With just a few hours on Google and a brief romp through my personal library, I was able to compose the impressive roll-call of definitive evidence seen below that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whatever else he was and did, was not a liberal by even the standards of 1963, let alone 2010.
He had what we would call “liberal” tendencies and instincts in some matters: he governed domestically on the slight left-of-center throughout his presidency, right up until the day of his tragic murder at the hands of a sad, pitiful loser named Lee Harvey Oswald.
But even here, the progressive of 2010 must pause: when I state “he governed domestically on the slight left-of-center,” I mean by the “left-of-center” standards of 1961, ’62, & ’63. That center has shifted significantly since those days, and in 2010 many of Kennedy’s views and policies in that regard would be considered either middle of the road, or even slightly on the conservative side of the ledger. Some would be considered outright Reactionary.
This is not to say JFK would’ve been a right-winger in 2010, as the wing-nut blogosphere and conservative talk radio always likes to claim: not a bit of it.
Instead it is likely that had JFK lived he would have moved further to the Left as time went by, just as his younger brothers did in the turbulent years that followed his tragic passing.
It is unlikely he would ever have become as liberal as his brother Ted, but he would almost certainly been to the Left of even the most “moderate” conservative, and firmly in the progressive mainstream.
We will never know, but that’s my best guess and opinion, and it, unlike so much else we’ve seen on the subject, is an informed opinion.
I predict the irrefutable facts I have presented will stir further anger on those invested in a false narrative regarding JFK not just because I insist on presenting them, but because they exist, as facts, at all. Anger because they are part of the actual ledger of recorded history in the first place, as opposed to the make-believe narratives which comfort some of those particularly enamored and bestirred by the life & times of the 35th president of the United States.
And they are irrefutable: backed up with those precious links that have been so clamored for, it only took me a few hours, the internet, and a bit of thumbing through my own personal library to run down ten proof-texts and bullet points showing that President Kennedy was not the idealistic, full-tilt liberal that some today would like to pretend he was. Had I more time to dedicate to it - a full day; a week; a month - the list & links would have run in the dozens, the hundreds, perhaps more.
This topic has long fascinated me, the deification of JFK the man by some on the progressive side of the ledger to an unreasonable, un-factual degree; Ronald Reagan has a similar fan club of fanatical worshippers on the conservative Right who treat him in a similar fashion as a magical demigod who could do no wrong.
Those who claim the label “progressive” should know better than to indulge in such fanciful hagiography, IMHO, but let’s put that aside.
To continue, when people get deeply invested in a worldview that rotates around a profound historical figure, whether it be Jesus Christ or John F. Kennedy (or Ronald Reagan), they begin to construct narratives that explain away that historical figure’s failings and exaggerate their accomplishments during that limited time on this earth we all have.
They start to remake the actual person who lived into an image that corresponds with their elevated estimate of them: they begin to make myths, and tell sacred stories about their great deeds, and mighty triumphs. Their defeats and failures are usually chalked up to the nefarious workings of enemies, traitors, the self-serving, the greedy, and other assorted agents of evil.
That’s how the New Testament got written.
And when that narrative is called into question, challenged, debunked, it raises the angriest kind of hackles from those so invested: it’s almost as if you are calling into question their core identity; and, in some instances, you are.
When the facts themselves, as facts, are unpalatable to the person(s) invested in not accepting them, ugliness often follows.
Hence the anger - the irrational, lashing-out anger, coupled with scornful incredulity - directed at the person who does not flinch from presenting those facts, and who insists they be respected even when inconvenient & troublesome, regardless of the circumstances.
That is the hallmark of a progressive way of thinking; the benchmark of a liberal way of reasoning and coming to grips with the world around us.
One I highly recommend.
Good evening.
