sir, were you there? I was. This weak in Kruschev's eyes stuff is typical right-wing crap. When we had John Kennedy as a leader this country, for a short while, had lofty ideals.
The lofty ideas we have now are to rob the middle class of still more and more until it is destroyed by the greedy, fascist right wing. Ronald Reagan launched this country on a course of destruction. He supported dictatorship as the most noble form of government. He put the helpless on the street where they still live to this day. He told us we would profit from a "trickle-down" of wealth, apparently from those that had so much some must leak. That was a lie of the worst sort.
This country is headed straight for destruction and the policies of the wealthy are largely the cause. Our manufacturing is dead and gone to Asia. Our economy is no longer viable. John Kennedy would never have allowed this to happen.
Too many - read it. Kennedy said himself his performance was dismal in the summit and that he dropped the ball. I did not say it - he did. Fact: this emboldened Kruschev to make a play in Cuba because a weak Kennedy would not do anything. Thankfully, he was wrong. But it never would have happened had Kennedy played hardball with Kruschev.
Do your own research. I believe it was "The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev, 1960-1963" by Michael Beschloss.
Too Many - uninformed to the nth. Go get your PBJ and milk Mommy is calling for you.
Yep. I saw Nixon's hardball handling of Kruschev. The famous kitchen debate. A p***ing contest. I'll bet ya Kruschev was shaking in his boots after that victory of commi-phobic rhetoric.
Now I'll give you that Kennedy made mistakes (e.g. bay of pigs), but he was man enough to fix them.
This part of your remarks shows what you really want, not to educate but to to make a childish jab:
Now given this evaluation:
Who today, in your mind, would make an "assured effective leader"? I cannot think of anyone on either side of today's political circus that holds a candle to John Kennedy.
TooMany - an effective leader is one who has rock solid principles driven by beliefs. An effective leader is one who affects policy based upon those principles and beliefs and not politics.
Kennedy was a politician. LBJ was a politician to the nth. His recipe for success? "Give them money (the electorate) and they will love you back (vote for you)". What a jerk. No matter the endless cycle of gov. dependency it creates by fostering the victim blame game. Nixon was a politician fueld by political paranoia. Not unlike Obama. However, Nixon knew foreign policy. Triangular diplomacy (Russians, China and U.S.) settled down the Russians somewhat. It is not a stretch to believe Kruschev never would have played the Cuba card with Nixon. Ford was the real deal. He did what he thought was right no matter the political consequences. Same can be said of Carter - too bad he was always wrong when it came to policy. Ad infintum....
Today's great leader? It isn't Obama. The most principled man relative to his beliefs is Gov. Christie of NJ. Then Speaker Gingrich. You'll toot the flip flop horn but it is not relevant. The ability to change one's mind is a sign of intellectual growth and not the downside politicians make it out to be to the uninformed voters out there.
OMG. Newt Gingrich a paragon of virtue? Christie of NJ? That piece of lard had to take his kid to his ballgame in a government helicopter and then needed a limousine to take him the last hundred yards and then didn't even stick around to watch the game.
Come on. As Johnson once said "Ford couldn't chew gum and walk at the same time."
They are all politicians! I don't find the stuff that comes out of the mouths of people like Newt and Christy particularly inspiring. If you do, go vote for him.
Let me warn you of one thing. If you are among the very wealthy, then yes vote for these people to protect you at the expense of the rest of us. Otherwise be very careful what you wish for.
toomany:
wow, you not only drink the koolaid but you also drink it by the case, live and breath every flavor, BATHE in it, wished it RAINED koolaid, buy and promote stock in it, and if they made an Obama barbie doll (rather, KEN) you'd probably sleep with it.
so so sad to see how pointedly one-sided you are, biased, uneducated, unwilling to get the facts, without that bright red koolaid moustache giving you away.....
I agree with Chris's reasoning the JFK should be remembered for the aspects of his presidency on a day other than Nov. 22nd. I think that this will be easier for future generations to do who did not have to live through that day and those days that followed. I was only eleven at the time, but I could still show you where I was standing in school when the announcement came through about the President's death. I can still hear the drums of his funeral cortege. As time passes, those that carry this wounded memory will give way to those that do not carry it Hopefully, their interest in the various aspects, accomplishments and failures of JFK's presidency will focus on these other dates, while still noting a presidency left incomplete by the events of Nov. 22nd.
On 22 November 1963 John F. Kennedy, president of the United States was killed by a "Time Traveler". Oswald was the patsy the Time Traveler selected to fall for the crime. You can laugh at me and tell me i'm crazy but there's one thing you nor anybody else can do, Prove me Wrong. Ha ha. That's right. Ole Time Traveler pulled it off.
I'm sure then that this time traveler bought stocks and bet on the World Series LMFAO
Mike Sanders - The only thing that is impossible is proving a thing impossible; one can only prove that a thing is possible or fail to prove a thing is possible.
Forget for a moment that some of the greatest scientific minds on Earth agree that traveling backwards in time is very unlikely; why would a time traveler kill him? If his timeline made future-Kennedy out to be such a jerk that he needed to die, then him traveling to the past and killing Kennedy would have negated the timeline in which future-Kennedy had been a jerk, and eliminating this time travelers need to travel back and kill Kennedy. Paradox.
