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View Full Version : Obama and JFK, Alike?



Kathianne
03-02-2008, 08:22 PM
Interesting op-ed:

http://dailymail.com/Opinion/DonSurber/200802290312


Saturday March 1, 2008
Barack Obama is certainly no JFK
These are two very different Democrats

ENOUGH of this nonsense about Barack Obama being the next John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Obama's foreign policy and his domestic policy are further from JFK than Dan Quayle ever was.

Obama is fond of quoting this from President Kennedy: "Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate."

But I doubt that JFK would say about negotiating with Cuba, as Obama said in the Texas debate: "I would meet without preconditions, although Sen. Clinton is right that there has to be preparation. It is very important for us to make sure that there was an agenda and on that agenda was human rights, releasing of political prisoners, opening up the press."

That clarified an earlier statement when Obama said he would meet with the leaders of North Korea, Iran and Cuba "without preconditions."

Kennedy never availed himself of the opportunity of negotiating with Fidel Castro, with or without preconditions.

I also doubt that Kennedy would say, as Obama said of our policy toward Cuba in the same debate: "I support the eventual normalization, and it's absolutely true that I think our policy has been a failure."

The reason I say that Kennedy would never call our policy a failure is because it was a success. The United States has flourished. Las Vegas has happily substituted for the casinos of Havana, and sugar seems to be in ample supply.

Maybe Obama means that our policy has been a failure for Cuba.

JFK came up with this policy isolating Cuba. In fact he embargoed - he called it "quarantined" - Cuba, which was an act of war.

It forced the Soviet Union to remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba.

Some things are non-negotiable. The safety of Miami is one of those things.....