Barack Obama often seems to be channeling John F. Kennedy these days, and that thrills some liberals. JFK was a benchmark of American liberalism and all liberals must bow to him.
That is, of course, if you are willing to acknowledge that American liberalism is also American imperialism.
By and large, liberals have never met a war they didn't like, and Kennedy gave them a wonderful war. JFK's war was Vietnam. Eisenhower may have started it by sending in the first advisers, and LBJ may have escalated it beyond belief, but Kennedy really set the ball rolling for a war that killed two million Vietnamese and more than 55,000 Americans.
JFK also nearly gave us World War III, a war that would have killed hundreds of millions, when he confronted the Soviet Union over some meaningless missiles in Cuba. Thank God, the Soviet leader had guts enough to back down and avert a nuclear war. Kennedy was a madman.
So now we have the two "leading" Democratic presidential contenders both aching for new wars; Hillary with Iran, and Obama, the JFK lookalike, with Pakistan.
"When I am President," Obama said in a recent speech, "we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
Another madman.
Posted by Deck at August 3, 2007 10:05 PM