JFK the anti-New Dealer:
"Mr. Roosevelt has contributed to the end of capitalism in our own country, although he would probably argue the point at some length. He has done this not through the laws which he sponsored or were passed during his presidency, but rather through the emphasis he put on rights rather than responsibilites." -John Fitzgerald Kennedy
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk1.htm Eleanor Roosevelt's dislike for JFK, a dislike that was mutual:
"Eleanor Roosevelt, the beloved symbol of the liberals openly berated JFK in 1956 at the Democratic Convention for not having taken a stand against McCarthy, and repeated her mistrust of JFK in an interview for Look magazine in 1958. The lingering image of JFK and the McCarthy connections was another reason why JFK was challenged from the left in 1960." http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk2.htm More on Roosevelt & JFK's mutual contempt:
"She had left the 1960 Democratic Convention in tears when John Kennedy won the nomination. He was, to her, just Joe Kennedy's overreaching son, an arrogant young man who would not wait his turn...she had refused to sit on the inaugural platform with Kennedy and his family, wrapping herself in a mink coat and an Army blanket in the crowd below the stand." - Richard Reeves, "President Kennedy: Profile of Power"
http://www.amazon.com/President-Kennedy-Profile-Richard-Reeves/dp/0671892894 JFK's contempt for Adlai Stevenson:
"The party liberals, and Stevenson, felt that he deserved to be Secretary of State. JFK never considered the idea specifically because of the bitterness from 1956. JFK only offered UN Ambassador, a post that Stevenson resented as "beneath his dignity." So determined was JFK not to let a liberal run the State Department that he even rejected the liberals second and third choices, Chester Bowles and G. Mennen Williams." http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk3.htm JFK's irritation with & suspicion of the Civil Rights Movement:
"JFK's less than wholehearted feelings of affection for the movement would surface again two years later when both he and RFK would agree with J. Edgar Hoover that King needed to be wiretapped because at least one of his advisors had suspected communist ties," http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk4.htm JFK the unapologetic Cold Warrior:
"In a series of oral history interviews for the JFK Library, RFK said that "it was worthwhile for psychological, political reasons" to stay in Vietnam.
"The President felt that he had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam....If you lost Vietnam, I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall." (32)
John Bartlow Martin point-blank asked RFK "if the President was convinced that the United States had to stay in Vietnam." The one-word response was "Yes." http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/progjfk5.htmJFK administration, an overview (money quote):
"Contrary to much Camelot romanticism, Kennedy never considered any policy other than military victory. Just three weeks before his assassination, in the wake of the overthrow of the Diem regime, he remained hopeful about the prospects for an intensification of the war, telling the press that he thought there was a “new situation” in Vietnam, which would lead to, “we hope, an increased effort in the war” (emphasis added). He added that the U.S. policy should be to “intensify the struggle” so that “we can bring Americans out of there” - after U.S. forces had subjugated the country, a goal he never renounced." http://legalienate.blogspot.com/2009/05/false-saviors-john-f-kennedy.htmlJFK trending Right in 1960:
"As senator, Kennedy had zigzagged through the long obstacle course of civil rights legislation, siding in most cases, as a Ted Sorensen memo to Bobby proudly explained in December 1959, ‘with our friends in the South.’ He meant white friends.” - Richard D. Mahoney, "Sons and Brothers: the Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy"
http://www.amazon.com/Sons-Brothers-Days-Bobby-Kennedy/dp/1559704802 JFK's Foreign Policy - lots of Reagan, not much Ganhdi:
"In each of these chapters, JFK’s Cold Warrior mentality is evident in the people he trusted for advice... It seems striking to this reader to find that JFK’s policies differed little from Nixon or Reagan and yet his decisions do not appear to have shortened the Cold War at all—in fact they probably contributed to its longevity. Few will be impressed with JFK’s role in the arrest and imprisonment of Nelson Mandela or with the 163 individual covert operations he personally approved for the CIA to conduct in Latin America which, among other things, brought about the downfall of two democratically elected heads of state." (all emphases added)
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/item/2010/0406/book/book_handley_jfk.htmlJFK the Bystander:
"JFK, martyred liberal icon, turns out to have been wholly indifferent to the question of civil rights for black Americans. Kennedy, who built a political career on the sinking of PT-109, once told a fellow survivor, "My story about the collision is getting better all the time. Now I've got a Jew and a ****** (N-word) in the story and with me being a Catholic, that's great." Reviewed by Kirkus: quoted from "The Bystander," by Nick Bryant
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Bystander/Nick-Bryant/e/9780465008261#editorialReviewsTabSee related thread here:
HereEdit: link fixed.
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