Posted by
flagwaver on Saturday, June 30, 2007 11:49:36 PM
Do you ever wonder “What if…?” about things? It could be anything, maybe a ‘lost love’ or a major life decision, that gets you wondering “What if” and thinking how things may have turned out if you had done this thing, said those words, or went to a certain place. As you can tell, I do that at times and lately I have been thinking “What if John Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated?” That thought intrigues me, because I wonder how different our country would have been had Lee Harvey Oswald not been able to carry out his murderous plan on that sunny day in Dallas, Texas so many years ago.
I think that had Kennedy not been killed, the parties as we know them now may not exist in their present form. The GOP may not have a virtual lock on the ‘conservative’ label that it has done little to warrant lately, and the Democratic Party may not have drifted so far left that it is a virtual socialist enterprise.
I say that because I firmly believe that John Kennedy was more of a forebear of Ronald Reagan than he was of Bill Clinton, roguish behavior and charm notwithstanding. Look at Kennedy’s record as a politician and you make your mind up as to whether he fit today’s template of liberal or conservative.
On the military, defense, and intelligence Kennedy was way more hawkish than any modern Democrat save Joe Lieberman. While Kennedy made some bad decisions in how to get things done militarily, he at least saw the need for a strong military and for a functioning intelligence arm. The Kennedy administration saw some of the most ridiculous plots to off a revolutionary Communist threat this side of a Naked Gun movie, but we can at least see that he understood the threat that communist ideology presented to us, and he acted on it.
Contrast that with the Democrats of today, and you would have to say that Kennedy would definitely not fit in with little brother Teddy and his ilk. The Democrat Party of today sees no greater threat to the safety and security of this nation than Republicans, George Bush, talk radio, and anti-incumbent political speech. This is where their head is at, in a world where Al-Qaeda has sworn our destruction, Iran is feverishly trying to get a nuclear weapon in order to wipe Israel from the map, and Russia is being led ever so gently back into a state of despotism the Democrats see one of our greatest threats as Sean Hannity!
And I know that the line about Kennedy and Reagan has probably raised some eyebrows…and some ire as well…but I think it is a valid comparison. Look at the way both men thought of America, and how they spoke of it. Both saw America not as blight on the world, but as a shining example of what the world should aspire to. Both men saw America as a place filled with opportunities waiting to be grasped, of dreams begging to be fulfilled, and great destinies to be achieved; not as some lowly, oppressive, hell-hole that has nothing to offer but pain, misery, and despair.
And think of this, when John Kennedy ran for President against Richard Nixon he ran to the RIGHT of the sitting Republican Vice President…and it was authentic, not a put on! Kennedy believed that America was doing well, but that it could be doing great; he believed that America was strong, but could be stronger. That type of attitude would get Kennedy the Lieberman treatment from today’s Democrats for sure!
And I don’t think that a Kennedy led Democrat Party would have become the gigantic nanny party that I has morphed into, because I don’t see Kennedy as being a man that thought the government was supposed to run your life for you. I don’t think that “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” was just an empty slogan in his inaugural address. I firmly believe that Kennedy meant it, and we probably would never have seen the “War on Poverty” or the “Great Society” come to fruition on his watch; we probably would have seen a President that believed that social safety net programs were just that, safety nets, and not lifestyle programs!
Who knows, if John Kennedy had lived the Democrats and Republicans may have ended up 180 degrees out of phase, to steal a phrase from the Maha Rushie with the GOP giving in to its leftward leaner’s and the Democrats staying in the middle and leaning a bit to the right.
Now wouldn’t that be crazy…me, a Democrat!