by Taylor Marsh
This is just annoying. Every time I hear Joe Lieberman talk about being a John F. Kennedy Democrat I wonder if Mr. Lieberman even knows anything about J.F.K. Has he read any of the deeper biographies of this man? Does he know what Kennedy was prepared to do in a second term if he'd lived? This statement is as outrageous as it is arrogant and ignorant all at the same time.
"... You know, I'm a Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy .. ... Scoop Jackson Democrat; progressive in domestic policy and strong on foreign and defense policy. I think that's the best tradition of our party and if we don't recapture it ... .. (the) Democratic candidate is going to have a hard time winning that election next year." - Joe Lieberman (on ABC's "This Week")
Then there's the issue of Scoop Jackson, a great 20th century Democrat, but someone who had on his staff a man who has been wrong at every leading turn on Iraq. His name is Richard Perle.
But as for John F. Kennedy, he hated war. He stood down the Soviets without firing a shot. But then J.F.K. actually fought in war. He wasn't a chickenhawk.
It's easy to think what Mr. Lieberman would do if Cuba had missiles today. There's no doubt about it. Lieberman is a man who touts attacking Iran. There is no way J.F.K. would back such a boneheaded move.
Let's also remember that it was Joe Lieberman who stood up to proudly castigate Bill Clinton for his consensual affair during impeachment. What would Mr. Lieberman have done if he'd known about John F. Kennedy's numerous randy rendezvous that occurred regularly in the White House? It wasn't exactly a secret to the Washington crowd back then. Can we doubt he would have walked away from the president he now uses to prop up his own image, while misusing the man's real core, especially when it came to war? Let's also remember that J.F.K. would never have ever considered voting Republican, not ever. But the best evidence against Mr. Lieberman's boastful ignorance about being a "John F. Kennedy Demcorat" is in the realism of J.F.K.'s thinking, something Bring 'em on Joe couldn't possibly understand.
On Meet the Press in February 1954, Kennedy was asked if he was suggesting that the United States replace France in Indochina. No, he answered, because without commitments to independence for these French colonies, the United States would be facing a hopeless task. Since he was on record as saying that to lose Indochina was to lose all of Asia, didn't he believe it essential for the United States to fight? No, he said, because he saw no prospect of victory," and therefore it would be a mistake for us to go in." .. ... But U.S. military involvement without this promise would be doomed to failure. "No amount of American military assistance in Indochina," he told the Senate, "can conquer an enemy which is everywhere and at the same time nowhere, 'an enemy of the people' which has the sympathy and covert support of the people." The only path to victory was through the creation of a "native army" that expected sacrifices in blood and treasure to bring self-determination." ... .. Kennedy was now more emphatic than ever that U.S. military involvement would be a mistake.
An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek (pgs. 188-189)
If that's not enough for Bring 'em Joe, there's plenty more.
Neither foreign aid nor a greater military arsenal not "new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences" could substitute for an effective response to anticolonialism. ... .. Kennedy described "two central weaknesses in our current foreign policy: first, a failure to appreciate how the forces of nationalism are rewriting the geopolitical map of the world ... and second, a lack of decision and conviction in our leadership ... which seeks too often to substitute slogans for solutions. ... .. He urged policy makers to replace "apocalyptic solutions" with something he called "a new realism," which was to substitute economic aid for military exports and to work against "the prolongation of Western colonialism. ... .. Early in 1958, he told economist John Kenneth Galbraith that "the Democratic party has tended to magnify the military challenge to the point where equally legitimate economic and political programs have been obscured. ... "
An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek (pg. 222-223)
Today is the fourth commemoration of "bring 'em on." It's fitting that just yesterday Mr. Lieberman used the opportunity to cement his alignment with a president that John F. Kennedy would have deplored. There was nothing "bring 'em on" about J.F.K.
So while Mr. Lieberman continues to use John F. Kennedy, proclaiming he's Jack's kind of Democrat, it's good to visit actual reality. Something from which Bring 'em on Joe has clearly disassociated himself.
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