He came from a rich family.
He was a WW2 hero. He saved his crews lives, and fought against the enemy with valor. He could have gotten out of serving, his father was more than willing to make sure he could defer. He lost a brother in the same war.
When he became President he brought the country together, though, as anyone in power, he had detractors. Some because of his religion. He inspired a whole generation to public service and personal sacrifice, not hatred of the 'other'.
He had the wisdom to surround himself with 'the best and the brightest', who were free to voice their disagreements with him, and often did. He had the wisdom to pick the course advised that best served his country, not himself. He did not limit his working hours during the day to 11am to 4pm. He did not watch television 16 hours a day. He did not reverse himself daily and deny that things he said, even though they were recorded, were true. He had, like most presidents, a bitchy media. He never called them enemies of the state.
He cared about the people of the whole country, not just the ones that worshiped him. He was at times introspective, and formulated policy with advise and consent.
He was killed in office.
Looking for perfection in leaders is a fool's errand. But a bit of good will, and effectiveness, courage... that counts. Sometimes the bad ones have the effect of changing what we expect. Lincoln was detested, but he changed us. LBJ created the civil rights legislation, although a bit racist even in his time.
ReplyDeleteKind of like forest fires, they may seem awful, but sometimes they clear the ground for growth.
Germany is pretty progressive these days.
If we survive, it could very well be better for the next generation.
I do so hope you're correct, Zhoen.
DeleteYou can compare any of our prior Presidents (even the crook Nixon was smarter) to this current President and he will come up shorter and nastier.
ReplyDeleteAnd Nixon is a damn low bar to set, alas, you're correct.
DeleteYeah, it seems like we've had really rich Presidents who seemed to care about real people, and some smart Presidents who realized that even smart people needed to surround themselves with smart people they trusted.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm with Zhoen about this all bodes for the future...
Good choice, Harry. She's a surgical nurse, and I've had one save me by saying "ummmmmm...." and I re-evaluated what I was doing.
ReplyDeleteEven a couple of years ago we had a president who was a good man. Who was well-read and well-spoken. Now we have a malignant joke.
ReplyDeleteA real 'outlier' in the scatter graph of presidents, eh?
DeleteI have thought of Kennedy often over the years. And as grand and wonderful as it appeared to be, I can't help but wonder what his presidency would have been over the long term. Sadly we will never know.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of speculation about that. One view is that JFK didn't have the political 'connections' and political savvy of LBJ; and couldn't have gotten the civil rights legislation that Johnson did, another is that Kennedy wouldn't have escalated the war in VN as LBJ did. I don't know.
DeleteSome of trump's most ardent critics are of his generation. That is our generation, the generation who was challenged to think of "what we could do for your country." JFK ignited a passion for citizenship and public service. Fortunately LBJ was able to get his civil rights and voting rights legislation enacted. He had us imagine the "impossible"-ie land on the moon and return and do so within a decade, when we had no idea how to do that. That is how we all came to the public square, with that kind of leadership and now we see the worst of our generation, in fact the worst of humanity degrade the office, the US and foul our nation. The contrast could not be more severe.
ReplyDeleteIt leaves me uncertain about damn near everything, Tom. I can't get my mind around how we got from there to here..I guess I understand there has always been an anti-gov't element in America, there has always been hatred, some people were publicly calling for the assassination of FDR...it's just we've not had a 'leader' of trump's ilk before.
DeleteWho could have predicted that the rising USA of those days would fall into today's abyss with a child-like, intellectually challenged man in the Whitehouse?
ReplyDeleteI guess there were hints...newt and the tea party, few other things, but this is beyond my foresight.
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