JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different (Part Four)

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different (Part Four)

 

Attempting to compare and contrast JFK and BHO without referencing their better halves, First Ladies Jacqueline Lee “Jackie” Bouvier Kennedy and Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, would be a futile exercise since Jackie and Michelle were significant influences and major players in the lives and administrations of their husbands. 

The chief difference was that Jackie made her influence felt behind her private screen and Michelle has overtly exhibited her involvement in every facet of the Obama administration.
Unique in many ways, no two First Ladies could have been more different. 

One was truly a first class lady, the other not so much.  


Few other First Ladies in American presidential history better combined classic beauty, charismatic charm, and educated savoir-faire than Mrs. Kennedy. 

Of Irish-French ancestry, Jackie was born to wealth and privilege like her husband yet never publicly flaunted her privileged status either before or after her marriage to the president of the United States and never intruded into the seamy world of politics.  She had graduated from George Washington University in D.C. with a B.A. in French literature, co-authored the autobiographical, One Special Summer, with her sister, and later worked as an inquiring photographer.

Jackie may have unwittingly become a fashion icon but she always discreetly stayed in the political background and appropriately kept her political opinions to herself. 

Fluent in Spanish and French, she could speak in Italian and Polish and on foreign trips comported herself with the same sense of chic dignity she exhibited at home.  She devoted her free time to organizing White House social events and directing the beautification of the presidential mansion.

More importantly, Mrs. Kennedy studiously avoided controversy at all times and ultimately became one of the most beloved and most popular presidential wives of the twentieth century. 

On the other hand, no other First Lady in American history combined such a seething, racist anger toward America, such an insatiable lust for publicity, and such affection for traveling on taxpayers’ meager dimes than Michelle Obama. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34191.)

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different (Part Three)

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different (Part Three)

Patrick Buchanan believes, had the assassination of John F. Kennedy not occurred fifty years ago, JFK would be remembered as a mediocre president who accomplished little aside from the passage of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and establishing the Peace Corps.  His other “achievements,” including ending the Cuban Missile Crisis, were all tainted in some way or left unfinished, such as cutting taxes which Lyndon B. Johnson pushed through Congress in Kennedy’s name.

As Buchanan wrote on HumanEvents.com, “Had there been no Dallas, there would been no Camelot.  There would have been no John F. Kennedy as brilliant statesman cut off in his prime, had it not been for those riveting days from Dealey Plaza to Arlington and the lighting of the Eternal Flame.  Along with the unsleeping labors of an idolatrous press and the propagandists who control America’s popular culture, those four days created and sustained the Kennedy Myth.”

Pat Buchanan is probably correct even if the “idolatrous press and the propagandists” still profess JFK’s greatness, much like they still praise our current president despite his few real successes and his many abject failures. 

One such worshipful piece published in April 2012 on WashingtonMonthly.com titled, “Obama’s Top 50 Accomplishments” listed “health care reform,” “passing the stimulus,” ”Wall Street reform,” “ending the war in Iraq,” and “began drawdown of war in Afghanistan” as the top five.

Given the retrospective of 17 months, if those five are Obama’s greatest accomplishments, he actually has none.

If and when the Washington Monthly ever lists his greatest bungles and wrecks, they should be at or near the head of the heap: Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster, the stimulus has stimulated nothing except malaise, Wall Street is as profitably corrupt as ever, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still raging fiercely though on a smaller scale.

However, unlike Kennedy, Obama was the recipient of the highly prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his trying to make the world a better place.
According to the Nobel Committee, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34224.) 

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different (Part Two)

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mostly Different--Part Two

 

Comparing Jack Kennedy to Barack Obama is a task much akin to comparing apples and apple seeds: The apple is a nutritious and tasty fruit whereas apple seeds contain a sugar and cyanide compound which can be toxic in large quantities.

In many ways they’re not comparable though both represent the Democrat Party and eloquent orators, and both became wildly popular among certain segments of the population and abroad even if Kennedy won the 1960 election in a squeaker (two-tenths of one percent–49.7% to 49.5% in the popular vote)–and won with scandalous assistance from Chicago’s corrupt Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Chicago’s own Obama won handily in 2008 and 2012, albeit with the help of a narrow constituency of 13% of the population who twice voted overwhelmingly for him because of his race and with the help of two opponents who can best be described as lackluster Republicans in name only.

It should be noted, however, that Kennedy’s Democrat Party was relatively conservative as contrasted with Obama’s party today, that he delivered his speeches with notes but largely from memory and Obama can’t seem to address anyone without reading from his trusty teleprompters.  Most importantly, Jack had a vision for America that was uplifting and challenging as opposed to Obama’s vision that the nation we know and love was in dire need of liberal-leftist rehabilitation.

Our 35th president firmly believed in the greatness of the country he had fought and risked his life for, an inspirational belief that went far beyond what Americans could do for America for and to literally reach for the moon.  In his campaigns and administrations, our 44th president sought radical changes in America and offered some ambiguous hope as the solution to problems only he and his supporters considered significantly problematic.

Now, granted, both Kennedy and Obama entered office during difficult times. 
 
Kennedy, however, entered with the advantage of a background in national politics–six years in the House of Representatives, six years in the Senate–which afforded him a fundamental understanding of how government functions.  After a brief stint in the Illinois Senate, Obama ran for and won a seat in the United States Senate and two years later won the presidency with a marked lack of experience that was evident from Day One. . . . (Read more http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34092.)

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mainly Different

JFK vs. BHO--Somewhat Similar, Mainly Different (Part One)

 

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was murdered almost 50 years ago in Dallas’ Dealey Square by Lee Harvey Oswald, a malcontented Marxist.  By most  objective accounts, JFK was a mediocre president during his brief tenure as America’s commander in chief and tragically short life of 46 years, a tenure and a life that has been exponentially exaggerated since November 23rd, 1963. With many notable exceptions, Kennedy was much like our 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama. 
A handsome, charismatic man, blessed with an enchanting wife and two beguiling children, JFK accomplished precious little as president over the course of his scant 1,036 days in office, somewhat fewer accomplishments than Obama, yet Jack’s memory still enjoys a distinctive prominence in American political history that will elude Barack, unless one regards abject failure a cause for remembrance.
Not that the illicit romances of American presidents–and their number is almost incalculable–constitute valid reason for chiseling a president’s legacy in stone or face on Mount Rushmore, but they do serve to reflect the fundamental nature and character of those leaders.
Jack was the cat’s meow, the bees’ knees, antiquated expressions describing a cool, stylish guy who had “a way with the ladies,” so to speak.  In short, he was an unreconstructed rake.
Obama seems somewhat more selective in his choice of ”ladies” than Kennedy was, preferring the ladies of “The View” who idolized him as “eye candy, ” (his self-description), and Kennedy preferring to get it on with . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34064.)