Why is JFK still so beloved by the Left?

[bballrox4717]

I'm going to tackle this, because I've always been a huge JFK fan and he has been the pinnacle of modern American liberalism to me.

The answer is, of course, his rhetoric. While it is true that LBJ was responsible for carrying out most of JFK's ideas, JFK brought the American public to his side. He was able to capitalize on all of the good feelings of his generation, as well as the upcoming Baby Boomers. I don't think there is another president in American history that outright convinced the electorate that massive public spending on science and technology was a good idea. His economic policies made sense for the time and resulted in incredibly fast economic growth. JFK, like Obama in this sense, capitalized on the correct moment for finally tackling the Civil Rights movement, which was the third rail of politics for a long time. FDR had the most political capital of any president and he even refused to touch it despite all of his liberalism.

JFK also proved himself in the foreign arena after a rocky start; at the time of his death, he and Khrushchev had established a solid relationship and several scholars suggest that detente would have happened several years earlier than it did. As others have said on here, JFK had no intention in escalating the war in Vietnam as LBJ winded up doing and had planned to be out of there in 1965. I'll admit there's no knowing if that would have happened. I guess there's no sense in trying to determine what would have happened if he lived, but the information out there suggests that the 60's would have been way less rocky than they were under LBJ.

Most importantly, JFK was the perfect president for the time. He symbolized the American spirit and was really the first that got Americans to think they were the best. He was a proud liberal, and while he never got the chance to pass the legislation LBJ did, he definitely put the tools together to make it possible. Was he perfect? Absolutely not. His imperfections are well known, but no president is guiltless in their decisions. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. FDR interned Japanese Americans. I could rip on decisions of Washington, TR, Wilson, and the other top presidents as well. but anyone who claims that JFK wasn't a genuine liberal or doesn't deserve his place in history is kidding themselves.

My main point for JFK is that while LBJ does deserve due credit for actually accomplishing the domestic agenda, none of it was possible if it weren't for JFK's rhetoric. JFK was responsible for the support of all of the programs, and I thoroughly believe that JFK would have thrashed Goldwater in 1964 with just as big of a margin as LBJ did, if not more.