Well the Bay of Pigs was a covert action that President Kennedy's advisers failed him on... and JFK made heads roll after that... well documented.
Right, the lower echelons ALWAYS take the fall when Democrats whip it out and stomp on it. At least in the GOP if YOU screw up, YOU take the fall.
The Russian missile crisis JFK showed extreme backbone and the Russians backed down averting a nuclear war.
top gun, I would STRONGLY suggest you do some more research on the events that LED to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy's INEXPERIENCE in international diplomacy, his insistence on virtually acting as his own Sec State, and his own sheer arrogance is what led to the crisis in the first place, and THAT is what scares the crap out of me about Obama. He lacks EXPERIENCE. Frankly, there are times when "backbone" and "balls" are all that's needed, and there are times when diplomacy and intelligence must take the front seat, and only experience let's you know when to use which. Kennedy used the little head instead of the big one, and damned near destroyed the world, the fact that we got out of it alive was SHEER DUMB LUCK, and I prefer not to have to depend on that when we're facing the current and projected NUCLEAR BUILDUPS in Iran, N. Korea, and Syria.
The Kennedy administration cracked down on organized crime...
But only the ones that weren't friendly with his family. Don't forget that Joe Kennedy built the family fortune BOOTLEGGING during Prohibition.
and if not for the Kennedy administration blatant racists like Governor George Wallace would have postponed Civil Rights for years & years longer.
I see your aptitude for history, especially Southern history, isn't what it really should be. George Wallace, acting as Governor of Alabama, did precisely and exactly what the majority of the people of the State of Alabama told him to do even though he himself was NOT a racist.
A lifelong liberal, he was one of the first Judges in the State of Alabama to ever call a black man "Mr," from the bench, and that was in the mid 50's! In his later term as Governor in the mid 80's, and after making MANY public apologies for his earlier conduct, he appointed a record number of blacks to State Offices. When asked why he started using racial epithets, he told a supporter that talking about good schools and good roads wasn't getting him anywhere, so he had to adopt a persona that would get him in the Governors mansion so that he COULD do something about the schools and the roads.
The episode at the University of Alabama (which was TOTALLY orchestrated between JFK and Wallace so that Wallace could retain credibility in Alabama, and JFK could be seen as a "hero") is a primary example of what a politician is supposed to do, and something that, if he'd been smart, GHW Bush would have done. Wallace ran on a platform of segregation (again, so that he could get the REAL work that needed to be done, done), and he was going to stand by that, even though he knew he would lose. GHW Bush ran on "read my lips, no new taxes", and then he signed into law one of the biggest tax hikes in the 20th Century. If he'd been paying attention, he'd have vetoed the tax plan, it would have gone back to Congress, which would have easily overridden his veto, the tax hike would have still gone into effect, but GHW could have said "I did what I said I was going to do, BLAME CONGRESS", and we wouldn't have had 8 years of Billy Boy Clintoon! Wallace retained his political credibility which allowed him to continue to effectively govern, Kennedy got the segregation lifted, it was a "win-win". Because of that, he was able to draw desperately needed jobs and industry to Alabama, and got the Jr. College system established that allowed many hundreds of thousands of Alabamians, who otherwise would never have been able to attend college, a chance at a higher education.
Kennedy was a visionary who looked far ahead into the future and started the national conquest of NASA going to the moon.
Again, balls instead of brains. Kennedy rushed a program that was already on the books, costing the taxpayers thousands of times more than it would have cost, just to be able to poke the Soviet Bearin the eye with a pointy stick. Everyone knew by the mid 60's that the Soviets stood NO chance of putting anyone on the moon since their technology simply wasn't reliable enough, and in fact, they had already abandoned their plans and settled on unmanned rovers.
And John F. Kennedy could reach peoples positive spirit with his words. He inspired people to do better. I remember too well coming home from elementary school because school was closed early and seeing my mother and every other single person I saw that day crying openly when he was assassinated. He was a great man.
I too remember the Kennedy assassination, and I too wept, but not for Kennedy, but because I realized what it would do to America. I never liked the man, but I sure as HELL didn't want to see him made some kind of damned martyr, which is exactly what he's become. As a result of the assassination, nobody is willing to seriously look at his Presidency out of some sort of "respect for the dead", and that's the saddest part about it, because now we're stuck with the illusion of "Camelot" instead of seeing it for what it really was, bone headed move after bone headed move.
We've been stuck on stupid for almost 8 years now. It's time for some inspiration and intellegence... a President Obama.
And from what I've seen thus far, if Obama IS elected, we'll have at least 4 more years of "stuck on stupid", only this time we'll be lucky if we live through it. That is of course unless someone gets INCREDIBLY stupid and kills him, in which case we'll have ANOTHER martyr on our hands, and ANOTHER 40 years of "what ifs".
His attempt to make a speech at the Brandenberg Gate is particulary laughable: an attempted silly-ass self parody stealing a page from JFK's and Reagan's historic speeches at the Berlin wall. The Germans, having a certain amount of dignity, turned the G.O. down, not wanting to be the host for such a farce.
The Kennedy family gets only applause from Liberals. It's not like that's any big seceret... everyone knows it.