JFK and Obama

I had trouble reading some of the things up here (David, what can be done about line breaks?). Here was one point I think I see:

"Kennedy denied necessary air support during the Bay of Pigs. Ordered the CIA to murder Castro (a fact that was covered up during the Warren Commission and beyond). Kennedy did make contact with Khrushchev during the missle crisis. It's what saved the world. It was Khrushchev's proposal that ultimately prevailed in the end result. As well a set of phones were installed to talk to our enemy. They were called The Hot Line, so the leaders of the nuclear powers could easily talk in the event of conflict."

I am a bit confused as to whether this is a defense of Kennedy and of Obama's comparison of himself to Kennedy, or not. I mean trying to get Castro killed does not seem like what Obama meant by talking with one's enemy. As for Kennedy talking with Khrushchev during the Cuban missile crisis, like I said, if this is what Obama means by talk I am all for it. As in the Swat team talking with the hostage taker to the degree of saying "Put down that weapon, step aside, and then maybe we can talk." In other words, if Obama is going to talk to Iran in the context of making it clear beyond a reasonable doubt as to the dire consequences of not talking, I am fine with that. But so far, that does not seem to be his intention. He wants to talk without preconditions (I know he denies this now, but the words are down on paper and he did say it.) JFK talked with Khrushchev in Oct. 1962 with the most dire preconditions imaginable.

Now Kennedy did have an earlier meeting with Khrushchev, wherein Khrushcheve appeared to role him and in fact came away believing he could be rolled. I cannot think, in fact, of a better example of what is wrong with talking without preconditions to one's enemies. They think you need them more than they need you.

Everything about Obama, from his refusal to disown Wright to his obfuscations about Hamas's endorsement of him, suggest the same thing to me. He will not take on absolute enmity with any realism or clean firmness. On the one hand, he protests that he doth disown them all. Yet his slippery words almost inevitably slide over to making excuses for them as well. Yes, he ultimately has come down strong on rejecting their ideas as utterly beyond the pale. But his heart is in the excuses he then makes, and you can tell it. They (Wright, Hamas) are the consequences of, on the one hand, white people's past racism, and on the other, the festering hatred our policies in the Middle East have ginned up. JFK did not have an once of this "nuanced" self-doubt (as Obama has also put it), and so I stick by my point.