All presidential aspirants, like the rest of us, need role models. Is JFK the correct one for Senator Obama?
The greatest enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent,pervasive and unrealistic. - John F. Kennedy, Yale University, June 11, 1962,
JFK served as President of the United States from 20 January 1961 until he was assassinated on 22 November 1963 — a total of one thousand and thirty-six days. At the age of forty-three, he became the youngest president of the United States. During his brief time in office, he became a celebrity icon of pop star magnitude, and is still revered by many as one of our greatest presidents. According to a 1999 Gallup Poll, he ranked third in line, behind Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr., as the most widely admired person in the world. JFK had much in common with Senator Obama, including his youth (if elected, Senator Obama will be forty-seven when inaugurated), skill in public speaking, and glamor in general. One might legitimately wonder what other attributes they share.…
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76 - Mikey
John Kennedy was reckless. If you read a book about JFK called "JFK Reckless Youth"; Kennedy on PT 109 thought that PT boats should be gunboats. He was tired of being shot at by Japenese sniper fire in the Blackett Strait, so he got a surplus 37mm antitank gun and had it tied to the forward deck with mounts, the legs of the cannon had to be tied down with ropes since there was no other way to do it. The crew by all accounts was astonished to mount this big gun to the deck. This is interesting in light of the fact of his calm and cool reasoning during the Cuban Missile Crisis 19 years later.
Now I know he was thinking about his safety however, this is rather reckless and foolhardy.
Another story which happened which shows Kennedy's recklessness. The PT boats would go on patrols near Russell Island in the South Pacific and come back at dawn to the dock. Kennedy and another PT boat onetime were racing to the homestretch. Well Kennedy won the race, but ran into the corner of the dock. The engine stalled after he won and was throttling down. Later people near the dock learned to run to the beach when Kennedy's PT boat came coming to the dock. Kennedy's nickname became "Crash Kennedy".
He was a heroic guy but very reckless. Does recklessness and heriocs go hand in hand? Was this recklessness part of what made him go in an open limousine in Dallas in 1963? Who knows.