DJT or JFK, Part Two

Two days ago I posted a screen capture of an excerpt from a Niall Ferguson column comparing John Kennedy with Donald Trump. Today I will happily provide some further excerpts from the column, reprinted in the Boston Globe.

Ferguson did not merely argue that the two presidents can easily be compared, with JFK looking the worst. But, he is amazed that the American people consider the blundering fool named JFK to be one of the great American presidents.

Assessing the Kennedy record, Ferguson writes:

As is now well known, Kennedy had numerous extramarital affairs. One was with Judith Campbell, whose other lovers included the Chicago organized crime boss Sam Giancana and his sidekick Johnny Roselli.

His compulsive infidelity to his wife was only one of Kennedy’s many deceptions. Throughout his political career, he concealed the severity of his medical problems (he suffered from acute back pain, hypothyroidism, and Addison’s disease).

His campaign may have called on Mafia assistance to defeat Richard Nixon in 1960. He appointed his brother Robert as attorney general. Bobby Kennedy authorized the wiretapping of Martin Luther King, Jr.

In foreign policy, Kennedy combined callousness with recklessness. His questionable interventions ranged from an abortive invasion of Cuba to a bloody coup d’état in South Vietnam. On his watch, the Central Intelligence Agency sought to assassinate Fidel Castro using Mafia hit-men. On his watch, the Berlin Wall was built, the ugliest symbol of the Cold War division of the world. And on his watch, the world came closer than at any other time to nuclear Armageddon, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. How was catastrophe averted? By using a back channel to the Kremlin to cut a secret deal.

And yet, like Canada’s Prime Minister, the deplorable disgraceful Justin Trudeau, JFK is fondly remembered for his good looks. We are all deep thinkers, so we know what really matters in life:

He continues to be remembered fondly, for his good looks as much as the idealistic rhetoric of his speeches.

Ferguson continues to quote an assessment of the Kennedy administration, offered by one Henry Kissinger:

Yet here is one contemporary verdict on the Kennedy administration, written before the president’s death. It had “demoralized the bureaucracy and much of the military.” It had engaged in “government by improvisation and manipulation.” It relied on “public relations gimmicks.” It had “no respect for personal dignity and . . . treat[ed] people as tools.” It had “brutalized our allies within NATO.” It was undermining the US reputation for reliability — “the most important asset any nation has.” The State Department was “a shambles, demoralized by the weakness of the secretary of state and the interference of the White House.” Its foreign policy was “essentially a house of cards.”

In conclusion, Ferguson writes, Kennedy had the good fortune to have been a Democrat. Had he been a Republican, he would have been crucified:

Perhaps, if Kennedy had been a Republican, he would have been treated with the same ferocious animosity that DJT is treated today, for acts much less heinous than those of JFK.