Relying on the fact that no one can prove you wrong is like me saying you are a clone and the real you was actually shot into space in the late nineties. No one can prove me wrong, so it must be fact.
Anyway, I am a HUGE fan of time travel fiction. Just started reading Stephen King's 11/22/63 yesterday, ironically enough, which I think you might enjoy (if you're the reading type).
I want to know why we do not have a national holiday for the two civil rights activist ELECTED Kennedy's that were assassinated but we have one for an unelected assassinated civil rights activist?
I totally agree. There are holidays for presidents (Presidents Day which combined Abe Lincoln's & George Washington's birthdays into a 'general' presidents day). Not only is there no day specific to JFK but there are very few, if any, streets or public schools named in JFK's honor. Think for a moment, have you ever gone into a town that didn't have a MLK boulevard or street or school name? Kind of sad isn't it?
Don are you really suggesting there aren't enough monument to JFK, not enough airports, streets, schools, buildings, parks, or other references to him and his family? Really?
Amazing the crap people come up with on here. Maybe you should check out the link below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorials_to_John_F._Kennedy
Very intresting point there!
It's good to honor one of our greatest presidents. JFK was a good man.
BUT lets get back to our current problems. We have a president now that had,
and I believe still does have the potential to be more profound than any other before him. Just sad the man cannot get a fair shake in this country. Ever since his inauguration, there has been a large but mostly silent "operation: remove the blackie" mentality that has galvanized itself with a large number of Americans. And when you are looked at as "illegitimate" from the beginning, everything you do afterwards is suspect. And that's where the GOP and the large number of white racists, both those that are aware, and those racists in denial, have succeeded in making sure this POTUS never gets a fair game. This is the same treatment Blacks in the US get on every scale. I have certainty dealt with it in my life.
AlwaysRight - what a bunch of horse@!$%# you write. The vast majority of Americans who oppose Obama do so because his Keynesian economic policies (though many would not know who John Keynes was they do know the economy sucks) are creating massive gov. debt with no jobs to boot. It has nothing to do at all with his color. Very, very few care about that.
But dum-dums like you and many others like to use it as your convenient little excuse. Enough said.
What I wrote was my opinion. And you calling it horse... w/e is your opinion and I will let you post your opinion as others have without insult. Your point is taken, and while Obama has not been the best at economic policies, in which I agree with you, Obama is not by far the first President to stack up major debt. When Obama created major debt it was because our country economy was on the verge of a collapse, with former POTUS, their debt creation was not for such dire situations. Obama tries to pass a jobs bill and what happens ? I'm sure you can answer that question. I am amazed at how much resistance Obama recieves, and from a spectators view, nothing really adds ups. There are bold face lies being spread on the right, that is resonating with the "uninformed", and what I like to call the uneducated in our nation. I suggest you try arguing the facts instead of my opinions rebelw/ocause.
@AlwaysRight-2026628 guess you are NOT always right. NO ONE is bashing obama because is 1/2 black. It was the WHITES that came out in droves that got him elected. The reason the repukelicans are after him is NOT because of color but because of party affliation. I guess, by your reasoning, that Clinton was black? The repukes NEVER gave him one days rest. People love to make it a race thing because they can blame racism on why he failed and not the fact that he IS a failure. I voted for him (only because the DNC stold the nomination from Hillary and there are NO decent repukes) but I will NOT be voting at all next time around. And BTW, LOVE the way you stole the lime light form the GREAT JFK to promote obama and race.
As said everyone is entitled to at least their own opinion. But your point on the GOP "...are after him..." is "...because party affiliation" I dont agree with, history shows that even when other Dems such as Clinton held office the GOP were more cooperative to pass much needed legislation with bi-partisan support. Obama gets absolutely zero.
I knew, just as with any other topic that by mentioning race I would take heat from all sorts. But at the same time I feel as if that discomfort that most who have a problem with my original comment, well that discomfort needs to be felt. I believe that JFK deserves to be honored, not trying to hijack that, I just think that Matthews has spent to much time whoring himself out for his book, I cant turn on a show without seeing Chris there promoting this. Dont get me wrong Chris Matthews, I am a fan of yours, I watch and follow you and listen carefully, I tend to agree just as much as I disagree with your points. But looking back, and just comparing presidents with our current is in a way conceding the fight, and just relying on a fall back story, because the truth is Mr Matthews, is that you cannot explain the Obama enigma either.
I was in 2nd grade, and I DO remember this. Our family talked a lot about politics, before and after this event. Not everyone loved him, trust me. He bumbled many things, he was far from perfect. He started the entitlements that are draining our economy today. He started our involvement in Vietnam - and yes, my dad's friends WERE sent there while he was President. He was a rich, entitled man who was a politician who got shot. Nothing more, nothing less.
What entitlements did JFK start? FDR started social security in the 1930's and medicare/medicaid didn't start until 1965! Eisenhower started our involvement in Vietnam and Johnson took us to war there! I think your family is a little mixed up!
Degree in history from Fox News no doubt.
and TooMany your degree is from the Communist NewsNetwork????
If you remember that day, you can't help but honor him on it.