Your two cents: U.S. presidents
For this occasional feature on comments to my articles, I bring to you today this voicemail from an anonymous caller who read my story last week marking the 50th anniversary of the Nixon/Kennedy election:
"Let me remind you of something, JFK stole the election. I was around then. His dad bought the election. Kennedy's father bought the election 'cause he was a bootlegger in the 20s, he was one of those kinds of guys. ... Kennedy was the most overrated president they've ever had. Really overrated, really overrated. He's like this thing that we got in office now. God! And I'm not a Republican either. Write about Harry Truman if you want to write about a good president. He stopped that war."
Perhaps if President Kennedy had sent a nuclear missile to the Bay of Pigs, your anonymous caller might have been more supportive of Kennedy. :)
I knew that the 1960 election was historical because of the influence of television, but I hadn't realized the polling (or lack thereof) and focused travel (or lack thereof) were equally important. Good article!
Gore won the 2000 election, but it was stolen from him. Gore wanted to "put a lockbox around Social Security". Instead, we have two ongoing wars that are unwinnable, for which the funding is keeping the printing presses running. JFK was decisive in October 1962 when he made the Soviet Union remove their missiles from Cuba.
Harry Truman was an excellent President. He received bad advice regarding committing U.S. troops to the Korean conflict. Harry Truman was one of the last of our Presidents that not only served in the military, but was directly involved in combat in WWI. Eisenhower made a career of the US Army but did not experience combat in WWI or WWII. Country had many years of prosperity when he was President.