The Kennedy Legacy
Posted on March 31st, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Another thought on Lieberman’s McCain endorsement. Even taking into account the bizarre awe in which modern Democrats hold JFK, I thought it was extraordinary that Lieberman said that the “one, in my opinion, closest to the Kennedy legacy, the John F. Kennedy legacy, is John S. McCain.” That’s amusing–John S. McCain.
It’s never made sense to me why Obama would want to take on the mantle of JFK, except to get endorsements from the Kennedys of today, since JFK’s tenure was the perfect embodiment of exactly what Obama’s worst critics fear about an Obama presidency: foreign policy blunder after screw-up after unmitigated disaster. Likewise, it escapes me why the candidate who intends to run a campaign focused heavily on national security would want to be compared to probably the worst national security President of the Cold War (unless you give Truman top billing on that list). What was Kennedy’s record, except a litany of bad ideas, failures, disasters and near-apocalypses? Consider: the failure at Vienna; the Bay of Pigs; the Missile Crisis (a crisis enabled to some extent by the perception of weakness at Vienna); advisors in South Vietnam. Yes, I dare say that McCain is closest to that Kennedy legacy, and it is the best argument put forward this month for voting to keep him out of power.
This is not someone whose legacy (the Vietnam War) one should want to attach to your candidacy if you want to win the election, but for some strange reason our first Boomer-free election is becoming an obsession with the ’60s and both campaigns are trotting out JFK’s name on the assumption that it is a good thing to be compared with him.
P.S. As an aside, there is a certain absurdity in Joe Lieberman complaining about people “on the left” who are leading the party astray, as if he were some Zell Miller-esque yellow dog or Jim Webb in the 1980s. The only thing more annoying than Joe Lieberman himself is his conceit, which many people indulge out of habit, that he is some kind of “centrist.” Perhaps if we think of the political spectrum as a series of rings surrounding a cavernous abyss (or perhaps a pit like the Sarlaac), then Lieberman and McCain can fairly be called “centrists.”
Filed under: politics, foreign policy
When people talk about Kennedy’s “national security record”, they are really only talking about his handling of the Cuban Missle Crisis, not his overall record, which most people simply don’t know anything about. What they mean is, a Liberal Who Can Stand Up To The Enemy. They aren’t talking about Vietnam, since in all fairness while Kennedy put advisors in there, they didn’t get into a war until Johnson and the Gulf of Tonken resolution.
So I won’t challenge your assessment that Kennedy’s overall foreign policy was crap, and his implementation weak. What I think is worth looking at in this comparison to McCain is whether Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missle crisis was comparable to McCain’s handling of Iraq. In both cases, there was an alleged imminent WMD threat to the US. In Kennedy’s case, he waited until he had proof positive of the threat, whereas in McCain’s case, he didn’t. He simply assumed without any real solid evidence that Saddam represented a true, imminent WMD threat. Likewise, Kennedy’s military and civilian advisors (except RFK and a few friends) almost all recommended immediate invasion, rather than a diplomatic solution.For all his faults, Kennedy had the composure and intelligence to reject these plans for an invasion, and instead reached a diplomatic solution that defused the threat. In McCain’s case, he fully supported and was a key player in the advocacy of an immediate invasion, rather than achieving a diplomatic solution. In this respect, his response was the opposite of Kennedy’s, and led to disaster, whereas Kennedy’s measured, diplomatic response that rejected the military invasion of Cuba led to a peaceful standoff that saved hundreds of thousands of lives - maybe many millions - and avoided a terrible quagmire, such as we have in Iraq.
Now, it’s impossible to say whether Kennedy would have avoided the path Johnson took in VIetnam. I think based on his record in Cuba, and the failures he had a part in, that he would not have gone down that road. Although the Diem assassination was not a good sign. The point is, when popular comparisons are made to Kennedy’s foreign policy, they are limited to a few key, iconic decisions, primarily how he handled the CUban Missle Crisis, that have been elevated to legendary status, and in that sense, McCain represents the opposite kind of foreign policy, the invade-first-ask-questions-later approach.
line of the day: Centrism…
The only thing more annoying than Joe Lieberman himself is his conceit, which many people indulge out of habit, that he is some kind of “centrist.” Perhaps if we think of the political spectrum as a series of rings surrounding……
[…] But choosing Lieberman is as good a symbol as any that you don’t want to change how anything is done. Lieberman and McCain both stand for continuity with the policies of the last eight years, at least as far as foreign affairs are concerned. If selecting Rice would be politically crazy for demonstrating a close connection to the Bush administration, how is it any less crazy to choose someone who has been so supportive of the administration’s Iraq policy such that his own party no longer wants him? Does Lieberman actually bring any more independents to McCain that McCain wouldn’t already get? That is doubtful, and Rothenburg offers no evidence beyond the conventional assumption that Lieberman is a “centrist.” I have already said what I think about that idea. […]