Obama really is like JFK

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Similar sense of humor, similar intellect, similar style.

Imaging Obama in some of the same situations I'd expect him to work through them in much the same way.

(I think Rahm is probably as close as there is to the Bobby Kennedy role.)

[FrenchieCat]

1. I do find that I could picture JFK doing exactly what Barack Obama

Did yesterday with the Governor's dinner, as well as today's Fiscal Health Summit.

[YOY]

2. Sans the uber rich New Englander background.

And the easily imitatable accent.

Plus a little melanin.

[Hekate]

10. LOL.

:hi:

[ginnyinWI]

16. and minus the (ahem) excess female companionship. nt

[Captain Hilts]

27. He wasn't a standard uber rich New Englander. There was a lot of bigotry against...

Irish Catholics back then.

[YOY]

33. There was/is a lot of bigotry against Catholics in general then and now.

From the right and the left.

But money is money and he came from money...Joe maybe didn't but John, Bobby, and Teddy did.

Point in figure, Obama didn't.

[Captain Hilts]

35. Obama didn't come from money. Very true.

He DID come from the 'intelligentsia' class. It was really, REALLY unusual to have not one, but TWO parents with graduate degrees back then.

[Hekate]

3. Those of us who remember, remember. Those who don't, scoff....

Times are different, the two men are different from each other -- but that deep resonance is assuredly there.

I wonder about Rahm Emmanuel -- I don't remember what Bobby Kennedy's style was when he was AG, just that he went after the Mob. However, I am beginning to believe that Rahm is the bad-cop to the President's good-cop, and that's going to account for a good percentage of the job getting done.

Hekate

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Bobby was the enforcer

Bobby was always in the picture at the WH, not stashed over at Justice. So his role was unusual... closest adviser on all things.

[Hekate]

9. That's it. Good cop, bad cop. nt

[FightingIrish]

4. He has a commanding presence without any swagger.

His humor is not the inappropriate buffoonery of Bush. He has a disarming way of dealing with is adversaries. When he told Eric Cantor that he would someday admit that Obama had some good ideas, it looked like Cantor wanted to crawl under his chair. Watching that discussion was the highlight of an otherwise grim day for me.

[Captain Hilts]

5. JFK was reckless, had others write his books, got nowhere on merit and was a shit to his wife.

Other than that, they've got a lot in common!

If Obama had been prez instead of JFK there would have been no Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Pyrzqxgl]

8. What information makes you so sure of that?

[Captain Hilts]

19. Obama is a thoughtful, deliberate man. Yes, he'll take chances, but, unlike JFK...

he comes across as deliberate and thoughtful.

It was precisely JFK's overgrown fratboy demeanor that emboldened Khrushchev to place the missiles in Cuba. He thought he was dealing with a bobbysoxer. He wasn't, of course. But it's one of those cases appearances matter. When you go back and read the electoral press from 1960, both JFK and Nixon were regularly accused of just not being mature enough for the job.

It's one of those cases where JFK projected the wrong style. Obama would not do that. Unlike JFK, Obama has had nothing handed to him. He takes what he does very seriously. JFK had a pattern of political recklessness - not ever coming out against Senator McCarthy, for example - and his personal life was reckless to the point of making himself vulnerable to blackmail.

The Cuban Missile Crisis seems to have been a dose of political puberty for him. He grew up. But he was still not the guy that Obama is. The comparison makes Obama look all the better.

[AllentownJake]

29. The similarity is both men actually gave a shit about the people in the country

and politically that was their first priority.

Its a rare quality in a President. Clinton had it, Carter had it, Kennedy and Eisenhower had it.

[H2O Man]

11. not

[theoldman]

7. The only think I see in common are good oratory skills.

JFK also reached out to other nations and did not try to make enemies.

[damntexdem]

12. But he plays basketball better than JFK did football.

And he shows promise of being more-effective at getting legislation passed.

[Phx_Dem]

15. JFK had a bad back which was made much worse when his PT-Boat was

torpedoed during WWII. He was in terrible pain for the rest of his life because of that injury. But that didn't stop him from saving his crewmate's life by toeing him 3 miles through the ocean with the strap of the man's life-jacket in his teeth, until they reached a small island from which they were eventually rescued. Suck on that, John McCain!

Just a little JFK trivia. I think that gives him a pass for his football game.

:patriot:

[Captain Hilts]

21. Not trivia, and to his credit, he felt really uncomfortable with the 'hero' mantle this story gave

him.

Did you know they think they found 109?

[Phx_Dem]

36. Yes, very cool.

[Phx_Dem]

13. I thought exactly the same thing watching that Q&A.

[asteroid2003QQ47]

14. "Obama really is like JFK" He's got a blond on the side?

"And we must face the fact that the United States is neither
omnipotent or omniscient - that we are only six percent of the world's
population--that we cannot impose our will upon the other
ninety-four percent of mankind - that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity - and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
--John F. Kennedy (November 16, 1961,
Address at the University of Washington's
100th Anniversary Program, Edmundson
Pavilion, Seattle, Washington)

[Captain Hilts]

20. Tiger Woods married his. nt

[elleng]

17. And everyone LOOKING FORWARD TO

press conferences!!!

[Captain Hilts]

28. That certainly is a parallel. A shame Bubba didn't do his in prime time. nt

[Phoonzang]

18. Minus inheriting the same mess. The Soviets were child's play

compared to this economic mess.

[Captain Hilts]

22. Man, what you don't know about the early 60s is amazing. nt

[Zynx]

23. My parents were scared out of their minds as kids when Kennedy came on the T.V.

to tell them that we were nearly in a nuclear war with Russia.

[Captain Hilts]

26. The only clue we had of how long dad would be at sea was they saw Christmas dinner...

supplies being loaded on board. Dad handed mom his will and he was out the door.

Submarine CUTLASS out of Norfolk.

Kennedy handled it just right.

[Phoonzang]

24. What you don't know about the present is amazing as well. nt

[Captain Hilts]

25. Yeah, living in DC, having four degrees and working in politics makes me ignorant of current affairs

[Jackeens]

31. I preferred.....

[Captain Hilts]

32. Me too! AWESOME! they get in a fight with the Vadellas, who wins?

[grantcart]

30. and also the self depreciating tone - I agree

I remember in college (1975) we had a JFK one man show come to our auditorium and when they brought the lights up on him there was a loud gasp in the audience as we thought we were seeing a ghost.

I talked with the performer after the show and he said that he had never gotten that kind of response before and he thought that the lighting that the stage hands used was the cause.

[Thothmes]

34. How many women, other than his wife, had he had sex

with in the White House. How big of a drug cocktail does he have to take to kill the chronic pain in his back.