David Greenberg, writing for The New Republic, posits a theory that President John F. Kennedy was a true-blue liberal.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115522/jfk-was-unapologetic-liberal
Interesting, eh?
The president, who was shot to death 50 years ago next week, cut taxes. He stared down the Soviet Union by flexing the nation’s military might. He also, according to Greenberg, believed government could be a force for good, not evil. Kennedy preferred diplomacy over armed conflict, Greenberg asserts, making him more liberal than conservative.
I suppose that’s all true.
Greenberg’s piece, though, doesn’t touch on some other key issues that defines liberals and conservatives.
How about abortion? I don’t recall much discussion over the years since JFK’s death about how he viewed women’s reproductive rights. The president was a practicing Catholic, after all. Even though he made it clear during the 1960 presidential campaign that church doctrine wouldn’t inform his public policy, many politicians before and since JFK’s time have relied on their faith to decide some of these critical matters.
Prayer in school? Did the 35th president oppose school-mandated prayer, which the Supreme Court essentially struck down in 1963?
Environmental protection is another favorite issue for liberals. It wasn’t until 1970 — during the administration of Republican Richard Nixon — that the federal government created the Environmental Protection Agency.
Kennedy did seek to further the cause of civil rights, but he had to be persuaded to do so. His death in Dallas prevented him from enacting the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. That was left to President Lyndon Johnson, whose courage helped the Democratic Party “lose the South,” in the words of his good friend, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga.
My own view is that JFK was more of a centrist than a bleeding heart.
Given the extreme views that both parties have adopted in the past two decades, that isn’t such a bad thing.